The secret to a nice coffee? UHT Milk it seems..

arc@css · 5 Jun 2019 at 23:56

Skidder said:
Why don't go the whole hog and chuck a bit of carnation or mellow birds in.

This made me LOL.

Funnily enough, only the other day I was considering picking up some mellow birds.

rubberduck · 6 Jun 2019 at 00:02

Greggs coffee is pretty good. I tried to date a girl from Greggs once but she told me to get lost lol.

Raymond Lin · 6 Jun 2019 at 01:30

mattyfez said:
I'll buy preground beans for my cafetiere occasionally, but they never taste that fresh .. but the carte noire wholebean instant is a pretty good daily driver. Far superior to regular instant..

I'd never consider an expensive coffee machine, but each to thier own. I also generally use UHT semi or regular semi milk, so I'm obviously some sort of heathen.

I think I got spoiled by going to Jamaica once and bought some really fresh blue mountain beans ... Nothing pre packed ever topped that. Whole beans or otherwise.

I drink whatever, I even started again drinking instant at work for a few months because I got lazy. But the problem with instant is the taste profile is very flat, it is one note and it gets boring VERY fast. Fresh coffee had a complicity that instant doesn’t have. Today I got a french press for work, drinking pre ground, not ideal but beats instant for flavour.

At home I’ll either ground fresh and make a drip coffee or a proper cappuccino.

Each have its place.

dowie · 6 Jun 2019 at 01:43

willhub said:
Only way is to do a blind taste test, results would be very surprising.

might well be, though I suspect some coffee snobs would recognise their favourite brands already - you could perhaps some new instant brand (or a few new ones) vs a bunch of "proper" coffees and get coffee snobs to rank them etc...

Eurofighter · 6 Jun 2019 at 10:52

I much prefer the coffee in Spain to the UK.

cafe con leche

Scam · 6 Jun 2019 at 11:45

paradigm said:
Quite. Sure the buy-in for a decent bean-to-cup machine is expensive, but my Delonghi Magnifica has seen me though the last 8 years so I'm easily quids in vs buying instant, plus I've had nicer coffee as well.

You don't even need a coffee machine. A £30 handgrinder and a £25 Aeropress is brilliant. I upgraded to a cheap-ish Baratza Encore grinder (£120ish) and don't feel the need to purchase any more toys. The coffee you cna produce with an AP is brilliant.

Mason- said:
This is the most middle class post I’ve ever seen.

Hardly. I've never eaten Smash. Again, why would you pay over the odds for something 'ready made' when it's so damn easy to boil some potatoes then mash them yourself. Madness.

ttaskmaster · 6 Jun 2019 at 12:01

Scam · 6 Jun 2019 at 12:52

ttaskmaster said:
I delight in serving decaff to such people.

If it's a good decaf there's not much reason they'd know immediately, surely? However like most coffee-heads I'd be hunting you down an hour later when the withdrawal headache kicks in

InvaderGIR · 6 Jun 2019 at 12:54

willhub said:
Only way is to do a blind taste test, results would be very surprising.

It really wouldn't. Properly made decent coffee is infinitely better and obviously so. No I don't mean Starbucks etc.

willhub · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:00

InvaderGIR said:
It really wouldn't. Properly made decent coffee is infinitely better and obviously so. No I don't mean Starbucks etc.

It's better not infinitely better.

InvaderGIR · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:04

willhub said:
It's better not infinitely better.

You've clearly not had properly coffee.

Instant is utter, utter trash and you'd know straight away in a blind test that you're drinking instant or genuinely properly made coffee.

willhub · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:28

InvaderGIR said:
You've clearly not had properly coffee.

Instant is utter, utter trash and you'd know straight away in a blind test that you're drinking instant or genuinely properly made coffee.

I can tell you I have clearly had proper coffee.

It's better but not infinitely better, that is an over exaggeration.

ttaskmaster · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:30

Yadda · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:42

I've never tried an instant that tastes as good as a well made espresso-based coffee. The difference is night and day.

That's not to say I won't drink instant - I'll drink almost anything - but I definitely prefer a nice double espresso with a drop of cream or milk.

Raymond Lin · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:51

I can tell the difference between instant and freshly ground coffee, I think that gap is quite large. However, I don’t buy expensive beans anymore. I went through a phrase wanting to try out everything and anything from all over the world. Buying from Rave, Hasbean etc…testing out £4.50 bag to £20.00 bag and honestly, the difference at times is so tiny that I concluded it wasn’t money well spent. To really appreciate it you really ought to make a long black coffee out of it in order to bring out its flavour profile. But I like to add milk and sometimes, god forbid, sugar or even syrup…into mine. Which makes all those subtleties disappear. I haven’t ordered fresh beans in a few years now, just buy supermarket beans. £3 a bag, still better than instant.

XeNoN89 · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:52

As others have said, instant is rubbish

Yadda · 6 Jun 2019 at 13:59

Raymond Lin said:
I can tell the difference between instant and freshly ground coffee, I think that gap is quite large. However, I don’t buy expensive beans anymore. I went through a phrase wanting to try out everything and anything from all over the world. Buying from Rave, Hasbean etc…testing out £4.50 bag to £20.00 bag and honestly, the difference at times is so tiny that I concluded it wasn’t money well spent. To really appreciate it you really ought to make a long black coffee out of it in order to bring out its flavour profile. But I like to add milk and sometimes, god forbid, sugar or even syrup…into mine. Which makes all those subtleties disappear. I haven’t ordered fresh beans in a few years now, just buy supermarket beans. £3 a bag, still better than instant.

Have you tried buying green beans and roasting them yourself? I started a few years ago, mainly because they were cheaper but also because I like dabbling in old crafts. I've never looked back and now enjoy the process of roasting beans almost as much as drinking the coffee (which is delicious, even if I do say so myself).

Street · 6 Jun 2019 at 14:04

ttaskmaster said:
You'd be surprised. Most such snobs won't be able to tell the difference if they don't know there is one. I delight in serving decaff to such people.

I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference between instant decaf and normal, however freshly ground decaf would taste better than instant.

Raymond Lin · 6 Jun 2019 at 14:05

Yadda said:
Have you tried buying green beans and roasting them yourself? I started a few years ago, mainly because they were cheaper but also because I like dabbling in old crafts. I've never looked back and now enjoy the process of roasting beans almost as much as drinking the coffee (which is delicious, even if I do say so myself).

I looked into it, thought about backing a kickstarter machine that looked cool, saw a video on youtube where you roast it on an open flame on the hob (you keep on turning), but it seems like something i would buy and do once then put it in the cupboard.

Yadda · 6 Jun 2019 at 14:12

Raymond Lin said:
I looked into it, thought about backing a kickstarter machine that looked cool, saw a video on youtube where you roast it on an open flame on the hob (you keep on turning), but it seems like something i would buy and do once then put it in the cupboard.

I've been tempted by a machine a few times but get good results with my heavy frying pan now that I've worked out the temps and have the method down (basically keep a lid on the pan and toss the beans every 5-10 seconds). It's quite Zen and pretty good for the forearms too.