It’s funny, my lab in grad school had a reasonably nice coffee shop on the first floor. So I have a lot of pleasant memories with my lab mates and supervisor while drinking pretty good coffee (sometimes with flat whites or single source light roasts).

I remember once waiting in line while a new student in my lab was complaining about how Reddit coffee snobs said anything besides a light roast coffee with a splash of milk “killed the flavour of the beans”. So a postdoc and I each ordered light roast and put a splash of milk in it, originally planning on spending the next twenty minutes talking about how he had killed the flavour coffee with a dark roast, but then finding we both quite liked getting our coffee that way.

I prefer pour over brews too after going through allll the other options and absolutely love natural process beans (usually a lighter roast) from high elevation places like Ethiopia. Light roasts with delicate flavors absolutely shine with a pour over.

Even medium roasts that have floral and fruit notes absolutely shine with a pour over, especially since you can adjust your pour with something like a V60

My point still stands.

Doing a pour over or drip is low fuss. You could argue grinding your own beans isn’t low fuss, but most grinders have a preset with a hopper, so it’s still pretty quick and easy to grind your own beans.

As for recommendations, I always say go local, and make sure it’s been roasted recently.

As for what’s near me (Portland OR) I have quiet a few — Case Study, Coava, Heart, and Never are my current favorites.

Still more work than instant maxwell house, and still missing the point about the article. It isn’t about the coffee, it’s about the experience and the people you drink it with.

Frou-frou coffee has a way of making the experience about the coffee, rather than about the company and environs. At least that is the author’s point.

And I say this as someone who grinds their own beans every day.

I've come to this conclusion. Growing up in an italian-american household, the moka pot was a major part of that experience. Loved it as a kid (mainly adding milk and sugar in my younger years, now adding a little sambuca). But it was more the ritual - you would have it with others.

Since then I've gone down the espresso rabbit hole, and my set up makes some fantastic espresso, way better than the bitter lavazza moka pot coffee. but somehow, it doesn't replace those memories I made as a kid. Mostly because the ones who I drank espresso with have passed on.

It is an interesting thought.

I think lots of us have places we loved growing up, that in became nostalgic keystone locations for our childhoods. For me, it is an ice cream place. And it becomes all the more apparent that these locations were actually about the people, because at some point we realize actually it is just kinda mediocre soft-serve otherwise.

And maybe frou-frou is distracting. But the instant coffee doesn't induce the authentic experience, it just makes it noticeable in retrospect. Although, the author didn't explicitly claim that it did induce the experience... Anyway there's a big gap between frou-frou and instant coffee where all sorts of lovely little coffee shops live.

I dunno. This became kinda train of thought. In conclusion, I have no conclusion. It is good for people to enjoy things and we should definitely find little rituals to indulge in with our loved ones.

Starbuck’s Via instant coffee is the best instant coffee I’ve ever tasted, and it’s not close. Like a real cup of coffee, somehow. I’ve been looking for an off-brand version of it (micro ground coffee beans?) considering it’s much more expensive than regular instant coffee but haven’t found any.

I'm not sure if it comes out ahead on price, but I find Waka instant coffee to be great. Similar to your experience with Starbucks Via, it's the first brand that convinced me that instant coffee could be good. You can buy it on Amazon in little single-cup packets, or a bag of it.

Community Coffee makes an excellent instant.

I’d be too distracted by the horrible instant coffee to enjoy any conversation or environment.

Yeah. The conversation would go something like this: (spewing noise) “What did I just put in my mouth!? Hey. Lets feed this swill to the plants and go grab coffee at Methodical.”

You might return to find the plants having the shakes.

Yeah less fuss is the thing. Get some decent enough beans, and use a simple process to make the coffee. I found a little while ago that I enjoy the taste of the batch brew at the local coffee shop more than their espresso long black. I bought their pre-ground beans and a plunger and now I basically get the same thing except it's 1.50 per cup instead of 5 dollars and I find making a plunger means it's easier to share with other people.

I just store the bag of beans inside the plunger and the entire setup fits inside my backpack if I want to, just add hot water.

(currency not in NZD not USD)

Getting "roasted recently coffee" sounds like a problem, how do you make sure of it? Also, have you try nespresso(machines and coffee)? I find their coffee really good and can't stand anything else, easy to make and not expensive.

All quality roasters will put a roast date on the bag. Call them ahead of time and ask when they stock each roast, and just go at that time to get it essentially straight from the roaster.

Alternative answer (to all the existing 'ask them'/'it's on the bag'):

If it's from the supermarket, it's old.

If it's from somewhere more 'hipster', it's not.

(If it gives you a roasting date at all it's a good sign!)

You can ask what day they roasted it? Sometimes they write that on the bag. If it's a place with good turnover it's probably recent.

Buy direct from the roaster, they generally ship it the day or two after it’s been roasted.

At a specialty roaster, the date is printed on the bags of coffee. Or they will tell you.

Heart is great!

Agreed. I buy 5lbs from them at a time and keep it in the freezer. It’s usually frozen two days after they roasted it. I then refill the hopper on my grinder as necessary and use a pour over (chemex with a metal filter). It’s fast and easy and tasty. But I will also drink any coffee and enjoy it.

that's exactly what i recommended elsewhere in this post!

>That said, have any good coffee recommendations?

Anything cheap and fresh is good. I used to go to whole foods and look at the roast date and get the ones on sale.