The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
Do we have any coffee experts here? :)
What equipment do you recommend for home brewing? I don't mind waiting 5-10 minutes for the cup to become ready. Lots of pleasant aroma filling my home would be a bonus.
What are good reasons for taking coffee seriously?
How much subjectively experienced variety is there in terms of bean types?
If you are on a shoe-string budget I recommend investing in a decent grinder - I second the recs in the thread. If you don't mind hand grinders, they can offer a better set of burrs for the price. My friend recently got Fellow Ode 2 and it's pretty good. My setup for pour-over is Comandante C40 hand grinder, Hario V60, Hario filters, Fellow gooseneck kettle. I find V60 to be the least annoying method to brew in the morning.
It's fun! If you like conducting experiments and tweaking dials to get some subjectively better results, getting into coffee would be good for you.
A lot, but you'd have to buy from your local roasters or specialty coffee shops. Most of the stuff you can get at a grocery store is roasted way too dark and this is why most people think coffee === bitter. At your local roaster the dark roast is very likely going to be lighter than medium-light you can buy at a grocery store.
So if we are thinking about specialty coffee beans, there's a lot of variety. Start experimenting and comparing. Get beans from different countries, get beans that are processed differently (washed/natural/honey), get different bean varieties. My current favourite beans are medium-roasted Brazil.
Is the Comandante C40 supposed to be pretty expensive despite being a manual grinder? Might just be an artifact of a small market where I live.
How important is the gooseneck type of spout on the kettle if you intend on going the pour over/Chemex route? I've just bought a new kettle and it doesn't have a gooseneck. :(
Trying out various beans from around the world and getting the best quality out of them is a big part of the appeal for me. I like to nerd out a bit with food and drink. Sounds like fun!
Yes, but it has great burrs, which is why I bought it. You can easily get away with cheaper options that are electric - recs in the thread are solid.
Not at all, it’s just more convenient to pour with a gooseneck. I got pretty good with a regular kettle before I got a gooseneck
That's good to know.
I've gone with a cheap-ish but hopefully pretty solid intro package for coffee at home: Krups Silent Vortex blade grinder (saves a lot of $), Chemex 3 cup pour-over brewer with their proprietary filters + I'll make do with my non-goosenecked but pretty good new kettle with thermostat.
And I've informed myself a little on how to brew and where to get beans.
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