They aren't 'supposed' to be white; pure white teeth are bleached teeth, it's not natural.
(I suppose truly natural is also unhealthy, but my point is perfectly healthy teeth can be - and are, without other non-health-improving intervention - less than pure white.)
I used to drink that much coffee. I got an espresso machine and started making americanos instead now I’m good with one cup a day. I don’t know what it is, clearly the caffeine is either higher or more bioavailabile or something, but it just sates my appetite for coffee.
(Actually i started making cappucinos first and stopped when i started putting on weight from them lol)
I don't think you're using units that could allow anyone to detect whether it's caffeine quantity or bioavailability that's at play. It depends on how you dose your espresso and drip coffee. I don't drink espresso but I think people are dosing something like 20 grams per shot, whereas for pourover they're dosing 18 grams of water per gram of coffee. For a standard "coffee cup" (which is 5 ounces of water that results in 4 ounces of coffee = 148 g of brew water), you're using 8g of coffee. Where I'm going with this is if your portafilter takes 40g of coffee for a double shot espresso, that is more coffee than 32g of coffee you'd use to brew 4 "cups", so you're just drinking more coffee. But, standard cups are a dumb unit (my coffee mug holds 400mL of water), so it's possible you aren't using that, and the espresso has a better caffeinating effect for the same amount of caffeine. We can't know because the words and units are conflated in so many ways (there's a cup, which is a drinking vessel, there's the cooking cup which is like 230mL, and there's the coffee cup which is 148mL of water in to get 118mL of coffee out).
I'm not a stickler for metric vs. imperial (I use both), but "cup" is a terrible terrible unit that needs to die. Use grams for anything coffee-related.
> "cup" is a terrible terrible unit that needs to die
Yes. Or more to the point, all of them are; not least because of the existence of all the others.
I know it's rarely going to actually matter that much even when I try to follow a recipe (which to the letter and quantity at least, I generally don't) whether '1 cup' is US legal, Imperial (UK but not common), metric, Canadian, US customary, or any of the other country variations, but it's still infuriating!
I resisted owning any at all for a long time, but eventually gave in thinking it would be a handy way of having volumetric 1:1 ratios if nothing else (e.g. as much tomato as onion) and double as 'a cup' for following American recipes. But which 'cup' did I get? (Bought in the UK.) Nuts. I then realised I already had cup marks on a glass measure (that I'd only used ex ante for millilitres, like a sane person) - sure enough, different 'cup'.
Well, since the recipes you wanted to use were using volumetric ratios then it doesn't matter what size cup you use… until you have something like tsp or tbsp in the recipe, which are more standard (although, because I wrote it I thought I'd check and it turns out that Australian tablespoons are 25% bigger than UK/US/CA's!)
For some recipes those kind of measures are helpful though, so I wouldn't get rid of them. I'll always have a cup handy (a British cup is, handily, the same amount most people would make for a nice cup of tea:) but I won't always have scales.
Definitely enjoy it more. Brewed coffee started tasting like stewed coffee or something, the americanos just have a 'cleaner' hit...i don't know. The weird thing is I find pourover to be more like espresso than brewed in that way, so it's probably just all in my head lol.
Anyway, point is I only drink one cup a day now and have become a closet coffee snob.
Pourover is more like espresso too. Almost the same mechanism, but espresso also uses pressure. And even though snobs will disagree, french press will be closer in flavor but “muddier”. Drip is pretty much the worst because it starts reheating your already perfectly good coffee before it’s even done.
Welcome to the snobbery! I went from “I refuse to order a coffee with more than two words” to super opinionated and picky, and now my rules are just don’t be insufferable and accept when my preferences aren’t reasonably available.
French press "muddiness" is not invariant but rather a function of filter size and type. It's the equivalent of steak doneness, use the appropriate equipment for the result you want.
Espresso is fundamentally different than pour-over. Pour-over is only using atmospheric pressure and espresso is about only not using atmospheric pressure. Pour-over is closer to drip than espresso.
Drip coffee is actually just pour-over coffee made with a machine, and using a warming burner is not required.
How good your coffee is depends not at all on the method used, and anyone telling you it does is just encoding their preference. Goodness of coffee is a combination of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, ratio of water to non-water compounds, time spent, and enjoyment of the experimentation. This combination is achieved by varying grind size, water temperature, bean roast, contact time, and experimenter time.
> French press "muddiness" is not invariant but rather a function of filter size and type. It's the equivalent of steak doneness, use the appropriate equipment for the result you want.
I don’t think this contradicts anything I said.
> Espresso is fundamentally different than pour-over. Pour-over is only using atmospheric pressure and espresso is about only not using atmospheric pressure.
To clarify, I meant that the distinction is that the water flows through the coffee in drip/pour over by gravity (as you said, atmospheric pressure) but with espresso it flows through with applied pressure.
> Pour-over is closer to drip than espresso.
> Drip coffee is actually just pour-over coffee made with a machine, and using a warming burner is not required.
This is pretty much what I was saying, with the distinction being that most people making drip do have a burner and that’s what makes their coffee taste worse.
> How good your coffee is depends not at all on the method used, and anyone telling you it does is just encoding their preference.
This is my first major point of disagreement besides how you chose to interpret things. For most people, the method their coffee is made makes a difference because people have shit to do, even baristas making it for them. A half assed French press will taste dramatically different than a half assed Mr Coffee will taste dramatically different than a push button espresso machine.
> Goodness of coffee is a combination of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, ratio of water to non-water compounds, time spent, and enjoyment of the experimentation. This combination is achieved by varying grind size, water temperature, bean roast, contact time, and experimenter time.
And even then, it’s a matter of preference, and might vary on occasion. And even then, you might encounter someone telling you your particular taste is wrong even if it delights you. Such as when I had the displeasure of ordering my absolute favorite latte I’ve ever had—I ordered a delicious natural process, the barista insisted I change my order twice and complained the whole time he was making it because the milk would ruin it, but I loved it.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but there’s a reason people find coffee snobs insufferable.
Oh also, I’ve had people insist I’m wrong to prefer homogenized milk, or whole milk over cream, or milk at all, depending on the particular varietal, origin, roast, grind, temperature.
I would argue the opposite, that non-homogenised milk makes no sense in this application - it's a toss up whether you'd get skimmed milk, cream (of an unpredictable fat %), or where in between.
(It has it's uses though, it's not that common in the UK, but I find it vastly better for making paneer for example - homogenised milk splits to a billion tiny wispy solids that don't set together well, leaving a crumbly texture; non-homogenised gives a much better mix and far bigger bits that hold together well.)
I don’t actually have any thoughts on aeropress! I’ve never tried it. Despite the differences I notice, my preference of brew process is mostly about convenience (other than not cooking it on a burner), I’m happy with a French press at home and either drip or espresso at a cafe, whichever gets me out the door quickest. So it’s rare I try a new one unless there’s a social reason.
I know lots of people love aeropress and if you’re curious I’d say give it a try and see if you like it :)
True, the darker the roast (ie roasted longer), generally the less caffeine it has in it. Espresso has some of the least since it is one of the darkest roasts.
That is an urban myth unfortunately, darker coffee does not have less caffeine because caffeine is heat stable at typical roasting temperatures. (20 to 240C). Here’s a more thorough explanation of it: https://www.kickinghorsecoffee.com/caffeine-myths-dark-vs-li...
The effect probably came to be known because darker roaster coffee is less dense. So if you are measuring your coffee by volume (i.e. eyeballing it) and not mass, for the same volume the darker the coffee the less caffeine it has. But per gram of coffee, it’s pretty much the same.
Yeah it’s not the roast, it’s the brewing/extraction method. Drip/pour over extract more caffeine than espresso, presumably from longer exposure to more surface area.
