Wednesday 15 January 2014

Coffee, A Matter of Taste


I make terrible coffee. I admit it, no taste test required.

 


It’s the reason I never drink coffee at home, I’d have to make it. I can’t even blame the coffee makers; I’ve tried plenty, drip, Melita, even old fashioned percolators, and bad, all bad. I switched to tea at home, and enjoyed my coffee whenever and wherever it was made by someone else.

A few years ago I gave it another try and bought a simple two cup drip coffee maker. I found a system that worked well enough to provide me with a decent enough pot of coffee with acceptable regularity.

I don’t drink milk, so I don’t keep it on hand, or cream, yet I like my coffee light. I use a flavoured oil product as it keeps longer, and I like the taste. So I was pleased with my coffee making prowess, and was enjoying my daily cups of coffee, until I ran out of coffee whitener.

This happened a few weeks ago, when I was doing some baking for the holidays, and resorted to using the cream I had on hand for a couple of specific recipes.

The coffee was terrible. What happened to my system? I thought I finally had the coffee/water ratios right. What went wrong?

I guess I had been fooling myself that I could make a decent cup of coffee…I just disguised it with vanilla flavoured coffee whitener.

I think I’ve found my solution. I had coffee at my daughter’s over the holidays, coffee made on a Keurig coffee maker. Since I seem to like flavoured coffees I tried a number of them, with fancy names that I can’t remember now, but the one with caramel was particularly good.

I’m toying with the idea of getting one for myself. The reasons are twofold.

Since I moved I’ve had to adapt to a smaller kitchen with very limited counter space. After the microwave and the toaster oven, there’s no room for my coffee maker and my kettle. I like coffee in the morning, but tea in the afternoon, and occasionally on a cold night, hot chocolate.

Those other beverages require boiling water, hence the kettle. I tried to nuke water but never seem to get the water to the right temperature. I’ll admit I have a bit of microwave fear. I once added something to microwave boiled water, only to have it explode in my face. Okay, it was more of a pop, but scary still…it was hot.

So the first reason I want a Keurig is that it makes coffee, tea and hot chocolate all from the one machine. I wouldn’t have to keep switching the coffee maker and kettle, in and out of the cupboard, in their constant battle for counter space. How convenient.

The other reason for getting a single cup coffee maker? It’s like the commercials advertise, make your drink to suit what you want, when you want. Sounds a bit self indulgent, but hell, why not?

Why not spoil myself; after all, I’m worth it. I think those words are from another commercial, hair colouring if I’m not mistaken.

Maybe this is all a subconscious message that I should get rid of the gray, something else to think about.
 
My how the mind does wander. LOL

 

1 comment:

Blogger's Brother said...

I've never been a coffee drinker. Ever. Yet I was raised by parents that could've been on the U.S. Olympic Coffee Drinking Team, had there been one. I drink tea.

When I was in the film business we'd meet in the theatre to look at the latest commercial we were working on. Pots of coffee, cups, sugar, milk, cream, stir sticks were brought in. Everyone would fix their own and we'd get down to the business at hand. I tried everything to be a coffee drinker: more sugar, more milk, cream etc. etc. I couldn't drink it!

So someone would ask if I'd like something else. If I said, "Tea," there'd be the rolling of the eyes and a sigh as the person left the room. That's when I decided that Diet Coke, no matter the time of day, was easier to request.

But I've always been a little jealous of coffee drinkers, they seem to get such enjoyment from their coffee. And they get so excited with the variety in the flavours available.

People will argue there are various flavours of tea available, but not for me. I'm strictly orange pekoe, and it's rare that I have a tea outside of my house. Most days it's one tea in the morning and one after dinner. I prefer MBY tea the best. MBY tea is "Made by Yvonne," my wife. Tea I make myself just doesn't taste as good as hers.