Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 220
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I bought a bag of pre-ground coffee the other day, thinking I could save some money by getting one of my cups of coffee per day from a much cheaper source. I'm not sure if this was a particularly bad one (a search didn't reveal any customer/reviewer dissatisfaction with it) or my palate has just fully adjusted to the experience of whole beans that I grind myself, but I had a remarkably bad experience with it. The coffee was fucking soulless. It didn't even have the classic smell of coffee. The taste had no appeal or depth at all. I don't know what they did to it when they processed those poor beans, but it was almost unsuitable for human consumption. Jfc. I've thrown the bag in the trash now.
@Muninn
I guess you and @Muninn just don't like coffee very much. I'm being serious. Most people buy their coffee in giant tubs of Folgers or Maxwell House. Most of the "high end" coffee is sold pre-ground in bags at grocery stores. Most of the premade coffee people buy isn't from dedicated coffee shops but from diners, gas stations, and fast food restaurants. Go to a grocery store and see what percentage off coffee on the shelves is whole bean. Dedicated coffee shops usually do grind their own beans, but that market is dominated by Starbucks. I'm of the opinion that if you discount 90% of the market as undrinkable garbage, you don't actually like coffee. It's like someone who says they "really like pizza" but they'll only eat Neapolitan-style pizza with basil and fresh mozzarella.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. One can dislike the mass market version of $thing without disliking $thing as a whole, because the mass market version is almost always a watered down, lower quality version of the original. If the mass produced coffee came first, you'd have more of a point, but it didn't.
Except what OP is describing isn't $thing either. What OP is describing is a 1990s invention that was only possible because of mass-market industrialization and technological advancement. If you go back to the way the Turks were drinking coffee around the time it was introduced in Europe, beans were roasted in a pan over an open fire, ground using a mortar and pestle, boiled in sugar water and drunk unfiltered. The roast was unlikely to be consistent let alone follow the precise roasting curves of today, and I don't know of any try-hard coffee snobs who would approve of the brewing method. Even the seemingly simple pourover wasn't invented until the 20th century, well into the era of industrial coffee production. There isn't some question of authenticity involved here, because historically "authentic" coffee probably tastes like crap.
Humans have been developing food technology for about ten thousand years, from domestication and selective breeding to improved processing techniques. Would I find you in Middle Kingdom Egypt saying that if you don't like the bitter and poisonous watermelons of our forefathers then you don't like watermelons at all? Would you deride the sweet watermelon as "a Menhtuhotep II era invention only possible thanks to a selective breeding program"?
No, I'm saying that if the only watermelon you like is some special cultivar that's only available in specialty stores, costs 20 dollars and has to be prepared in a very particular way, it's safe to say you don't really like watermelon.
You're missing the point. The watermelon we have today is the special cultivar. Presumably at some point you'd say that people who only like this cultivar don't like watermelon, and now you wouldn't.
More options
Context Copy link
Seems like an unfair comparison. The whole bean coffee I generally buy from my local midrange supermarket (city in the southern US) costs $12 a pound (compared to roughly $8 a pound for a 2.5 lb tub of the cheapest Folger's grounds) and is vastly better in a normal drip process. The grocery is doing enough volume that roast dates are consistently in the past month (vs typically 1-2 years for Folger's).
I think you may be generalizing from top-end third wave cafes to say that everything better than bottom-tier is snobbery. Coffee is coffee, and bad coffee is preferable to no coffee, but there can still be a reason to want more than the minimum viable experience here.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link