tea & coffee revisited

[landsurfer]

This is latest TEA video my teenage grandson was shown at college ...... I take my tea black, shark fin ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQ

[mercalia]

"This gentle release promotes a longer period of alertness without a jittery rush at the start or crash at the end."

I wonder if thats the reason why I had a strange reaction to rather nice coffee at Whetherspoons, allergic to caffein in large doses

[Freddie]

This is latest TEA video my teenage grandson was shown at college ...... I take my tea black, shark fin ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQ

That was confusing rather enlightening, I was a bit lost by about a minute in. Isn't the video moot if grandson isn't 16 anyway, because until then he (or anyone) can't consent to a cup of tea anyway...

[landsurfer]

He's 15 and college are getting the consent thing in place to girls and boys early .... and the other 12 sexual identifications in his year i expect....

[mercalia]

Coffee Grinders

Lidl had on sale cheap coffee grinders - £10. Seems well made for the money. So I got one and some of their Italian blend coffee beans to try it out with to compare with their already ground pkts. First impression is the beans are a touch better. I am not a fan of Lidl ground coffee in general.

Can anyone recommend a brand ( from Sainsburys ) of bean I might like to try. Any one know what beans Whitherspoons use for their rent-a-mug coffee. I rather liked that the once I tried it, though a bit sickly.

[fausto copy]

For starters, you can't go far wrong with Taylors of Harrogate Rich Italian Ground Coffee 227g for £3.75 at Sainsbury.
It's my preferred everyday coffee and you can always experiment from there.

I bought a Kitchencraft grinder after buying beans by mistake instead of ground coffee for my cafetiere.
It's a load of junk; I can't keep the grinding consistent as the mechanism always loosens up.

[Bonefishblues]

Coffee Grinders

Lidl had on sale cheap coffee grinders - £10. Seems well made for the money. So I got one and some of their Italian blend coffee beans to try it out with to compare with their already ground pkts. First impression is the beans are a touch better. I am not a fan of Lidl ground coffee in general.

Can anyone recommend a brand ( from Sainsburys ) of bean I might like to try. Any one know what beans Whitherspoons use for their rent-a-mug coffee. I rather liked that the once I tried it, though a bit sickly.

Happy Donkey are by far the best price/quality of any I have tried. I buy these:

https://www.happydonkey.co.uk/product-c ... 0-arabica/

ETA
...and at some point splash on a 'proper' burr grinder. Aficionados spend as much, if not on more on the grinder than the machine.

[Paulatic]

Coffee Grinders

Lidl had on sale cheap coffee grinders - £10. Seems well made for the money. So I got one and some of their Italian blend coffee beans to try it out with to compare with their already ground pkts. First impression is the beans are a touch better. I am not a fan of Lidl ground coffee in general.

Can anyone recommend a brand ( from Sainsburys ) of bean I might like to try. Any one know what beans Whitherspoons use for their rent-a-mug coffee. I rather liked that the once I tried it, though a bit sickly.

Freshly ground coffee will always beat something ground 3 months ago no matter what bean you use. I believe Wetherspoons use Lavassa 100% Arabica beans, Lavassa can usually be found on supermarket shelves.
Your LIDL grinder is a blade grinder which will never equal a burr grinder but depending on how you brew could well be adequate for your needs.
When you move up to the next level then I always recommend The Bean Shop for excellent fresh beans I’ve used for something like 5 years now and everywhere else I’ve tried is a disappointment.

[simonineaston]

I used to work with a guy, whose cuppa has made by dipping a tea bag into a cup of hot water. The dip was literally a dip. Then milk was added. What, I wondered, was the point?
These days I work with a very agreeable Swedish lady (or used to... ) whose tea-making preferences accord with mine, ie, boiling water is poured onto a decent quality mainstream T bag (usually Yorkshire) and left for some minutes before adding sufficient milk for it to turn a nice brown colour.
What puzzles me is this. I can drink coffee regardless of the circ.s, that is: with/without milk, with/without sugar - even with/without heat!! I can only drink tea if its strong, hot, and with milk and no sugar... as soon as it's less-than-piping - eugh!

[mercalia]

so whats the issue with the degree of grind - coarse or fine? why should I bother? matter of extracting the most flavour? strength of brew?

well it seems the Lidl grinder works well and 20grms of beans ( 2 large beakers of final brew) the grind seems fine & powdery. I use a Melitta thing like this

https://www.melitta.co.uk/products/gift-ideas/exclusive-to-melitta/look-selection/

water boiled up and allowed to slowly drip onto a filter paper into the glass container

[Bonefishblues]

Consistency of grind and the fact that a lot of the flavour gets smashed/heated out of beans with one of the 'chopping' grinders like those.

ETA
May have misunderstood your post and teh Q, but I'll leave be, anyway.

[mercalia]

Consistency of grind and the fact that a lot of the flavour gets smashed/heated out of beans with one of the 'chopping' grinders like those.

ETA
May have misunderstood your post and teh Q, but I'll leave be, anyway.

my question was really what ever way you grind the beans whats the difference it makes whether coarse or fine?

not quite my question. but good to know. so whats the alternative and example?

[Bonefishblues]

Consistency of grind and the fact that a lot of the flavour gets smashed/heated out of beans with one of the 'chopping' grinders like those.

ETA
May have misunderstood your post and teh Q, but I'll leave be, anyway.

my question was really what ever way you grind the beans whats the difference it makes whether coarse or fine?

not quite my question. but good to know. so whats the alternative and example?

Feeling energetic? Similar to what I started with:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooko-Grinder- ... B01HZCORY0

Let the mains take the strain? This sort of thing:

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/household ... g+Standard

re grinds, everything you'll ever want to know, and some:

https://www.homegrounds.co/coffee-grind-chart/

[Paulatic]

so whats the issue with the degree of grind - coarse or fine? why should I bother? matter of extracting the most flavour? strength of brew?

well it seems the Lidl grinder works well and 20grms of beans ( 2 large beakers of final brew) the grind seems fine.

You can’t get the evenness of grind with the blade grinder especially noticeable in a coarse ground as there is always some too fine. You still haven’t said how you are brewing which is relevant to how you grind.
I use a vintage manual burr grinder bought off EBay, for £20 , 20 yrs ago. Still going strong and will see me out. I’ve got it set for a perfect Moka pot setting and find that is also suitable for Aeropress.

[slowster]

For brewed coffee (as opposed to espresso) the big issue with grinders as I understand it is that ideally all the ground coffee particles should be a similar size, e.g. like grains of coarse sand. That results in a uniform extraction rate of the flavours (oils and what-have-you in the coffee). If there is over-extraction, such as leaving a cafetiere/french press for far too long before pressing the plunger and pouring the coffee, things that don't taste nice get extracted, and the flavour deteriorates. The point about consistancy of grind and resulting particle size, is that if a grinder on a coarse settting produces too much fines as well, then the over-extraction that will occur from those fines (because the fines are so much smaller and with more surface area to volume) will be noticeable.

In my experience the brewing method also makes a lot of difference for coffee. I much prefer coffee brewed with a filter to using a cafetiere/french press, and to a slightly lesser extent to using an Aeropress (which forces the coffee through a filter under pressure, rather than gravity like conventional filter brewing).

Given the time of year, I would suggest trying cold brew coffee. Because the extraction is extremely slow and uses cold water, I think consistency of ground coffee particle size is much less important, and I suspect any difference between using a blade or burr grinder would be much less noticeable, if at all. I find cold brew coffee is a good post-ride 'pick me up' on a warm day.

https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee/

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/sep/09/coffee-cold-brew-hot-new-thing