My daughter bought me one of these for Christmas:

So I can now have cafetiere coffee at work with next to no fuss. Cool!

(Its a small cafetiere in a cup)

I bet most folk prattling on about ‘real coffee’ couldn’t tell the difference between civet cat shat coffee and supermarket instant, in a blind test….

I’ll take that bet!

Because with beer, it really is all about the taste, and not the lifestyle. Although there will always be snobs wherever you look.

Like CAMRA you mean?

And I am not a coffee snob, I drink what I like to drink. I never go further than Whittards, and I only go there because they have single origin coffees and I like to taste the difference in regions.

I also drink at Starbucks quite a lot. Grande caramel macchiato to stay please, and a grande white mocha with soy and whip for Mrs Grips.

instant coffee. 😆

Well, I may have exaggerated a wee bit, but it is true that most folk simply don’t possess discerning enough taste buds to distinguish between types of coffee. Or wine. It’s just that you get ponces like Oz Clarke who go round telling people they are worthless scum unless they can tell a Chateau Ponce from an El Cheapo, which really does my head in. Cos it’s mostly cowpoo. Taste is an utterly subjective thing. And liking something cheaper doesn’t make you any less of a person.

I did a course recently with work, by the end of it I would say 8 out of 10 of us could pick the origins of the coffees we were drinking.

Instant goes through a series of industrial processes to get the way it is, everyone could pick the instant from the fresh brew.

but it is true that most folk simply don’t possess discerning enough taste buds to distinguish between types of coffee

That’s true. But for those that do (and we’re not that rare) then nice coffee is there. And for the record I don’t feel superior for having a taste for good coffee. It’s actually damned inconvenient because I am so often disappointed.

That’s one main reason I go to Starbucks. They are coffee based beverages that I find quite decent and palatable, and they are consistent. I’ve been to many small coffee shops and been totally frustrated and disappointed with crap coffee, so now I don’t bother, especially when I am somewhere new, and save the good stuff for home.

I’m really jealous that my life seems to be too full and interesting for me to be at all arsed about coffee.

It’s a drink, get over it.

This place has turned into MiddleClassWorld these days, with coffee and vacuum cleaners and what not.

what’s wrong with enjoying nice food/drink and being prepared to pay slightly more for it or to go out of your way to procure it?

It’s a drink bike, get over it.

I’d have thought the working class would have more experience with vacuum cleaners?

It’s a drink bike, get over it.

I barely have time to get dressed of a morning when I’m going to work, so it’s instant coffee or no coffee

I’ve got a Senseo, makes a cup of coffee in no longer than it takes to boil a kettle.

racing_ralph – Member

nick1962 – Member
Instant coffee – One of the world’s most pointless inventions

POSTED 21 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

How so?

Not all of us have f all to do and spend our days polishing our bialettis and grinding our beans

1) Fill kettle with water
2)Grind beans for 30 seconds or use pre ground filter coffee if you prefer
3)Spoon into cafetiere and add nearly boiling water
4)Wait….pour into cup,add milk to taste, savour and enjoy

What is it that you do that is so important that you can’t find the (at most) extra 2 minutes needed to do the above?

Apologies for my tardy response but I’ve been grinding my beans all day 😀

Instant coffee sucks. Just got a tassimo – its ace.

@iDave.. have you taken your handpresso out on a ride? Are they any good?

@40mpg, those are great aren’t they? Brill when camping (or in the office)

You’re all philistines.
/Glugs back a nice mug of Lady Grey.

This place has turned into MiddleClassAgedWorld these days, with coffee and vacuum cleaners and what not.

Better?

missingfrontallobe – Member

I barely have time to get dressed of a morning when I’m going to work, so it’s instant coffee or no coffee

I’ve got a Senseo, makes a cup of coffee in no longer than it takes to boil a kettle.

I have a percolator what percolates while I’m in the shower. 😀

You know how on the side of Nescafe it says “soluble coffee”? A workmate of mine once read this as we were getting a brew in the works kitchen and he satrted going on about how pointless that was, what other type of coffee was there blah blah.

He was genuinely amazed to find out that proper coffee is not soluble, he’d never had a cup of proper coffee! 😯

1) Fill kettle with water
2)Grind beans for 30 seconds or use pre ground filter coffee if you prefer
3)Spoon into cafetiere and add nearly boiling water
4)Wait….pour into cup,add milk to taste, savour and enjoy

I agree. There’s always time in the day for a proper brew. 🙂

Having considered all the above, I still think Starbucks Via is an acceptable compromise.

Never ceases to amaze me the snobbery involved with coffee, much akin to the snobbery in the choice of wine .

Agreed. I’m a very new convert to coffee, having had a handful of espressos in the past month or so. Some I liked more than others, as you might expect. I’m sure I will try other types of coffee in due course.

What is it about coffee that makes people really enthuse about it? And why doesn’t it apply for tea? I think it’s a cultural phenomenon largely imported from America (no criticism implied.. I love Hip Hop, Jazz, House, etc).

UK didn’t ‘do’ coffee like this until relatively recently. In the 60s hanging out in a coffee bar was cool, teenager-y, and rebellious. For centuries before that the usual drink was tea. And we didn’t keep going on about it.

It’s a bit like golf, I think. On the basic level it’s hitting a ball round with a stick. But that’s not what makes it into a kudos seeker’s paradise. Imagine people parking up their flashy cars to go and play a few rounds of Lego! Ha!

The Espresso coffee they sell in the food shop at Ikea is my favourite closely followed by the dark roast. I stock up there every couple of months.Better price than filter coffee in the supermarkets and works out cheaper than instant.Not sure why the Swedes have such good coffee taste.
My wife reckons the reasons why Amercians are always so loud,animated and gun crazy is because they are all overdosing on caffeine as they drink way too much coffee.
Two strong cups a day is my limit one with breakfast and one early afternoon although I do actually start the day with tea.
Now what powder gets your whites the whitest?

What is it about coffee that makes people really enthuse about it? And why doesn’t it apply for tea?

Coffee is more middle-class than tea. Office wallahs have coffee breaks, whilst blue-collar workers have tea breaks, so there will always be more pretentious snobbery associated with coffee than tea.

Although I’m sure that if STW put its mind to it, it could get worked up about inferior quality/inferior ways of making tea. After all, it generally has no problem at all in providing a platform for any sort of petty snobbery. Because despite don simon’s “correction”, STW is predominately populated by insecure middle-class individuals.

UK didn’t ‘do’ coffee like this until relatively recently. In the 60s hanging out in a coffee bar was cool,

The coffee houses were great social levellers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality and republicanism. More generally, coffee houses became meeting places where business could be carried on, news exchanged and the London Gazette (government announcements) read. Lloyd’s of London had its origins in a coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd, where underwriters of ship insurance met to do business. By 1739, there were 551 coffeehouses in London; each attracted a particular clientele divided by occupation or attitude,

From wikipedia. Coffee houses are nothing new.

I think it’s a cultural phenomenon largely imported from America

Starbucks style is, but there’s all the Italian hype around too which results from the globalisation of British tastes since the 60s. So it’s kind of met in the middle.

Re Starbucks Via, it is indeed excellent and it’s impressive because it’s not actually the same as other instants. Instant coffee is brewed then freeze dried, but Via is actual ground beans with some of the less soluble bits of chaff removed so it can be super finely ground and it leaves barely any residue in the cup. It apparently took them many years to get right. I think it might’ve been developed by an independet company and bought out by bucks.

STW is predominately populated by insecure middle-class individuals.

you forgot to add ‘middle management’

it could get worked up about inferior quality/inferior ways of making tea.

Ya, I think one could manage that…

Fine china is of upmost importance.
Place your chosen blend of leaves into a teapot (personally I prefer a blend hand picked by virgins).
Fill teapot with boiling water (making sure the water is only boiled the once).
Pour the desired amount of milk into a cup. (Obviously your cup will be balanced on a matching saucer)
Pour your tea through a silver strainer.
Select desired amount of sugar cubes using silver tongues then stir with a silver spoon.

Although I’m sure that if STW put its mind to it, it could get worked up about inferior quality/inferior ways of doing just about everything in life

FIFY….

FIFY….

*shakes head*

FIFY? FIFY!? Why do people have to abbreviate everything to acronyms these days? Why couldn’t you just write fixed it for you?

Because quite frankly, ICBA.

X

Pour the desired amount of milk into a cup.
Pour your tea through a silver strainer.

Tsk…….such vulgarity 😐

Of course if one cannot afford the finest china and one is concerned that one’s cheap ceramic cup might crack, then I suppose that it is understandable.

STW is predominately populated by insecure middle-class individuals.

makes me wonder quite what a non-insecure middle class individual is like? Is it someone “at-one” with their focaccia? Comfortable in their pesto-ness?

Ernie; there was a carpentry question on here t’other day. I thought praps you might be able to help out with some advice and that.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/any-carpenters-on-this-forum-need-advice-taking-a-victorian-4-panel-door-apart

IdleJon – Member

UK didn’t ‘do’ coffee like this until relatively recently. In the 60s hanging out in a coffee bar was cool,

The coffee houses were great social levellers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality and republicanism. More generally, coffee houses became meeting places where business could be carried on, news exchanged and the London Gazette (government announcements) read. Lloyd’s of London had its origins in a coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd, where underwriters of ship insurance met to do business. By 1739, there were 551 coffeehouses in London; each attracted a particular clientele divided by occupation or attitude,

From wikipedia. Coffee houses are nothing new.

I never said they were. 🙂 My point was that UK didn’t ‘do’ coffee like this until relatively recently.

If I’d really wanted to get into it my coffee related musings, I could have gone on to say that the first coffee houses here were far from the egalitarian havens you suggest, and must have been full of social climbers. In fact, the wiki page you quote goes on to say clientele included Tories and Whigs, wits and stockjobbers, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors, men of fashion or the “cits” of the old city center. Hardly a chimneysweep in sight!

I understood you duntmatter. 🙂

You always do, Elf. 🙂

Hardly a chimneysweep in sight!

That’s quite funny! Probably too drunk on gin?

I could have gone on to say that the first coffee houses here were far from the egalitarian havens you suggest,

Oh and where did I mention egalitarianism?

great social levellers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality

There.

Never had a “proper” coffee that I like more than the Nescafe Suraya from their pretentious range. Lovely.

OTOH, they do an instant Espresso, and you can really see the time that went into it. Aroma is essential, so they spent years researching the perfect bean to get a real Espresso aroma. Appearance is essential, so they spent thousands of pounds working on different grinds and recipes to make it look like a real Espresso. It’s quite impressive.

But it tastes like chipboard.

duntmatter – Member

great social levellers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality

There.

That was wiki not me. I’m taking no responsibility for dodgy web opinions! 🙂

Fairy Nuff. Pleasure chatting with you.

*goes off to make today’s 14th flu-beating cup of tea*