Changed title from Coffee Bags (for camping) to general thread about the hot java.
Not that I’ve found yet.
Sticking with my trusty Aeropress!
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no
next!
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Ha, probably right. I bought some ‘Bean Bags’ from Waitrose yesterday. They were the biggest ones on offer, and the most expensive. I’ll try them at the weekend, to make ‘cowboy coffee’ so the grinds aren’t scorched (once the water is warm, I’ll stick the bag in the cook mug and bring it to a gentle boil and let the coffee infuse).
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we’re not huge coffee drinkers but have tried various things over the years and frankly it’s hard to beat good filtered coffee or a cafetiere. we bought a Nespresso machine last year and despite trying various brand pods have been underwhelmed by the taste compared to a good cafe espresso.
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We drink quite a lot at the moment with us all home. I’m not a coffee snob so will never get a machine to make it; I’ll just use a coffee press. I have a Bialetti, but it doesn’t work on our induction hob. Tbh, I always find the first couple of cups from a freshly opened bag are really nice, and good enough for me!
Bearing that in mind, I might just get a cheap grinder (for home use), and do a couple of days worth of beans at a time.
If you can leave the grinder out, just doing enough for the coffees your making really doesn’t take long.
I always made my own at work. I’ve had enough really average/poor coffees for £3+ to not bother forking out unless I’m on the road.
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we found one eventually when we went to induction hob. Cant beat a fresh coffee from that.
In the office we have a machine that grinds as you select but the beans the boss gets are generally cheap costco crap. just use pre ground at home. Never buy takeaway coffee, and might sit in occasionally at one of the decent cafe’s on the village high street but that’s usually more for the homebaked cakes! I cant remember the last time i sat in a chain like a costa.
Don’t do hot drinks at all.
Have been known to dunk a biscuit in a cup of tea but would throw the tea away afterwards.
I bought a DeLonghi espresso machine towards the start of lockdown when it was clear I would be working from home for quite a while, and I consider it £100 very well spent. Already had a DeLonghi grinder to go with it.
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I have a Bialetti Mokka, so creates great espresso and crema. Had it for years with the occassional changes in the seals. I have a manual coffee grinder as the electric don’t always last and it is shaped just like the mokka and I can adjust how fine the grind is (ooh yeah).
In the office (in the olden days of ‘the office’) I use an aeropress as it is quick, easy to clean and makes decent espresso. I take my own coffee, usually lavazza at work as they buy horrible costco crap. I only have chain coffee if it is the only option like on a long journey and at services.
Back in the days when Coffees of Hawaii sponsored IM Talk and had a good deal I bought some and it was superb.
ETA: Obviously @Hammerer prefers Peruvian coffee as I do.
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I trade the stuff. Well, the futures. Does that help?
There’s a very good book that’s just come out about the development of coffee production in El Salvador. Coffeeland. A review suggested it was about the development of production in central america, but that wasn’t quite right. Enjoyed it nonetheless. (leaving out the last quarter where the author goes on an anticapitalist/exploit the worker/communism good rant. He probably grew up staring at Che Guevara posters.)
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Aussies take our coffee very seriously and I do these days. (I did get into the habit of buying slop just because that’s what I’d expect in the UK). I don’t pay for rubbish coffee and TBH, it is getting better in the UK.
Now I’m from Sydney, which according to anyone from Melbourne, automatically dismisses anything I have to ay about coffee. (bloody Mexicans 
) but at home in Sydney I had a plumbed in machine from a cafe that went bust. It was pretty amazing, especially when friends were over. It took up some real estate in the kitchen though!
Over here, we don’t have the space for a machine, so we just use a French press but buy the beans freshly roasted from a roasting house down the road and they grind them for us. We buy different ones, depending on our mood.
I did look at an Aeropress but the faff of making having to make one cup at a time, just wasn’t worth it. When/if we get a new kitchen, we will do something then.
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Yes, we have the Bialetti Mukka Express. I did find it burned the milk sometimes if you used it in Cappuccino mode.
(it’s spelled Mukka on ours anyway! bought in DE)
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have to say that Oz coffee was so much better than the shite you get in the UK and much closer to the quality you get in France, Italy and Spain where they use the best machines.
nothing quite beats that French espresso moment having bombed down a few ski runs, and the coffee is so strong it sucks your eyeballs out. chase it with a brandy and back onto the slopes feeling fantastic!
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Never seen those. I apologise, I use it everyday and didn’t even read it, so stupid. Mine is the Brikka and it just does the espresso, it has a little cap on top of where the coffee comes out which help creates the crema.
There’s plenty of places to get good coffee in the UK, admittedly you can buy lots of crap coffee too. I think it is as much about the operator as much as the machine. Although those fully automated machines are generally rubbish IME.
The Thermoplan machines they have in Waitrose are okay IME. I went to a big business HQ in London and they had them there too. Better than Costa at least…and free!