posted on August 1, 2001 06:48:58 AM
Good morning all!
How do you like your coffee? How did you start drinking coffee? Do you know any weird or fun facts about coffee? Tea drinkers, please feel free to weigh in.
I like mine VERY strong with either half&half or cream. I buy espresso blend, grind it as fine as it can be ground, then run it through a drip coffeemaker.
Agent Cooper likes his coffee black.
When I was a kid, I wouldn't eat eggs, so my parents would float a raw one in a cup of coffee, lightened and sweetened. I learned to gulp it down all at once. I got the eggs my parents thought I so desperately needed and learned to love coffee.
I have a coffeemaker, and two espresso makers (one electric, and one that's the old italian two-part ones that you use on top of the stove). I also buy my braun model at yardsales when I find them for a buck or two because the switch is its weakest link, and they cost $10 to replace new.
I like some different teas a lot, but not as my morning jump-start.
In college, on a budget, my morning latte' was often the most expensive "meal" I bought for the day. Back in those days, I could get a huge container of chicken fried rice for about $1.75.
posted on August 1, 2001 07:09:40 AM
I love coffee also. I probably have the same espresso makers you do. I hate to say it, but I can barely pass a Starbucks without getting an Espresso Frap in the summer.
I started drinking coffee in the eighth grade. I took an early morning math class so I had a cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich each morning so I'd stay awake and not starve. The coffee habit stayed with me.
I used to make cappuccino every morning. My dog learned to recognize the sound of the steam being released from the pot when I was finishing up and he'd get up from his nap and come to the kitchen where I'd give him some of the foamed milk. He did this everyday for about ten years. After we had him put to sleep (he was sixteen), I found it too lonely to make cappuccino without my companion. I started just brewing strong drip coffee every day instead.
posted on August 1, 2001 07:24:15 AM
Saabsister, you tugged my heartstrings. Our rituals that please are contingent on companionship so much of the time.
In my favorite cup, my own blend of Choc Full o'Nuts and Raspberry, Chocolate Truffle fine grind, I use a Farberware super fast percolator and a filter.I use coffee litner sparingly and one equal. Yummy! When we take off early for treasure hunting I always make coffee...I can have breakfast anywhere but without "OUR" coffe the day is incomplete.
Didn't start drinking coffee til I was in my
early 20s, realized it was because my Mom perked the worst coffee in the world, she'd make a full pot in the AM and still be drinking it that night, you could stand your spoon up in it in the AM by evening you only had the handle left!!!
posted on August 1, 2001 07:26:53 AM
When I was in high school I tried to learn to like coffee. However, no matter how much cream & sugar I put in, I never could like it. I got to one drop of coffee in a cup of cream & sugar and I *still* didn't like it. I don't even like coffee-flavored candy, ice cream, etc.
Same with tea--any kind of tea, hot *or* iced.It all tastes bad.
posted on August 1, 2001 08:28:34 AM
I drink mine with just a spoonfull of sugar. Right now, we don't have a coffee maker so its instant. I'm with the can't pass a Starbucks without getting a frappucino mentality, but mine is a raspberry mocha chip. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!
I never drank coffee growing up as it wasn't in the house after I was about 8 or so(my dad was reacting to it with dizzy spells and quit). I started drinking it in my mid 20's to stay awake during all night building projects so I wouldn't saw my fingers off. (So says my husband, I think he just wanted someone to drink coffee with).
Anyhow, I started with cream & sugar, then decreased to just a touch of sugar. I avoided the latte craze till someone sent me to pick up a mocha with mint for her... then I was sucked in cause that was yummy!
I drink tea quite a bit too... I drink my iced tea unsweetened, but like a bit of sugar in my hot tea.
posted on August 1, 2001 08:36:12 AM
Helen, remember the first Airport movie??
"I like my coffee like I like my men..."
Well, that's how I like mine too. Only less on the strong side. I buy either Chock full O nuts or Winn Dixie's Astor brand. Maxwell House is THE WORST!!!!
I don't remember how old I was when I started drinking coffee, I remember tasting my parent's when I was about 7 and not liking it very much. My DH used to drink his half cream and half coffee, but I refused to buy milk until he got used to it being black. (It's just so much easier to splash into a cup at 6 AM ... who has the dexterity to mess with a milk carton at that hour?)
posted on August 1, 2001 08:56:52 AMAaahhhhhh. Coffee...I love coffee.
Growing up, my aunt and grandma were at our house a lot, and I remember finishing the coffee in my grandma's cup. I think I was about two or three. There's a picture of me on my dad's lap, finishing his cup of coffee. I remember I didn't like his, because he drank it black with sugar, and that was nasty. I've been drinking coffee ever since.
Mom and I used to go out to dinner on Friday nights, and I would order a cup of coffee. The waitress always looked at Mom like "is she kidding???" heh Now I have a three year old daughter who loves it as much as I do. (And yes, we limit her, but we do let her have it now and then.)
I like regular coffee - no flavorings - with a little milk or CoffeeMate. I can drink a lot of coffee in the winter, but in the summer it's just the one or two cups to start the engines. We don't have Starbucks up here but a coffee shop opened up in the next town north of us last year, and I have learned to love double shot mochas. I don't like iced coffee at all, but I love coffee ice cream! Ben & Jerry's From Russia with Buzz will knock your socks right off!
posted on August 1, 2001 08:58:54 AM
I buy a cup of coffee in the morning from Peet's near my work. a SF Bay area coffee chain. Making it at home is too much of a hassle to make it right. But then again I'm part of the SF Bay area/Seattle kind of snobbery on coffee. Most coffee chains can't even get it right let alone doing it right at home. And *Starbucks* is over-roasted crap. Just because they're everywhere and better than McDonalds doesn't make it worth drinking.
now Tea is my new passion for the last couple of years. Try "Gunpowder" or "Dragonwell".
posted on August 1, 2001 09:18:53 AM
One trick to iced coffee: when you have coffee left over (or make too much purposely), let it cool, then fill an ice cube tray with it. This way, when the cubes melt it won't dilute your drink. (Thanks gran'ma for this tip).
posted on August 1, 2001 10:12:15 AM
Coffee! I only love it in the morning. I grind my own beans and use the biggest mug I was able to find. I make that one giant cup and that is what I have all morning. Black. I hate to put stuff in it.
Living in Latte Land I must be the only person that did not succumb to Starbucks or Tullys.I will not buy a latte because everyone I know is addicted to them and WOW are they expensive for what you get!! Nothing wrong with plain black coffee.
I will admit that the mug is from Starbucks...only the mug!Their coffee does taste burnt!
posted on August 1, 2001 10:26:44 AM
Jacob's Kronung or Douwe Egberts are the best. Blue Mountain is pretty good, but too pricey here.
Now I drink Cafe Pilon from Puerto Rico with a little brown sugar. Coffee from the Dominican Republic is usually excellent.
A resident I worked with many years ago made great Cuban coffee and drank it by the thermos! An espresso size cup of his used to keep me going for a 12 hour night shift.
posted on August 1, 2001 11:36:33 AM
I confess, I too am a coffee addict.
I love mine strongly brewed with cream or half and half, no sugar. I buy fresh beans at a local shop and grind them pretty fine. If I don't have at least half and half, I won't drink it as I hate milk in my coffee; it's too weak. And I don't particularly care for flavored coffees
Funny, as much as I love coffee, I despise anything coffee flavored.
I grew up in an Irish home where coffee was unheard of. All we drank was strong tea, and gallons of it. My dad always drank his out of a big, deep bowl! It wasn't until college that I got hooked on coffee and then it was reinforced when I got into the working world where the coffee machine was the social center of the office.
My husband laughs at how particular I am. I won't drink bad coffee. If I can't find a decent place to get good coffee, I'll do without until I get home and make my own.
posted on August 1, 2001 11:48:26 AM
Several of you have mentioned grinding your own beans...I have to share this with you.
My morning routine, downstairs, first feed the cat, then make coffee. Gonna grind my own beans, put them in grinder, turn on, see cat go ballistic, too much caffeine?
So, I had to grind the beans in the evening, went back to canned coffee. Cat is fully recovered!
Had a cat years ago that loved my Irish coffee, a friend set his on a low table and became distracted....cat moved in (there was no whipped cream left) and was having a glorius time til I spotted him.."Duffy" lived up to his name that night!
posted on August 1, 2001 12:14:38 PM
I like my coffee with Bailey's or Carnation's French Vanilla added. I rarely drink it without one or the other. If I'm out of coffee or Bailey's and French Vanilla creamer I don't brew the coffee.
posted on August 1, 2001 01:53:32 PM
I drink my coffee black with one SweetNLow...this is how I've made it for years. I drink 3 cups in the morning and 1-2 in the afternoon. I drink it in 32 degree weather or 100 degree weather. I love coffee. I ADORE coffee. I dream about coffee. A world without coffee would be a bleak world indeed.
posted on August 1, 2001 02:05:53 PM
As a child with a stay-at-home mother (it was the 60's) I would often witness her stopping her daily chores to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee. On many occasions (maybe daily) other neighborhood women would stop in and have a cup with her - a little midday social time.
I would see very similar scenarios portrayed on television - always women enjoying a cup of coffee (commercials, soap operas, etc).
My father didn't drink coffee.
I think I must have been ten or eleven when I first saw a man lift a cup of coffee to his lips - it shocked me so much I yelled out "What are you DOING??”
I honestly and truly believed that drinking coffee was something that only women did. It took me years to shake the "something's not quite right with this picture" feeling I got whenever I saw a man drink it.
Me?.. I take mine with 1/2 a Sweetn'low and cream (French Vanilla flavor, if you have it) but will gladly trade that in if there is any Baileys available.
posted on August 1, 2001 02:30:13 PM
I still remember my mother giving me coffee as a child. She always made sure I didn't waste it, "Drink all your coffee, there are children in India sleeping."
posted on August 1, 2001 03:01:23 PM
still remember my mother giving me coffee as a child. She always made sure I didn't waste it, "Drink all your coffee, there are children in India sleeping."
Made me laff...
My grandmother made coffee half sugar/cream half coffee and gave me the really syrupy part at the bottom.
My kids and husband won't touch coffee. I am glad but I have no one to share my coffee with.
posted on August 1, 2001 05:22:11 PM
Has anyone ever tried the chocolate covered coffee beans? I love those things. Eat a few handfuls of those and you're ready to swim the English channel. They are delicious, my favorite are the ones covered with bittersweet chocolate. Don't give them to your children, but if you have a mean streak you can give them to the neighbor's children, those things will have them ricocheting off the walls.
posted on August 1, 2001 06:21:50 PM
I didn't like coffee as a child until one winter when I was about 10 we went out sledding and I got chilled to the bone in wet
clothing and when we got back in my Uncles '56 Plymouth I got a cup of my Aunt's hot coffee with creme and sugar from a
thermos and have been chugging it down ever since.
I don't like the over roasted bitter stuff from a coffee house and don't have a really reliable source for what I LOVE - a rich nutty
taste with complex smell and very little bitterness. Even McDonalds is usually better than Starbucks but Dunkin Donuts is OK if
you brew it yourself - not in their store.
If anyone can comment on that I will welcome advice.
I will drink it black /with sugar/ with honey/ with real cream / with a shot of good bourbon/ with a dollop of vanilla ice cream/ with
a hunk of chocolate bar stirred in.
If I HAVE to use instant we use Taster's Choice but it is a pale shadow of the real stuff. I sprinkle instant coffee on a beef roast
when I crock pot it and it gives it a nice dark glaze like oven roasting.
When we went to dinner at Dr. Russi's home the President of Oakland University, where my wife works, we were seated at a
table of professors and departments heads. A professor of mathematics commented on the coffee being so good and wondered
out load where coffee came from anyway?
I replied that it was commonly native to Ethiopia and Arabia with about 60 species of Coffea in the classification Rubiacee
according to Linnaeus and that the species name Arabica reflects that origin but Robusta from Africa was an important
commercial crop also.
He said - Oh.
It seems I found out on the way home that they had expected being a machinist with a High School education I would feel
intimidated and out of place mixing with all these high powered scholars so my wife was very amused by the look on the fellows
face when he found out I could hold up one end of a conversation.
posted on August 1, 2001 06:23:22 PMUaru~REALLY!Don't give them to your children, but if you have a mean streak you can give them to the neighbor's children
posted on August 1, 2001 06:29:24 PM
we buy Yuban in the big 3lb cans, have 4 in the cupboard now. Drink it BLACK, has to be a fairly thin edged china mug too. Do not like paper, plastic or styrofoam! Feel real abused when I drink my coffee out of my plastic commuter mug every now and then on the way to an early morning book sale. Anyone try a stainless steel commuter mug? good? bad?
Chocolate covered coffee beans are wonderful.
At first I didn't realize they were actual beans inside the chocolate, I thought it was candy inside. They are so crunchy & not hard like you would think they would be.
I'm a tea drinker & almost never touch coffee at home. But, when I go out to dinner I always drink coffee. I love it with lots of half & half & sugar. If I'm on a road trip I do love a cup of Dunkin Doughnut's coffee.
I like coffee ice cream & any kind of coffee candy.
posted on August 1, 2001 06:32:45 PM
I love coffee in the mornings, but dont mess with it after that, unless company is over and I have to brew a pot for them. Then, I just sip a cup. I like mine with lots of milk, bunches of sugar and so hot I have to sip it carefully (which means nuking it after adding all that milk). On winter days when its cold outside, I add kahlua to it for an extra zipzap to it.
My girlfriend in 8th grade got me started on coffee. I felt deliciously wicked sneaking to her house for a cup.
posted on August 2, 2001 02:30:37 AM
The first time I ever remember drinking coffee was at my grandfather's funeral. (It seems they don't serve stuff for the 'kids'.) By the time I got it to where I could stand it, it must have been about 2 drops of coffee and the rest was powdered creamer and sugar.
I've always loved the smell of coffee brewing, I just couldn't understand why it tasted so gross! I learned how to finally drink it when I was in college. I still lived at home and the hour I liked to do homework/study for tests was when Mom & Dad were getting home from work and wanted to watch TV. So I'd go up to everyone's favorite, Denny's, and sit all night drinking coffee and with my cd player & headphones. It worked like a charm, everytime I did that I would ace my tests!
Back then I'd put probably 3 creamers and 3 teaspoons of sugar in that small cup. Then hubby & I started drinking coffee on Sunday mornings while reading the paper. We go into all kinds of flavored coffees and creamers. That was fun, except when we got a bad combination. He also dragged me to Starbuck's or The Coffee Plantation once in awhile and I learned to like cafe mochas (with a little bit of added sugar and cream). I didn't really get into the coffee house thing until he went up to Seattle and I went for a visit. I couldn't get enough of it! That was about the time we were on mandatory overtime at work, working 6-7 days a week. Even though it was hot out, I always stopped in on my way to work and got a hot mocha, I'm a purist. By then I only added some sugar for the extra boost. That was when I discovered the chocolate covered coffee beans too uaru. Those are yummy and I wouldn't have made it through that period without those!
Nowadays I can't drink coffee when it's hot out, but do love my cup on my way to work in the morning in the winter. Oh, and I still love the way it smells when it's being brewed...
but a coffee shop opened up in the next town north of us last year, and I have learned to love double shot mochas. 
Then hubby & I started drinking coffee on Sunday mornings while reading the paper. We go into all kinds of flavored coffees and creamers. That was fun, except when we got a bad combination. 
He also dragged me to Starbuck's or The Coffee Plantation once in awhile and I learned to like cafe mochas (with a little bit of added sugar and cream). I didn't really get into the coffee house thing until he went up to Seattle and I went for a visit. I couldn't get enough of it! That was about the time we were on mandatory overtime at work, working 6-7 days a week. Even though it was hot out, I always stopped in on my way to work and got a hot mocha, I'm a purist. 
Hippy wannabe 
~^~