How do you like your coffee?

[YM-Mundrabilla]

Nothing has changed for me since my post # 2 on 5 August 2018.
They still all taste more or less the same to me.

[Old Janner]

I remember on the old BP tankers, we had to supply the crew with a big pot of tea and one of coffee at smoko,
No instant coffee, we were supplied 7 lb tins of Twinning's ground coffee. with no instructions of how to make it or in what proportions, it was left to the chief cook, then to the 2nd steward and finally the galley boy.
Each had there own theories, some added a little salt, some added egg shells, I never saw anybody asking for a second cup.
So until MAXWELL HOUSE, was introduced, it was mainly tea at smokos.

[Hawkey01]

OJ,

Salt, egg shells, no wonder no seconds required!!

Neville

[Varley]

Instant coffee- the biggest unwanted shoe-in ever. Making proper coffee is just as easy (I am very biased as something in my tasting kit gives the instant muck a nasty taste very unsimilar to proper coffee. Equally, I do keep the stuff as I have two regular guests whose taste is the reverse and don't like the real thing).

Aunt always added a pinch of salt. Never heard of the egg shell (weren't they just kept to psych-up the powdered egg scramble?). I make a batch for the week using a cafettiere nuking two mugs per morning as my ration. Grinding the beans on site from local blender/roaster.

Just away for my second mug.

[Malcolm G]

Egg shells are part of the mix in 'camp-fire' coffee. As is salt, but I don't think you are supposed to use both.
When coffee is boiled with loose grounds, as opposed to percolating, it has a very bitter taste which the egg shells are supposed to reduce.
Something to do with the pH balance.

[Varley]

I don't think one is supposed to use boiling water and ground coffee. If one's coffee was even mildly acidic then it would react with the calcium carbonate of the shell and increase the pH. I wonder what the compound would be Calcium coffinate?

I would be surprised if it wasn't swamped by any but the 'softest' of hot water.

(Second mug now enjoyed and I am done with coffee for the day).

[Ron Stringer]

Originally Posted by Varley

If one's coffee was even mildly acidic then it would react with the calcium carbonate of the shell and increase the pH.

There is something wrong with that statement David. If an acid combines with an alkali to produce a salt, the resultant pH cannot possibly be lower than that of the acid involved. Otherwise Rennies and Bisodol wouldn't have a business.

[Varley]

You haven't got the pH thing the wrong way round have you Ron? CaCO3 and stomach acid HCL will combine to produce Co2 H2O and CaCl (I can't at the moment work out ratio of each molecule to make the arithmetic work). Less acidic/higher pH surely or have I got the hydrogen Ion thing wrong?

[Varley]

CaCl2 !

CaCO3 + 2 HCl = CaCl2 + H2O + CO2

[Engine Serang]

14 years of compulsory education and this is what we're reduced to. Jennings and Derbyshire knew that when Billy Bunter over indulged. Cripes.

[Hugh Shuttleworth]

Originally Posted by rogd

I've got one of those Aeropress contraptions and I have to say it makes a darn good brew.
It seems to work better with a fine ground coffee.
I use Lavazza D'oro in it.
Certainly sorts me out in the morning.
Roger.

I read an article comparing methods of coffee brewing and the Aeropress came out top - and very popular with campers.
I use the 2nd best method, the Italian style stovetop "Mocha Pot". Has worked well on a picnic as well. Even more flavour than our filter machine at home.

[Hugh Shuttleworth]

Originally Posted by Dartskipper

I like my coffee in a mug.

I hate Starbucks, I've never enjoyed any coffee from any of their outlets. It's either too bitter, too stewed, too hot, or just plain awful.

We plan our stops on the motorway for the Costa coffee outlets and avoid Starbucks like the plague. We would have a coffee in Heathrow while waiting for our flight and tried the Starbucks - can't remember if there was a choice of outlets. What an awful bitter brew. Landed in New Zealand and found the coffee there was to die for. I wish I could find some like it here in UK. Failing that we use Sainsbury's own blend, No 3 roast. I have to limit the caffeine so after a couple of regulars have ended up with a 50-50 mix of Sainsbury's and Lavazza decaffs, smooth enough and actually has flavour.

[R58484957]

Douwe Egbert pure gold medium roast every day at 10.30 suits me fine.

[Steven68]

My mom’s coffee is one of the best flavors I have ever tasted elegantly

[Varley]

Originally Posted by Engine Serang

14 years of compulsory education and this is what we're reduced to. Jennings and Derbyshire knew that when Billy Bunter over indulged. Cripes.

I think pH was an A level topic so without the compulsory bracket (anyway I am an eminent example of why an excellent education offered can easily fail to reach its intended destination). I might add that Eric Lousada would not have been impressed with your reading list. I did once report to him on some nappywrapped Five Make Dutch Ovens or some such I had chosen to read. I got my 'plus' but the look and expression of disappointment was enough for me to return to Agatha Christie, Forester and Baroness Orczy and never even look at the lower shelves ever again. A clever man, we didn't realise he was teaching us.

[BobClay]

Good old bottle of Camp Chicory Coffee got me over the Welsh 3000's without all this arty farty nonsense.

[Varley]

I have a bottle of that. Still marked in old money from about 1970. It is now more for museums than mountains.

(You might have found some limestone on your hikes. That should have done as well as egg shells).

[Jolly Jack]

Originally Posted by Hugh Shuttleworth

We plan our stops on the motorway for the Costa coffee outlets and avoid Starbucks like the plague. We would have a coffee in Heathrow while waiting for our flight and tried the Starbucks - can't remember if there was a choice of outlets. What an awful bitter brew. Landed in New Zealand and found the coffee there was to die for. I wish I could find some like it here in UK. Failing that we use Sainsbury's own blend, No 3 roast. I have to limit the caffeine so after a couple of regulars have ended up with a 50-50 mix of Sainsbury's and Lavazza decaffs, smooth enough and actually has flavour.

Like you, I found Starbucks too bitter. Costa not too bad but not a patch on my home brew. We recently started using Lavazza - the beans were cheaper at Costco but even cheaper on the Net. Not that I'm a cheapskate.....!!; One tablespoon of creamer (lite) and six little Liddl sweeteners added to each mug......champion!! Instant coffee, especially decaf, is rubbish compared.

JJ.

[Dave McGouldrick]

Originally Posted by BobClay

Good old bottle of Camp Chicory Coffee got me over the Welsh 3000's without all this arty farty nonsense.

Back in the Dark Ages (ca 1960), my mother used to serve Camp on a Sunday - made with almost boiled milk. A camp latte perhaps?

(I see no one has mentioned the non-PC label on the bottle)

[Farmer John]

Originally Posted by Dave McGouldrick

(I see no one has mentioned the non-PC label on the bottle)

It can still be bought in our local supermarket, together with Sterilised milk oin a bottle with a crown cap to it.

The darker gentleman on the label is now sitting down as well, after many years stood. He is also drinking a cup of the vile beverage, and sitting on a very gingery coloured tartan covered chest.

[Lao Pan]

Coincidentally someone just bought me a 'bucks Cafe Latte - yuck, tastes like frothy milk with a handful of salt thrown in. I just checked it has 5% of your daily allowance.
I would rather have a Nescafe Original with Conny Oggy and a load of salt tabs whilst stood on the bottom plates - - - don't let the Chief Eng know we ever sat down

[Varley]

I am feeling virtuous. Christmas cake is in the oven. Sweet mince already made from the left-over dried fruit and lots of apple from the garden.

(The mince is already made because the dried fruit for the cake itself spends a little time smurgling in alcohol before the cake is put together, I doubt it can really be classed as dry by the time it sees the Kenwood)

[Engine Serang]

A cake? The Cake? Is Christmas early in Mona this year? And will Agnostics jump on any bandwagon promising Drink and food in abundance?

[Varley]

Well, this one will. Carping at the enjoyment of others because of their superstitions is rather like turning one's disbelief into a superstition of its own. I have been to both humanist and 'Celtic' funerals in the last couple of years and although the latter was truly bizarre the performance of their shamans were no where near as enjoyable as when the job is done properly. The old question of "why should the Devil have the best tunes" is one of the ignoramous. A good tune is a good tune and once written has sod all to do with the composer (except copyright, of course).

It is the the believer's camp that declares "Where dance is, there is the Devil" as far as I am concerned feel free to dance, I may even join you. But not, please, at my front door. For All hallows eve one can pass of ExLax in Cadbury wrappers. For the carol singers something more seasonal is required to mask the taste of bitter almonds.

(Christmas cake making is usually earlier as it must mature a bit before icing. Not as long as pudding which should be made the year before but September would have been better. Is such cake not properly done in Hibernia?)

[OLDGIT77]

As a kid visiting Gran on a Saturday at St Coluimb Minor . near Newquay. Cornwall
As kids we lived in Newquay and use to cycle out .
She loved her Camp Coffee
My Grans dad , my great- granddad was a Sargeant Major in the Army
and was stationed in India . believe because of his lowly Scottish background
that was the highest rank he could go to /.
they did have a bungalow and servent because of his rank
my Gran was born in India

Tony