Coffee

[cjsmith]

I don't drink coffee, but I bet some of my friends do. What are all the ways coffee (made in one of those basic office machines) can be bad?

I have so far: it's too weak, it's too strong, it got cold, it's gritty.

Comments

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Mmm, hazelnuts - reminds me, coffee is as much about smell as taste, and sometimes more - I really like the aroma of hazelnut coffee, it's a wonderful smell - but it doesn't contribute at all to the taste of the coffee. I've had versions that were wonderful to leave on the desk and smell - and nothing more, since the taste was bad or at best dull. Totally fails to live up to the smell.

Let's see, what else - Starbucks coffee is almost all "french roast" which tastes just "burnt" to me; Dunkin' Donuts actually has surprisingly good coffee, especially for the early-morning-grab-a-cup-and-hit-the-road use.

Another failure is not using enough coffee; aside from the cleaning, one fix to common bitter coffee is to use more coffee, the grounds do some filtering of their own or something. (Not sure if that's the right explanation - have you looked in McGee yet? He's got a coffee half-chapter or so...)

Other coffee-geeking points: preground vs. grinding the beans just before making them (that's connoisseur level, but an office that has a coffee geek will probably have a grinder, because it's cheap pretension, it just consumes time [and makes a lot of noise :-)])

Hawaiian coffee is really good, especially Kona...

Looks like noone has mentioned microwaving coffee. I've never had coffee made in a microwave, just used it for reheating (and will more often just finish the cup cold - microwaving doesn't really improve it.) I don't have good words for why it's bad, though, and this is more about words than coffee, right? :-)