5 ms·

I've been buying cups of coffee on and off from coffee shops for years. Each cup was 2-4USD. Sometimes i also did pourovers but that shit took forever. Finally

I've been buying cups of coffee on and off from coffee shops for years. Each cup was 2-4USD. Sometimes i also did pourovers but that shit took forever. Finally got a used Delongi bean to cup for less than $200 and my god what I've been missing. I also discovered that, for me, reducing the amount of water that passes through the coffee puck for each shot makes the coffee so creamy and less acidic.

koolba 3y ago
Which machine did you get?
- dazhbog 3y ago
  Got a used Delonghi Magnifica Start
baldeagle 3y ago
This is call a 'ristretto shot'. In some of the starbucks reserve locations you can get a large volume of ground coffee and a ristretto shot, and it is very creamy without as much acid/tannins. Also, the ristretto shot is often used in flat whites - one of the main differences (the other lesser one being milk texture)
- lock-the-spock 3y ago
  Starbucks is rather bad coffee though, without all the syrups you will notice it more. Honestly I have a bean to cup (Krups, previously also had DeLonghi) and prefer to take a small thermos along for decent lukewarm coffee all day rather than to pay outrageous amounts for mediocre coffee and a throwaway cup. Living in Italy or Portugal I'd probably not need that as there is excellent espresso at every corner, but most other countries it's hit and miss and the Anglosphere generally just bad coffee.
  - ajkjk 3y ago
    Trendy cities in the US tend to have great coffee everywhere nowadays. Although I've noticed a slight backslide in this in the last few years :(
  - agloe_dreams 3y ago
    Starbucks Reserve Roasteries !== Starbucks. The reserve locations are better seen as flashy celebrations of coffee and basically ignore the entire Starbucks Corporate supply chain, in that way they are: 1: Vastly better quality coffee with actual light roasts available. 2: Absolutely not Scalable. I'm not saying they aree somehow better than other high-end roasters but
    - mbirth 3y ago
      And some of them have the Clover machine which makes coffee in a way you can’t get anywhere else.
  - gattilorenz 3y ago
    Can't speak for Portugal, but "decent espresso at every corner" in Italy is sort of a myth. There is uniform espresso at every corner, with quite dark roasts that cover up potential differences in flavor for the beans/crops. That's a side effect of expecting coffee for ~1 Euro, regardless of quality: quality generally goes down. We Italians are used to that (you could say we don't know better), and dislike any variation from the norm, so that doesn't bother most people; in actual coffee countries you have places that do care about coffee quality and experiment with single-origin, different roasts, etc. In Italy these places are a tiny minority, and for the rest is the same burnt expresso everywhere (and, if you're unlucky, very acid). It might be different in big cities like Milan, but I doubt it.
    - mazugrin2 3y ago
      This is something I've always wondered about. I _loved_ the coffee in Rome almost universally. Even in Madrid I enjoyed the coffee, although it was totally different than the stuff in Rome. I knew it wasn't the best beans. Sometimes it wouldn't even be freshly ground. However, in the US, even at the fanciest hipster coffee places, the espresso is incredibly bitter and astringent/acidic. Is that on purpose? Do Americans actually want their coffee to be super bitter and astringent/acidic? The other thing I've noticed is that in Rome and Madrid, most coffee drinkers are just drinking the coffee. But in the US it is rare to actually see someone drink a coffee without milk. So I just assumed that the reason for the bitterness and astringency was because the people making it never actually drank it as espresso. So - American espresso drinkers - tell me - do you actually prefer that super bitter taste of the thin espressos that you get at supposedly good coffee places like, e.g., Blue Bottle over the rich and frothy espressos of Rome?
slothtrop 3y ago
> Sometimes i also did pourovers but that shit took forever. Really? I use the hario switch for my medium roasts and I brew 2 min tops, usually a hybrid immersion/pourover, but I can do just straight pourover in that time.
- z3dd 3y ago
  Standard brewing/extraction time for V60/kalita/kemex is 3.5 min plus about 1 min of preparation (which is still not a lot).

koolba 3y ago

Which machine did you get?

dazhbog 3y ago
Got a used Delonghi Magnifica Start

baldeagle 3y ago

This is call a 'ristretto shot'. In some of the starbucks reserve locations you can get a large volume of ground coffee and a ristretto shot, and it is very creamy without as much acid/tannins. Also, the ristretto shot is often used in flat whites - one of the main differences (the other lesser one being milk texture)

lock-the-spock 3y ago
Starbucks is rather bad coffee though, without all the syrups you will notice it more. Honestly I have a bean to cup (Krups, previously also had DeLonghi) and prefer to take a small thermos along for decent lukewarm coffee all day rather than to pay outrageous amounts for mediocre coffee and a throwaway cup. Living in Italy or Portugal I'd probably not need that as there is excellent espresso at every corner, but most other countries it's hit and miss and the Anglosphere generally just bad coffee.
- ajkjk 3y ago
  Trendy cities in the US tend to have great coffee everywhere nowadays. Although I've noticed a slight backslide in this in the last few years :(
- agloe_dreams 3y ago
  Starbucks Reserve Roasteries !== Starbucks. The reserve locations are better seen as flashy celebrations of coffee and basically ignore the entire Starbucks Corporate supply chain, in that way they are: 1: Vastly better quality coffee with actual light roasts available. 2: Absolutely not Scalable. I'm not saying they aree somehow better than other high-end roasters but
  - mbirth 3y ago
    And some of them have the Clover machine which makes coffee in a way you can’t get anywhere else.
- gattilorenz 3y ago
  Can't speak for Portugal, but "decent espresso at every corner" in Italy is sort of a myth. There is uniform espresso at every corner, with quite dark roasts that cover up potential differences in flavor for the beans/crops. That's a side effect of expecting coffee for ~1 Euro, regardless of quality: quality generally goes down. We Italians are used to that (you could say we don't know better), and dislike any variation from the norm, so that doesn't bother most people; in actual coffee countries you have places that do care about coffee quality and experiment with single-origin, different roasts, etc. In Italy these places are a tiny minority, and for the rest is the same burnt expresso everywhere (and, if you're unlucky, very acid). It might be different in big cities like Milan, but I doubt it.
  - mazugrin2 3y ago
    This is something I've always wondered about. I _loved_ the coffee in Rome almost universally. Even in Madrid I enjoyed the coffee, although it was totally different than the stuff in Rome. I knew it wasn't the best beans. Sometimes it wouldn't even be freshly ground. However, in the US, even at the fanciest hipster coffee places, the espresso is incredibly bitter and astringent/acidic. Is that on purpose? Do Americans actually want their coffee to be super bitter and astringent/acidic? The other thing I've noticed is that in Rome and Madrid, most coffee drinkers are just drinking the coffee. But in the US it is rare to actually see someone drink a coffee without milk. So I just assumed that the reason for the bitterness and astringency was because the people making it never actually drank it as espresso. So - American espresso drinkers - tell me - do you actually prefer that super bitter taste of the thin espressos that you get at supposedly good coffee places like, e.g., Blue Bottle over the rich and frothy espressos of Rome?

slothtrop 3y ago

> Sometimes i also did pourovers but that shit took forever. Really? I use the hario switch for my medium roasts and I brew 2 min tops, usually a hybrid immersion/pourover, but I can do just straight pourover in that time.

z3dd 3y ago
Standard brewing/extraction time for V60/kalita/kemex is 3.5 min plus about 1 min of preparation (which is still not a lot).