A COFFEE TALE, By Buzz
A COFFEE TALE, By Buzz
Although I live in the land of many wonderful different kinds of tea, I'm not a tea drinker. I go back to the time when I could get a cup of coffee for a dime at a diner. No way will I even step inside a Starbucks to pay a small fortune for a fancy cup of coffee with a fancy name, but I brew my own coffee with a Philips 4-cup coffee brewer. I drink only one mug (which holds about 1 1/2 baker's size cup) of coffee every day with breakfast.
For many years I used a brand called UCC coffee that comes in a tin of 400 grams of ground coffee. It cost the US equivalent of $11. That company roasts Green coffee beans, and although I never heard of that kind of beans or where it is grown, it was a fairly smooth blend. I would pour my mug of water into the brewer and would put 2 heaping scoops of the ground coffee, which would be about 1/4 baker's size cup, into the permanent filter in the brewer and turn it on to get my mug of coffee, to which I would add one small packet of Equal sweetener and a little milk. It was pretty good, but now no more cause it can no longer be found anywhere here, even on line.
I noted that something from my previous life has come here. Tim Horton's has by now opened about 800 donut and coffee restaurants in China, but none near me yet. What does Tim Horton's mean to me? The very first Tim Horton's was opened in Hamilton, Ontario, the very city in which I was born and grew up before eventually moving to Toronto - in other words, Tim Horton's restaurants and I were born in the same city. Tim Horton was one of the great Maple Leaf hockey players from back in the days when they were Stanley Cup winners, they were all Canadian heroes back then. His donut/coffee restaurant concept caught fire (not REALLY fire) and stores opened all across Canada. Tim Hortons became a landmark, and you couldn't call yourself a Canadian unless you spent a little of your time in a Tim Horton's for donuts and coffee. There was one not far from my Toronto office and you could find me there from time to time. Eventually it has spread around the world, and as of last March there are 639 Tim Horton's restaurants in the USA.
It hit me. Maybe Tim Horton's sells its ground coffee in cans like UCC did, and maybe I could get it on line. That wish came true. I could get a 1.36 kg can of Tim Horton's ground coffee that was roasted and canned in Canada and was available on line here.
Tim Horton's roasts Arabica beans exclusively. This can of 1.36 kg cost me the US equivalent of $25 and that worked out to an amazing bargain compared to the UCC coffee, and wait, I'll tell you even more that cut the cost in half again.
My first try of my Tim's coffee was done the same as I had for the UCC blend - 2 scoops of ground coffee for a mug of water, a small packet of Equal and a little milk. WOW was that ever strong. Next time I tried ONE scoop of the ground coffee with a sweetener and a little milk. PERFECT!!! That just cut the lesser price of the coffee than the other brand IN HALF . Do the math, not only am I getting a taste from home, but it's costing me much less than it did before. That one can of Tim's coffee will last me for many months.
Am I happy?
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Any other coffee drinkers out there?
There is a big commercial building being finished a two minute walk from my building. With a little bit of luck, maybe a Tim Horton's restaurant will open in it and I can get fat on their donuts as well. Maybe I should just stick to TimBits and coffee.
I love my coffee-- for Breakfast and again at 3 or 4 PM.
I've tried different methods of preparation, including drip (in a Chemex). I actually bought the Chemex partially because it looks so cool-- like a piece of laboratory equipment. (I've been told I was an Alchemist in a past life.
But fairly recently I've started making my own Cold Brew.
Well, if you really ARE an alchemist you should be a rich man since you can turn a common metal into gold.
I try to be 100% Organic in everything I eat or drink, so I only use Whole Foods Market Organic beans.
I've recently been doing a lot of research on foods and health and have switched to Whole Foods brand* unsweetened organic Soy Milk.
No sweetener, real or synthetic, although the Soymilk tastes sweet to me. (It also cuts any acidity, but in addition Cold Brew seems to be less acidic than coffee prepared in other ways.
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*Cost: I have a credit card linked to Whole Foods that gives 5% back on all purchases made at their stores. In addition there's 5% back on any purchases made at Amazon. (They're now the same company-- Amazon bough Whole Foods a while back).
Modern Alchemists can do much more powerful stuff than that! (Although it takes a lot of practice to master).
I've actually taken courses leading up to doing that sort of thing.... I've mastered some of the earlier (foundational) skills, .but I still have a long way to go.
I guess the only healthy thing I can say about the food we eat is that my wife grows a lot of the veggies we eat, and we eat a lot of them, and she does not use any kind of inorganic fertilizer or chemicals. She uses banana peels, my used coffee grains, and other non-edible parts of the other fruits or veggies as fertilizer.
Okay, interestng. Whatever helps to keep your mind healthy.
Sounds healthy!
In America, most people eat unhealthy.
The first steps to improving "SAD" (the Sandard American Diet")>
1. Cut sugar.
2, Eat more veggies!
3. Eat fish, especially wild caught Salmon., Sardines.
Then the next step: eat even more veggies.
Also eat nuts--- raw, unsalted.
Good diet. Yesterday I ate sliced lox (smoked salmon) dipped in a soy sauce/wasabi mix, potato and a banana for supper.
I've always been a Dunkin Donuts guy. I don't know what it is they do to their coffee, but there is something about it even when you buy their ground coffee in the supermarket. When you do buy it that way it usually comes in a special bag rather than a can. Maybe that has something to do with it.
I hope I'm not going a bit off topic with this, but has anyone ever heard of Coffee Jello? I know I had it at some point, but I can never find that flavor in Jello anymore.
Heard of coffee Jello? Not me. I really don't understand why, even in the Big Box stores that import foreign food, like METRO, I've never seen Jello here.
There was a Dunkin' Donuts in Zhengzhou, and when i lived there I would buy a dozen frozen bagels and keep them in our freezer until needed, and also some donuts.
I want you to know DD was a local enterprise for me just as Tim Horton's was for you once upon a time. It was founded by what some might call a lantzman, Bill Rosenburg in Quincy MA. He took the name from what people did with donuts back in the day: dunked them in coffee.
I haven't had it in years, but their reputation is that their coffee is excellent.
No surprise about dunking the plain donuts, did it myself back then. However, nobody should do that with all the fancy donuts these days.
Even though I did go to the Dunkin' Donuts in Zhengzhou to buy bagels and donuts, I never drank their coffee.
When I was a kid it seemed all families frequenrtly had Jello for dessert. But now a days I never hear about it.
I wonder if its gone out of style?
P.S, I never heard of coffee Jello-- didn't know they made that.
I think it's a mainstay dessert at Old Folks Homes - when the day comes that you are going to have to use false teeth, it is a blessing.
Thanks Buzz
Well, I'm already there, not with the old folks home (not necessary yet) but the false teeth are. Unfortunately I got measles when my permanent teeth were forming when I was a kid, and I never had good teeth.
LOL!
I like to have an iced mocha if I'm out but at home the only coffee I will drink now is whole bean Kauai coffee, vanilla macadamia nut. I cannot stand any other kind of coffee now. It's the best.
I love macademia nuts, bet that coffee is delicious. I don't remember drinking coffee, though I might have, when I was in Kauai, but that was more than half a century ago.
Evening...I have a cappuccino a day..
Buy a box of moccona sachets out of Woolies and I am happy with that..
But I will always go for a cappuccino when I am out at a cafe etc..
Enjoy!!! I'll stick to the plain old plain old.
I am going to Sheetz for my morning coffee
I never heard of Sheetz, but I see it's a restaurant.
Not exactly. It's a chain of gas stations, with a made-to-order sandwich restaurant and coffee shop inside. I think the most similar chain I've heard of is WaWa.
The coffee, IMO, is better than Starbucks, and much less expensive.
Obviously the person who thought up and started Starbucks knew something about human nature.
Everything is much less expensive than Starbucks!
True story.
and this morning I am going for today's cup
and the cash register computer gave it to me for free
As you told us you do.
How did that happen?
Every so often it gives you a free one for loyalty points for purchases
I guess Starbucks doesn't do that - it would eat into the exorbitant profits they must make from their concoctions.
Sheetz as a company had very good business sense right from the start. When one first opened near where I went to college, their gas prices were way lower than the competition, and they had nice, clean convenience stores with well-kept bathrooms. Then, they didn't offer as much in the way of food as now, but they did already have pretty good coffee. Just not the variety of frou-frou drinks that Starbucks has.
And they kept those low gas prices for quite a while. It didn't feel like a promotional price, because it stayed low for so long. By the time they raised their prices to the same as all the other gas stations around, people were already stopping there for gas and heading inside for their road snacks.
They were also pretty early to offer a gas discount via a loyalty card. So, cheaper gas, clean stores, good coffee, and a pretty good array of snacks and hot food = customer loyalty.
A while back I read that there are a large number of Starbucks in China-- apparently its quite popular there. (Or used to be?)
I was surprised because I had thought that China was very much a Tea drinking culture-- not many drinking coffee...?
Coffee is becoming more popular here. Local people are starting to open up independant specialty coffee places - a while back I posted an article about one of them. But the day isn't over for tea houses. A new big one just took over the space of my favourite bakery here, which pissed me off.
Coffee is becoming more popular here.
I know, or have known, quite a few Chinese (Chinese-American) people here (in the U.S.). Many of the very oldest generation own, or work in Chinese restaurants. Or-- own Chinese laundries, etc.
But their kids? many are software engineers, accountants, or work in other skilled jobs.
But the reason I'm mentioning this-- almost all are coffee drinkers! I finally found out why: many are hard-working and upwardly mobile. And they want their minds to be sharp-- so they want the caffeine (besides the energy boost, caffeine actually does tend to increase mental acuity)
Tea has caffeine as well.
Actually the bakery I liked opened up a smaller store and still sells bagels, so I'm now okay with that.
Well since this has come back from a month ago, I again went to Sheetz for coffee with friends. Almost every morning I go there.
Love my coffee, have a couple of cups to start the day while I read the news online. Back when I worked I used to drink coffee all day long but since retirement I've cut down to a max of two cups a day. No additives for me however, I like my coffee as black as a politician's soul.
Your "2 cups" is not much more than my 1 mug.
One of the few luxuries in life that I still enjoy is my daily fix of very black coffee. My wife is from Papua New Guinea, met her while I was working there. Whenever she makes a visit back home she always brings me back a good supply of locally grown roasted beans. Also we have several friends from PNG who bring back a supply of beans for me whenever they make a visit home.
The quality is not as high as quality beans from Brazil, but is better than the "big name" brands available in the supermarkets. Although I will have a couple of cups a day, I still accumulate quite a stock in the pantry.
I know that REAL coffee afficionados are black coffee drinkers, but I'm not a REAL coffee afficionado, so I'm permitted to pollute my coffee a little bit.
Maybe not all?
The Italians, like the French, are pretty fanatical re: the quality of food and drink. And the Italians especially about coffee-- they have many different kinds of Coffees-- IIRC, some with milk, foamed milk, etc..
Yes, of course, doesn't cappucino come from Italy?
true-- also a few other types with Italian nanmes which I forgot. There's even one called "Cafe Americano". I don't know what it is but my guess would be that its regular coffee with cream and sugar.
8 served in the Navy and I got in used to the swill they have aboard ship. I think they go to the coffee sellers after all the others have gotten what they wanted, swept the floor of the warehouse, roasted and ground it and sent it to us. On top of that no one in the wardroom had a clue about making coffee. They would just keep adding more grounds to the filter until it wouldn't hold any more. The good stuff was when it was about 0200 and you send down for cup from the pot that was made at 1800. Mmmm mmmm good. Now a days I just go to the store and get whatever is on sale and the cheapest.
Then you join me in NOT being a REAL coffee afficionado.
They did not call Navy coffee "sludge" for nothing, especially sludge and sliders for breakfast. Strongest coffee I ever had was at sea.
What are sliders?
Greasy food that slides around on the metal serving tray every time the ship takes a roll, sometimes they slid all the way off the tray.
Guess that's okay as long as the floor had been recently swabbed.
I should have stated that the tables had a raised edge to keep food and trays on the table and off the decks.
My brother was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Canadian Navy Reserve, and he crossed the Atlantic in a frigate in very bad weather. I can understand why tables in those kinds of ships need guardrails on the table edges.
When I got out. Of the Navy and my coffee no longer had any JP-5, DFM OR BUNKER C in it I thought something was wrong. Didn't taste right.
They also slid right down your throat.
I hear ya. I did a WESTPAC on a gator freighter USS Okinawa (LPH-3) in 1981. The JP-5 lines went right through the main water holding tanks. The fuel lines leaked and the water tasted like kerosene and the scuttlebutts had a scummy film on them. Coffee tasted the same.
Buzz-- I just noticed that two of your seeds are now on the front page.
Congratulations!!
That's not too unusual, I often have 4 so maybe later today I might post one or two more.
You deserve a RAV (remember those-- "Random Act of Vineness). Although actually here it would be a RANT ("Random Act of Newstalkerness.
Awarded for giving us something to look at to take a break from all the political horseshit!
(A few other people here also post intelligent stuff and should also be awarded)
.
"Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth."
(I guess we have a lot of coffee drinkers on this site?)
No surprise.
I just checked-- three of your seeds are on the front page--with a total of 287 comments.
What does that mean?
Perhaps you are drinking more coffee?
IMO it's mostly because of you.
Wow!!! It was a surprise to see this back up front.
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Yep, it did. Thank you for yet another superb helpful technical accomplishment. Have a cup of coffee on me. LOL
I want to report just how much this Tim's coffee has cost me now that I have been using it for a month. On the basis that I drink one mug of coffee a day, with my breakfast, it has cost me about 25 cents per mug - compare THAT with Starbucks. LOL