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Like most things, coffee is subject to diminishing returns. I have also owned nearly every device invented to make coffee - as I'm sure many others here have -

• acchow 4y ago
  > and I've settled on a simple over-the-mug pour-over cone This is how I do it too. I highly recommend trying out a V60 (which is only $9.20) and trying the techniques in this video :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI4ynXzkSQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI4ynXzkSQo You may find your coffee suddenly tasting significantly better
• WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  You can take my espresso machine from my cold dead hands. Then again I don’t understand why Americans pay so much for their coffee. Here 1kg of fairly good single origin coffee is 22€ and the quality is miles ahead of instant. You don’t have to become an insufferable snob to enjoy better coffee.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • michaelchisari 4y ago
    Those little stove-top espresso makers that Italians use make the best espresso. Apparently they're called Moka Pots, never knew that.
    • spread_love 4y ago
      Technically not espresso, they operate at a relatively low pressure
    • blowski 4y ago
      You’ve given me my opportunity to be a pedantic coffee snob… those don’t make espresso as they don’t generate enough pressure. But they do make fantastic coffee.
      • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        They are finicky little things however (say the guy with a Silvia). It’s easy to burn your coffee if you don’t pay attention.
        • acchow 4y ago
          I've pretty much given up on them since it ends up with a burnt taste about 80% of the time
    • abstract_put 4y ago
      The moka pot is how I transitioned from coffee as a utility drink to coffee I enjoy drinking. James Hoffman (popular coffee YouTuber) has a video[1] where he goes over what it takes to get consistently good results out of the moka pot - it's not easy. Used naively they kinda go heavy "bitter and dark". What appealed to me about the moka pot at the time was the reeeeeally "strong" coffee flavor. As I've moved away from it, I think my palate was just geared towards really dark roasts - very little the bean brings to the table at that point. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfDLoIvb0w4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfDLoIvb0w4
      • bigDinosaur 4y ago
        I didn't find his advice on preheating the water (and also cooling down the pot before pouring the coffee out) to be particularly useful (or make any appreciable difference at all) but got a few burns for my trouble. Grrr.
  • majormajor 4y ago
    What exactly do you mean by "pay so much"? E.g. I could buy a KG of single origin that I'd call "fairly good" for about $33 bucks - which recently would've been like 28 Euros though it's about 1-to-1 now - is that what you mean? Or are you meaning much more than that? Like comparing to retail "fancy coffee shop" US drink price? (There's a lot of range in what one person might call fairly good compared to the next, too, of course.)
    • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      The price you are giving me is indeed between 30% and 50% above the one I pay and the 22€ is post-taxes while I suspect you are giving me a pre-taxes price in the USA. My understanding from reading Reddit was that 40$ a kilo was not uncommon.
      • reddog 4y ago
        Whole or ground coffee is not subject to sales tax anywhere in the US that I know of since coffee is a grocery. Although a prepared cup of coffee (from Starbucks for example) is taxed. Two weeks ago I paid $9 for a pound of whole bean coffee from a good local roaster. That may be a bit below average but $11/lb is easy to find if your not living in a high-dollar, high-status coastal city.
      • majormajor 4y ago
        You could definitely spend $40, $60, probably even more for a kg in the US, but I think that's fairly uncommon. Something costing 30-50% different in another country is kinda what I'd expect, the double or triple stuff I think would more be fancy people being extra-fancy.
  • lostlogin 4y ago
    Those same beans are about half that price when green. It's not snobbery so much as laziness that has me get 10ish kgs of a variety of types delivered every few months.
  • roflyear 4y ago
    About the same in the US from many local roasters. Slightly more I guess but not super significant.
• WheatM 4y ago
• spread_love 4y ago
  Or people drink fancy beer because it tastes good. Does "fancy" mean "not produced by a global corporation?" If High Life is your favorite, great, stroll down to the local brewery and buy their pale lager.
• rayiner 4y ago
  The best beer is Miller 64. My wife calls it “beer for pregnant women.”
  • dsego 4y ago
    For me, the best beer is any cheap cold beer after hiking a mountain, doing a bicycle tour, doing construction work, etc.
• rjh29 4y ago
  I like your point about signalling. It's also true that the vast majority of people are not fussy about coffee and can drink anything. If you stay on the internet long enough it's easy to feel like you're the weird one for not investing in an expensive grinder or coffee machine or caring about the type of beans you use, while those people are actually the very small majority, they just broadcast it loudly.
  • acchow 4y ago
    What is there to broadcast if you are drinking the same Maxwell House every single day for a decade? On the other hand, those in coffee culture are always talking about beans to buy, why their coffee tastes messed up this month, how to fix their machines, how to adjust their grind to the latest roast they are trying (every roast needs a different grind). They're more vocal because there is a lot more to discuss.
    • lycopodiopsida 4y ago
      >They're more vocal because there is a lot more to discuss. Also because they deeply care about coffee and do not take it as a commodity.
    • rjh29 4y ago
      Plenty of snobbery and gatekeeping and oneupmanship too, just read this thread if you want some examples.
• abstract_put 4y ago
  I agree that it's not really about the "quality" of the taste of the thing, I strongly disagree it's generally about tribal membership and signaling. I'm reasonably deep into coffee snobbery now, but not as a part of any group - the only person who knows would be my wife. I genuinely enjoy good coffees and often it's the highlight of my morning. I don't think I'm unique in that, especially since the pandemic. That said, as with craft beer I think it's very often not about the objective quality (if there is such a thing) so much as it is the novelty. I'm guessing the people you portray negatively are more interested in the fads and trends and always chasing something new than enjoying what's in front of them. The perk of that is funding a broader assortment of offerings, the downside is as you mentioned that it can bring elitism and gate keeping. I think your "tiny gains in subjective taste experience" is glossing over very real and dramatically different flavors (like a sour beer vs. a hoppy beer).
• thatguy0900 4y ago
  You can get a lot more mileage out of stuff you put into coffee than the coffee, flavored creamers and the like. I like Vietnamese style coffee with condensed milk myself, also a type of pour over coffee
• ninkendo 4y ago
  > The fact that so many can honestly profess that these tiny gains in subjective taste experience are Very Serious Business is a testament to humans' ability to convince ourselves of just about anything. There continues to always be a relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/915/ https://xkcd.com/915/
• markmark 4y ago
  If the alternative is store-brand beans then it is absolutely about the quality of taste of the thing.
• adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  Indeed. I've worked in places with very fancy machines and with nice beans. I nearly always drink black coffee, so I can certainly taste differences between various coffees, though I don't think I can reliably describe them. I just like that it varies from place to place. However, my default coffee option at home is a simple cafetière (aka French press) and a kettle. I don't do much else other than, if I'm paying attention, waiting a minute or two too let the water of the boil. Nearly always, I'm as happy with this as I am with the fanciest barista coffee. Also, it is interesting how much the taste and experience varies even with the same machine/method and same coffee. Sometimes it'll be amazing; sometimes, what is probably objectively the same thing just falls flat. I assume it's connected strongly to mood as well as whatever else I have eaten recently, ambience, expectations and so on. I can't think of another food or drink with the same variation between experiences, except perhaps alcohol, which I don't use often enough to make the same claim.
  • qbasic_forever 4y ago
    French press brewers are great and nothing to be ashamed about using. There are two big variable that you can tweak when using it, the grind size and the time you keep the coffee brewing before plunging and pouring. Water temperature is a third variable but with a basic kettle don't worry about it and just use water off a boil. If you decrease the grind size it increases the extraction, and if you brew for longer it also increases the extraction (to a point). When you get wildly different results from the same beans it likely means you've changed one of those variables. Try playing around to find a good balance of grind size and time brewed. I usually like a kosher-salt level of grind size (moderately coarse) with a 4 minute or so brew time. But if the coffee comes out too bitter then I likely over-extracted it and increase the grind size or reduce the time brewing, and if too sour then it's probably under extracted (decrease grind or brew longer next time).
  • p1necone 4y ago
    There's nothing wrong with a French press. Use great beans and a French press will make great coffee (with good ground size, water temp etc). The only real downside with them is that they don't filter all the grounds out of the final cup very well.
• zenithd 4y ago
• ak217 4y ago
  I can't stand espresso and pourover snobbery, but I admit I've gotten picky about the beans. Most beans I find in the grocery store taste like burnt cardboard to me now. I found a nice online indie roaster (https://swroasting.com/ https://swroasting.com/) that ships amazing light roast beans for the same price as my local retail. I also found that using a thermal carafe instead of a burner makes a huge difference (keeping the coffee hot on a burner makes it offgas and lose flavor quickly). I value my time so I use a grind-and-brew, the Breville Grind Control is the best one I know.
• JauntTrooper 4y ago
  I think coffee is a lot more subtle than fancy beers. There are pretty big differences in taste among craft beer styles and breweries, and exploring the variety is part of the fun. I love coffee, but don't differentiate it nearly as much. I can enjoy a fancy expresso just as much as a cup of supermarket coffee.
• NoboruWataya 4y ago
  Like other posters, I agree that it's about more than taste, but disagree that it's about tribal membership. For me, it's also about ritual. Grinding beans and making coffee (pourover in my case) is a very nice relaxing experience with enjoyable sights and smells before you ever put the cup to your mouth.
• OJFord 4y ago
  > Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling. I really really disagree, and I don't think it's an issue of being stuck inside the tribe, because I use all the same equipment, don't really give a shit (though think I should) about adjusting grind size or anything, have never timed a pour, and buying emergency supermarket/Illy coffee vs. my 'hipster' subscription is scrunch-my-face-up vs. mm-coffee. I can drink Illy, I don't enjoy it but I can drink it. I was recently subjected to parent-company-corporate-meeting-room push-a-button-to-pump-it-out-don't-even-know-how-they-made-it-probably-filter coffee, that I could not drink. But who am I performing to by (not) doing so? When I do drink the coffee I like I'm remote working from home alone. A former colleague's favourite 'coffee' is instant decaf. I believe him. I really disagree. I don't even really agree it counts as coffee. But that's his preference, people are different. Some are only happy with nice/fresh beans (my own suspicion is that it's more the freshness that counts than anything else, that supermarkets should just sell it like fruit & veg, and then they're laughing, no need to buy 'hipster'), others with anything. Relatedly, there are days where I don't drink it at all, that I just get too distracted and I decide by that point what's the point, I'm awake, it's mid-afternoon, why drink coffee now. So it's not a case of needing a certain fix, and really I should just stop ever buying 'emergency' coffee that I don't actually like, and intentionally go without.
• adamisom 4y ago
  > don't even know what "correct" pour-over technique is Well, hmmm, it would only take a few minutes to learn. Frankly I think your post is signalling (on a meta level). I know it probably doesn't feel like it, but that's what signalling usually feels like from the inside (it doesn't feel like you're doing it). On the object-level, I think there are huge differences in quality when it comes to... most anything, including coffee, beer, chocolate, you name it. I don't think it's usually about "1%" gains.
• jimmaswell 4y ago
  Have you tried the little single-serving one-pass stovetop percolators?
• acchow 4y ago
  > Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling. Given most people drink coffee on their own at home with remote WFH standardized, who exactly are we signaling to?
  • astrange 4y ago
    People on the internet posting how they don’t like Starbucks?
• ycombinete 4y ago
  Coffee like smoking is a habit formed around a drug addiction. Watching a Davidoff video on how to cut/light a cigar, a snobby whisky tasting video, or James Hoffman devoting hours to the perfect moka pot are all similar to me Were caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol not pleasantly mind altering and addictive, I highly doubt many people consuming them, regardless of minor adjustments in their preparation. That said I’m firmly of the opinion that french press, and moka make the best coffee for my taste.
• danans 4y ago
  > I don't even know what "correct" pour-over technique is, so I'm basically making bog-standard single-serving drip coffee with store-brand beans, and I couldn't be happier with it. The correct technique is the technique that consistently makes you the coffee you like. > Ultimately I think fancy coffee is the same as fancy beer - it's not about the quality of taste of the thing, but rather it's about tribal membership and signaling. Most people aren't usually looking for novelty in their daily coffee, which is why they are often loyal to a particular coffee shop or method of preparation. This is true whether its Folgers instant coffee or shade grown Ethiopian. If one is a daily beer drinker, then sure, the very experimental and unique flavored ones can be too much. But for me, beer isn't a daily beverage. It's a weekend or special occasion thing, like a cocktail, and for that, I'd rather have a more unique flavor.