Coffee?

[Donn]

A co-worker of mine from Guatemala said she drinks instant coffee because it reminded her of home.

I guess the exporting makes it too expensive for the locals??

There are some places that have grown coffee for centuries like Ethiopia and Yemen, where coffee drinking has deep cultural roots, but mostly the people who grow it don't seem to be really into drinking it. Brazilians like their cafezinhos, but quality coffee is not part of the deal there. I believe the instant coffee thing is a combination of unreliable quality in the local market, and an appreciation of modern 1st world convenience and style. Traditions are for hillbillies. In that context I think it tends to be called "nescafé" whether it is or not.

I drank it myself in the beginning. You can learn to love anything if it comes with a caffeine reward.

[alfredr]

My wife is Guatemalan. If the saying is true that people who like coffee drink it black and people who don't like coffee put other stuff in it, my observation would have to be that Guatemalans don't really like coffee. 'Cafe con leche' (coffee with milk) is a cup of hot milk with a lot of sugar and a little coffee. But since I don't drink it myself, when I'm there, I really don't pay attention to how other, non-family members drink their coffee. I don't find that coffee's taste lives up to what the aroma suggests it should be like.

[Tom Gregory]

I’m a late comer to drinking coffee. I like it. About two months ago I developed an allergy to it. If I smell it, my eyes water up and I get very congested for a few hours. I quit cold turkey. I’m not sensitive to caffeine so the only adverse affect is missing it.

[jperry1466]

"black coffee" doesn't have any sugar in it. It's coffee alone. I'd call what you drink to be "coffee, ruined by 1 sugar" or something like that.

This describes me. In my young days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I had to have cream and sugar. Then one of my early mentors told me that if I ever got used to drinking black coffee with nothing in it, I wouldn't be able to stand it any other way. As it turned out, he was right. I have a cup or two every morning and can't stand it any way but black with nothing else. Funny how mentors can be right about so many things besides just music.

[tofu]

A

[finnbogi]

A co-worker of mine from Guatemala said she drinks instant coffee because it reminded her of home.

I guess the exporting makes it too expensive for the locals??

There are some places that have grown coffee for centuries like Ethiopia and Yemen, where coffee drinking has deep cultural roots, but mostly the people who grow it don't seem to be really into drinking it.

This is also the case for Kenya, which exports a lot of coffee but the local market is small as there is a strong culture for drinking tea (with lots of milk and sugar). When I first started visiting Kenya, all I could get was instant coffee but in the last few years the access to quality coffee has improved substantially.

As for my own coffee drinking habits: Two espressi in the morning and two right after lunch (no sugar). Usually no more coffee after that and certainly never after dinner.

[Donn]

I'm not really a coffee in the am person, but more after dinner into the night.

That's where I started. It really seemed like some caffeine before retiring helped for optimal sleep.

I do own a modern electric grinder, but it seems the old ones do a better job, so it doesn't get used much.

Particularly, the manual grinder's fixed burr system will do a much better job than those whirly blade electric things.

1. Freshly roasted - ideally within the week. Pre-ground coffee loses flavor much faster. Freezer is better than just letting it die.
2. Good grinder.
3. Brew however you like, except no percolators, and use plenty of coffee, like a couple tablespoons per cup though this of course depends on the cup, brewing method etc.
   
   One inexpensive intro to the intense end of the brewing spectrum is a "moka pot", looks kind of like an old percolator but unscrews in the middle. Takes a good grinder and some technique. This makes extremely strong tasting coffee.

This is about contemporary coffee based on decent quality Arabica, which is also where it was at a century ago - hence the curious vacuum pots and stuff and the fairly high quality hand grinders of yesteryear. The US shifted to a very different type of coffee after WWII, supposedly due in large part to US Navy practices, where we used percolators to make thin coffee with Robusta beans. It's something to drink, it has caffeine, it's just that neither the technique nor the expectations line up with currently popular Arabica coffee which is better strong and not boiled.

[Rick Denney]

I like my coffee like I like my women:

Hot, strong, and often.

The difference, of course, is that the coffee, in the plural sense that you stated, is actually available.

Rick "who drinks two or three LARGE pour-overs a day, black, using the darkest roast he can find" Denney

[Three Valves]

I have availability too, but frequency seems to be getting more scarce.

[BopEuph]

Here's a question (particularly for Bloke):

Is drinking black coffee while playing your horn as bad as, say, drinking soda or eating prior to playing? Is it something we should be careful with mixing?

[2ba4t]

Now I am a bear of very little brain but even my friend Piglet cannot understand what this has to do with the tuba. I could understand if you were telling us how to make a coffee machine out of a little C french tuba or how to convert and even double up on a 7 valve horn where the 7th valve was actually a coffee percolator. I suppose you could have the 1st valve for black caff, 2nd for black decaf., 3rd caff with milk; 4th decaff with milk; etc etc.

I must have missed something other than lockdown fatigue. [I do enjoy Kenyan Blue, very strong. Last time I got some was about 40 years ago, so I stick to south Islay whisky - Laphroaigh or Ardbeg. They fit in with tuba playing and the bottle fits in my bell.]

[BopEuph]

but I do floss - pre-playing, and rinse out my mouth. That having been said, I consume very few sugars or starches, so I believe there is less oral cavity residue than in the past.

So then you wouldn't think the acidity of coffee would be anything to worry about? I've been wondering this myself, since I drink a lot of coffee, and have been wondering if rinsing the mouth out is needed or overkill.

[WC8KCY]

Mrs. bloke's and my tastes in coffees are just a bit snobbish.

We only drink Clover Valley varieties of coffees (the Dollar General brand).

My favorite popularly-priced coffee is Clover Valley Donut Shop Blend.

The small cans turn over fast at the local DG, so it's always fresh (and often sold out). As with any coffee worth drinking, I store it in the freezer, always use good Melitta filters and brew it with care using filtered water.

Around my place, I reserve the premium coffee for the first pot of the day and to serve to guests. After that, it's my favorite store-brand coffees out of 1-pound-ish cans.

[Donn]

So then you wouldn't think the acidity of coffee would be anything to worry about?

Coffee is less acidic than saliva, so I think you're OK there to drink as much as you want.

[groovlow]

Hold on, I'm making more right now...
Seasonally in the short, dark days of winter....gotta have some.
Community Coffee signature dark roast is my favorite.
Coffee turned into a luxury item for me in the virally silent "Music City",
4 pots in 12 weeks.

[Three Valves]

Royal Farms has invaded DelMarVa, but WAWA is still King of coffee!!

RF is OK for gas, scrapple sammiches and fried chicken only. Their coffee sucks.

[BopEuph]

I'm neither a chemist nor a physician...but I'm only telling you what I do.

Fair enough. Wasn't sure if any repair you've done over the years could have been explained with "drank way too much coffee."

- Some FEW people (and - over my lifetime - I've seen it as the SAME ones, REGARDLESS of what new brand of instrument they've bought) deposit ENORMOUS quantities of lime into instruments, and destroy them. Some secrete a little...I personally seem (??) to excrete very little.

A friend has perspiration that's so acidic it's eaten through silver finish. That was so wild to me.

I rinse the coffee out of my mouth (after a few hours, REGARDLESS of what I'm planning on doing) because - by mid-afternoon - I get really tired of "coffee mouth".

Out of curiosity, do you put anything in your coffee? Black coffee doesn't give me that "coffee mouth."

Coffee is less acidic than saliva, so I think you're OK there to drink as much as you want.

Oh, didn't know that. Thanks. I actually skip breakfast so that I can shed tuba in the morning and not worry too much about food particles, but it got me wondering if I should be doing that with coffee too...especially since I take a gulp between etudes.

[Donn]

A friend has perspiration that's so acidic it's eaten through silver finish. That was so wild to me.

In trades where people work with metal a lot, this is called "piss finger", I think particularly when the effect is observable on iron. It appears to be an inherent condition, so really nothing to be done about, but I bet someone who's really intent on dealing with it by means of frequent soap/detergent washing or something can make it worse.

[BopEuph]

Wow, I wonder if he knew that. He's used cloth to protect his horn, but I guess he wasn't vigilant about it, since I saw some serious wear marks where the left hand goes on his euph. I haven't seen him in a decade; I wonder how his current horn is.

If I remember, his nickel plated Hirschbrunner didn't have this issue. But I do remember his lead pipe had red rot a year in, and he had serious issues dealing with Custom Music on simply trying to purchase a replacement part.

[bort]

pH is a logarithmic scale, so each jump of 1 pH represents 10x the amount. Just like the Richter scale, or the decibel scale.

So if coffee has a pH of 5, and milk (I dunno) has a pH of 6... that means that coffee is 10 times more acidic than milk.

Bonus points: what does pH stand for?