I got a new shipment of Black Rifle coffee today. I don't drink as much coffee in the summer as I do the rest of the year, so I still had an unopened bag and most of another bag. I guess I need to start drinking it. Blackbeard's Delight is a dark roast, while the other one is a medium roast.
Lately I've been liking Peet's coffee again. I seem to cycle between a few brands; I've become a creature of coffee habit.
I can totally enjoy maxwell house original...right now...gotta giant steaming cup...outside...relaxing
I think that I caught the “coffee tastes bad” thing from @John Brunner (or whoever it was that was saying that no coffee tasted good anymore). None of the coffee we have here at home tastes good to me. We went to IHOP for breakfast, and I look forward to their coffee , but this time, I didn’t even finish the cup, it tasted bad to me. I am sure the coffee was the same, just my taster not working right.
I used to be fine with Maxwell House, Folgers, or even store brands, but I have turned into somewhat of a coffee snob. While I can drink some coffees, such as the Black Rifle Silencer brand, over and over and enjoy each cup, I also like to try different blends and brews, which is why I like Black Rifles' subscription option, where they choose the two bags of coffee they send each month. I have never had one that I hated, and I have enjoyed most of them. Meanwhile, most of the time that I order coffee in a restaurant, I don't like it very much and can't even drink some of that stuff.
Isn't that the oddest thing? And it doesn't affect other foods, so there's not a general taste bud problem or sinus issue. I took zinc for a while. It seemed to help a little, but "the placebo effect" is always a possibility. I think my coffee taste buds have come back, or maybe I've just gotten used to it.
For those of you who have lost your taste for coffee, have you been tested for Dr. Fauci's virus? Seriously, my nephew, who is in his late 50s, got the virus and tested positive, but the only symptoms he had from it was that some things (coffee being one of them) lost their taste, the other being that he felt unusually tired. He passed the virus on to his parents, my brother, and sister-in-law, who had a few more problems than that but still described it as being not nearly as bad as the flu. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons that could apply, age-related taste decline being one of them, but I wouldn't think that would be so sudden. Some drugs, such as beta-blockers and blood pressure medications, can do that, too. It could also be that you're drinking coffee that doesn't taste like much.
The one on the right, above, with the military insignia and the V - it is a Vietnamese Arabica medium roast, and it smells terrific. I am brewing a pot now but my experience has been that when the beans smell good, the coffee tastes good, and vice versa.
Today, I got my $10 amazon gift card from Humana for this month; and I ordered a reusable K-cup for our coffee maker. Every month, I order a package of the McCafe K-cups for Bobby, and it costs over $30. For that same price, we can buy 3 whole cans of the McCafe Colombian that he always drinks, which would last him for 3 months; so being able to use the regular coffee in the K-cups should save us money, and it was only $10 to buy it.
Not sure if I shared this or not. Mom and I tried several little sample bags of Mexican coffee grounds once. Worst coffee we ever had. But what was funny was the fact that one tasted like coffee with a Swisher Sweet rung out into it. LOL!
These came today. The Just Black blend is a familiar one and, along with the Silencer blend, it's among my favorites. The other is a dark roast blend that I haven't tried. However, while I don't usually like dark roasts, the ones that I have had from Black Rifle haven't been bad. If I find it to be too strong, I'll just mix it with a light roast. I haven't even opened the last two that I received from Black Rifle, though, because I have been too busy to drink a lot of coffee lately. I'm sure I'll catch up with it once winter comes, however.
I'm moving on from Peet's, especially the k-cups. We noticed that when we put a Peet's k-cup in the Keurig, the water flow through the k-cup is reeeeeeeaaallllly slow. I thought the machine needed descaling but when I put a McCafe k-cup in there, it runs just fine. I notice that the Peet's have a slight "rattle" when you shake them, so I suppose they have some custom design baffle on the inside or something. If I was more curious, I'd dismantle one and have a look but I'm not that interested.
Review of Capresso percolator (950 watts, 8 (5 oz) cup capacity.) Actually, I'm pretty impressed. The machine is nice to look at and easy to assemble/use. I cleaned all the parts and decided to give it a whirl. The coffee basket and the inside of the pot have measure markings which I disregarded. The instruction book said something like 1 tablespoon of coffee for each 5 oz cup, which I also disregarded. I'm used to the Bunn drip machine which needs A LOT more coffee than that to make a decent brew. Since I had some cans of ground McCafe coffee I decided to use that instead of grinding beans. It is a medium grind so probably not the best for a percolator, but I have it and it's easy. So I loaded up the percolator with proportions similar to the Bunn to make 6 cups and plugged it in. It completed the 6-cup brew quickly though I didn't time it; I was reading the instruction manual and not paying attention. According to the manual it takes about 1 minute per cup to brew. The coffee smelled great and was VERY dark when poured. Oops. It was also VERY hot. Much hotter than the Bunn or the Keurig makes. After slurping the steaming brew, I was honestly pretty impressed. I need to cut back on the amount of coffee to water ratio and try a coarser grind (grinds left in the bottom of my cup), but the coffee is smooth and tasty. Tomorrow I'll try a pot using the markings Capresso put in the machine and see how that goes. I'm going to have to learn to be careful with the pot when cleaning; I forgot what it's like to have a non-immersible appliance in the kitchen.