For coffee lovers...
Very interesting and enlightening article from Totally Wired Magazine. Personally, I own one of the cheap steam driven machines and I'm always disappointed at the quality of the shot I get from it. To my credit, I've figured out that I can get a good shot if I'm also frothing milk while the shot draws, since I can control the rate at which the water is forced over the grind and thus avoid over-heating the coffee. This is quite complicated, as it requires that I ignore the well-meaning water guides on the side of the machine and that I start to froth the milk at a point in the process NOT recommended by the instruction manual. Ah the lengths we addicts will go to for a good cup!
Anyway, if I had more money I would buy one of the super-automated machines suggested in the article, this one specifically, would be my first choice.
I probably should just bite the bullet and buy one anyway, since I spend $3 a day, on average (I mostly buy from The Well at Regent College, where I can get a good regular sized latte for just under $3). It would pay for itself over the course of a year. Unless I quit drinking the stuff, though THAT is unlikely.
By the way, I have renamed Starbucks to Fourbucks since that is roughly the amount of cash one parts with every time one sets one's foot in their door. As an aside, I avoid drinking Fourbucks whenever possible. I'm not a snob, I just prefer to support the small local cafes if I can. Unfortunately I haven't yet found a local cafe that serves Lavazza (my favourite bean), and there is one thing going for Fourbucks that many other cafes lack: consistency.
Aside from the article linked to above, everyone thinking of buying a home espresso maker should also read this.
There is just one final problem: it is always nice to have someone else make your coffee (especially if it is good), even if you have to pay. Unfortunately my wife won't make me coffee, and when I complain that she doesn't care about my needs, she has four responses:
1) Stop being a big girl and quit your whinging!*
2) I don't like the stuff, it is messy.
3) I want you to quit drinking it, why would I make it for you? (duh?!)
4) When was the last time you bought ME flowers, or breakfast in bed, or...?
I have to console myself with the thought that since she doesn't drink coffee she probably wouldn't make it right, and so I wouldn't like it if she made it for me anyway.
*(Technically two responses but I'm guessing that she doesn't equate "being a big girl" with the hard won quality of "being a whinger", something I'm quite good at as you have by now guessed. I'm supposing that this turn of phrase has more to do with the particular construction of words sounding (to her ear) rather nice together (in a poetic sense), rather than their possessing an ontological necessity of "girlie-ness" and "whinging-ness" as co-equals in a larger metaphysical whole. Which is to say, this insult is, purely and simply, a matter belonging to aesthetics rather than ontology.)
Anyway, if I had more money I would buy one of the super-automated machines suggested in the article, this one specifically, would be my first choice.
I probably should just bite the bullet and buy one anyway, since I spend $3 a day, on average (I mostly buy from The Well at Regent College, where I can get a good regular sized latte for just under $3). It would pay for itself over the course of a year. Unless I quit drinking the stuff, though THAT is unlikely.
By the way, I have renamed Starbucks to Fourbucks since that is roughly the amount of cash one parts with every time one sets one's foot in their door. As an aside, I avoid drinking Fourbucks whenever possible. I'm not a snob, I just prefer to support the small local cafes if I can. Unfortunately I haven't yet found a local cafe that serves Lavazza (my favourite bean), and there is one thing going for Fourbucks that many other cafes lack: consistency.
Aside from the article linked to above, everyone thinking of buying a home espresso maker should also read this.
There is just one final problem: it is always nice to have someone else make your coffee (especially if it is good), even if you have to pay. Unfortunately my wife won't make me coffee, and when I complain that she doesn't care about my needs, she has four responses:
1) Stop being a big girl and quit your whinging!*
2) I don't like the stuff, it is messy.
3) I want you to quit drinking it, why would I make it for you? (duh?!)
4) When was the last time you bought ME flowers, or breakfast in bed, or...?
I have to console myself with the thought that since she doesn't drink coffee she probably wouldn't make it right, and so I wouldn't like it if she made it for me anyway.
*(Technically two responses but I'm guessing that she doesn't equate "being a big girl" with the hard won quality of "being a whinger", something I'm quite good at as you have by now guessed. I'm supposing that this turn of phrase has more to do with the particular construction of words sounding (to her ear) rather nice together (in a poetic sense), rather than their possessing an ontological necessity of "girlie-ness" and "whinging-ness" as co-equals in a larger metaphysical whole. Which is to say, this insult is, purely and simply, a matter belonging to aesthetics rather than ontology.)
posted by Timbo at 1:36 pm
1 Comments:
Wow, Tim. I had no idea. You are more addicted than I am. I came to realize that I actually was addicted to the stuff one morning at work - I had a headache all morning and couldn't get anything done, until after lunch when I realized that I hadn't had a cup all day. That was quickly remedied, and the world became good again.
I don't require espresso, though, any cup of a decent roast is good enough for me. My home brew is from Bean Around the World, work stuff is from Starbucks. (I don't buy beans from the Bucks, I'd rather go to the local shops' too.) My roommate doesn't enable my addiction quite the way my old one did, so I'm down to a french press a day, or even less. That spendy machine looks pretty swank, though. Too bad I don't have the counter space. Or the cash.
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