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Bad Coffee 4

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KENAT

Mechanical
Jun 12, 2006
18,387
OK, a bit of a stretch for a serious "Obstacle Getting My Work Done Forum" but what is with the bad coffee? I'm here late trying to get stuff done and the coffee aint helping.

The coffee itself is supposedly a fairly reputable brand, Peets.

However, whenever I get a cup it tastes awful. 5 little containers of half & half and it's barely paletable. I had about the best cup I've had in months today, I got through almost half of it before I couldn't take the taste anymore.

Only good thing about the coffee is it's free.

I'll admit I'm not much of a Coffee drinker, much prefer hot tea with cow juice being a Brit originally (I know a lot of Brits like coffee & it's a stereotype but work with me here). In fact I'd be drinking tea but my milk went off. However, I've heard other mutterings about the issue.

So anyone else have this problem, anyone fixed it?

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
 
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Kopi Luwak is very expensive you know.

Never, but never question engineer's judgement
 
[morning] Have you tried adding Bailey's? Works for me. With the amount of crappy falvoured coffees the [gorgeous] around here brew , the Bailey's smell gets totally masked. [thumbsup2]

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>
 
We actually have 'Irish Cream' flavoured 'cream' (or whatever it's technically called) in those little cartons.

Tastes foul.

I wonder if I'd get away with straight Powers or Tullamor Dew though, hmm...

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
 
Oldfieldguy may have the best solution for water; condensate should be very pure.
You could also try distilled water or filtered water. The more pure the water the more likely it is to draw more flavour out of the grounds.
I can't remember ever having a good coffee in the US (not even in any one of the 420 Starbucks in Boston).
Best coffee is Germany, Holland or Italy.... no doubt the best sound in the world is when someone needs an espresso fix in an Italian office and you hear the beans being ground.
Now the coffee in France is pretty good but the French engineers I was visiting with liked to stop off at a little bar at around 8 am for a double espresso and an Absynth.
At a refinery near Milan at every break everyone would spill out of the main gate and into the bar for espresso and brandy.
Thanks, but not for me, just keep the coffee coming.

I hate coffee mate.
Nothing makes bad coffee worse than coffee mate powder and how I hate that in most of the crummy hotels in the US the always provide coffee mate with little red stirrers that just cannot dissolve the stuff. I end up sneaking creamers from the breakfast bar upto my room. But who thought up those Half and half things anyway? half what and what?
Pretty soon I'll end up like the archetypical Brit abroad with a suitcase full of soft toilet paper, cream, tea bags, and marmalade.
(But I do love my bacon the US way though it is getting harder to find these days).

JMW
 
Coffee is not something I ever drink. Im pretty sure I couldnt tell the difference between good and bad coffee. Our office has starbucks in the cafeteria. Not cheap.

I think I'll stick to tea.
 
The town-supplied water has a bitter, metallic taste so the office coffee has been and always will be bad. I dunk cookies to lessen the blow. Better yet donuts (I mean RINGS of POWER!) :)
 
Last time I was in a US hotel it had a full breakfast service and a fridge in my room. So I could take cartons of milk upstairs for coffee.

Best coffee ever though was in a little coffee bar outside a certain car plant in Maranello.

- Steve
 
The best coffee I have ever had was while on port-o-call in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The second was in the UAE, flavored with cardamom and served with dates.

The best way to test something is to squeeze it, slowly, until it breaks!
 
KENAT-

At least your coffee is free... At this site, all the "non-corporate people" have to pay for it in the cafeteria. What a crock...

The only thing that I've found to make bad coffee bearable, is French Vanilla creamer. Good coffee is good coffee with, or without, milk.

V
 
I have to ask, what's with this US obsession with cinnamon in all things?

At a Boston Starbucks (sorry, my earlier post should have said "420 Starbucks in Seattle"; I get confused as to which city I am in sometimes.... Holiday Inn syndrome .... but this time I mean Boston) they had cinnamon for the cappuccino but not chocolate sprinkles. Ughhh!

Sadly, I can't comment on the coffee in Buenos Aires. I was altogether much to pre-occupied with how to travel by taxi and still stay alive and sane. The only flavour I really noted was the very best steak I have ever tasted which was in a fast food place in the Occeana(?) Shopping arcade where I was hiding out from the street beggars. Oh yes, now I remember, I was in a Holiday Inn again... so the coffee was yuk! (Am I allowed to say "Yuk"? I understand that because of the popularity of Pirates of the Caribean the skull and crossbones, as a warning label on poisons and, presumably minefields, is to be replaced by a "Mr. Yuk" symbol....)

JMW
 
Thanks for the heads up vc66, I suspect then that it wont be long before they charge here. I could be wrong though, we have the odd hangover from some of the companies that were aquired/merged to form my current site, indcluding a limited supply of free doughnuts for certain employees, on a certain day, at a certain time, I've said too much...

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
 
I have my own coffee maker at work because I can't stomach the deathly elixir made in the communal coffee maker (possibly because it looks like it hasn't been cleaned since I started here in '06). I only make one pot a day, and I share it with another co-worker who tosses me a few bucks every now and then.

Mine's a cheap cuisinart 4-cup job that I bought in college, with the additional gold tone filter so my coffee doesn't taste like bleach from paper filters. At home we have a Cuisinart grind and brew, which will be the subject of a nasty custody dispute if my girlfriend and I ever split up.

I'm lucky enough to work in an office where my coffee maker and beans in the freezer are generally respected as off limits.
 
We've got the grind-n-brew at home. My biggest complaint with it is that we only get four good cups out of the "10 cup" carafe. It does stay warm and flavorful all day, though. I'd like to have one at work, but I don't know if I could justify the time and effort it takes to clean it out between brews.
As far as cinnamon in coffee, no thanks. I prefer it on my sweet rolls.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - [small]Thomas Jefferson [/small]
 
Peet's is one of my favorite brands... but I like black coffee with a strong taste and kick.

If your employeer offers hot chocolate packets, and has bad coffee, you could always combine the two.

Or if there is hot water go ahead and buy yourself some teabags.
 
Sideswiper, my employer provides the teabags, problem was I was out of milk. I drink my tea in the proper manner;-). (And no, I'm not going to use UHT half & half in it, by the way whoever asked, it's half & half milk & cream I believe.)

This situation is now corrected, at least for a couple of days.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
 
we have free coffee at my places but its like poop water.

I just stick with instant expresso, probably not much of a step up. but it sure gets me running.
 
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