BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:36 AM

Allen, you have won so far: Bushell's coffee brewed with water containing rust and traces of machine oil. Easily tops all first-australian grub of grubs - as a tall tale to be told while enjoying a billy brewed with fresh source water.

Grishka (spent a couple of years down under, learned to appreciate McDonald's coffee there)

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Allan C.
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:40 AM

I have discovered that, after I have deciphered the shop's lingo with regard to size and style of coffee and place my order, my hackles rise when they ask: What flavor, vanilla, hazelnut or mocha? I have to keep myself from shouting, "What flavor? COFFEE flavor, you idiot!"

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:43 AM

The coffee that used to be served in MacDonalds was so atrocious that it looked and tasted just like hot dish water. It's bad enough eating the unhealthy stuff and then to add a bad coffee, yuck. I could have had a cold drink with the meal menu but it was in the middle of winter and this particular MacDonalds was a bit remote and quite a long chilly walk home. The coffee I've been told is getting better....apparently.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 08:16 AM

Narrowly escaped one last summer in Iraklion, Crete where I asked for a coffee at a nice little sidestreet café. The waitress, deducing I was a tourist and English too, with a bright smile said "Nescafé?"

The real stuff was much nicer :)

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 09:45 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: lefthanded guitar - PM
Date: 10 Mar 11 - 02:47 PM

Starbucks I don't know WHY that vile stuff is so popular

I have a theory that Starbucks brews their coffee to a strength that works well as a base for the various coffee-flavored concoctions they sell. It's not meant to be drunk straight-up. It's meant to be adulterated until all resemblance to its original fresh-from-the-pot state has vanished. Drinking a large (or whatever Starbuckese for "large" is) "black coffee" will result in a four-hour bout of intolerable indigestion.

And olddude, all Folgers coffees are not the same. My wife and I have become addicted to their "Black Silk" blend. Compared to it, their "Classic Roast" and similar blends taste like weak dishwater.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 01:28 PM

Can the demise of Borders Book Shops be attributed to their awarding the coffee shop franchise to Starbucks? That's when I stopped going for a coffee and a browse.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 01:45 PM

best coffee Whittards St Augustin Columbian.... it is wonderful.

worst... out of those cafevend dispensers. you select your little sachet and plug it into the maker and it is squirted or extruded through hot water into a plastic cup.

Ugh! Tastes like what the contents of an ashtray and cat piss would smell of, if you mixed them together.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:11 PM

You find that you can get used to the smell of cat piss.....

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:14 PM

I agree that Starbucks is pretty awful...too high-priced...and downright pretentious as well. But I never drink their coffee anyway. I have tea if I go there (and I hardly ever do).

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:36 PM

I haven't been in a Starbuck's since the day I discovered they'd taken over the Borders' franchise.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:38 PM

Did they? Christ! I thought it was just a partnership or something.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:44 PM

Heard Paulo Tullio, an Italian food critic living in Ireland for many years, talking about the problem of getting decent espresso in Ireland, this evening. "Imagine if you (an Irishman) went into a pub, asked for a pint of Guinness - and it arrived with no head on it! What would you do?"

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:50 PM

I would blame Henry the VIIIth for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:38 PM

Starbucks has the in-store cafe franchise for Barnes and Noble bookstores, which are not going out of business, as well as Borders, which is downsizing many of their sites.

I am pretty well persuaded by the theory that Starbucks' coffee is "designed" to be mixed and sweetened to death for all those prissy sissified concoctions, not primarily for the (much less profitable) basic cup of coffee. Makes a lot of sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: RangerSteve
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:43 PM

The 7-11 in Lakehurst NJ. (7-11 is a convenience store chain in the U.S.) - their coffee is usually good, but this one store had what was possibly the worst coffee in the world. I was on my way to a job installing thermal windows at a housing development construction site, and I figured there'd be another place to get something to wash the taste out of my mouth, but there wasn't. I tasted bad coffee all day. 25 years later, I still remember that stuff when I drive by that particular store. It was that bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:16 PM

Starbucks? Not bad, actually. I've drunk a lot of the stuff. Dark roast, brewed strong. If you like your coffee strong and you don't mind it to taking the enamel off your teeth, it's good stuff. Maybe that's why lots of people go for lattés. Cut it a bit. I prefer my coffee straight.

I learned about good coffee as a student at the University of Washington. No, not that slop at the Student Union Building cafeteria. From a Turkish exchange student I knew. He brewed it strong and flavorful. He said that most Americans don't know what good coffee is and opt for dishwater instead. If you want a cup of coffee, drink drink a cup of coffee.

I live in Seattle. Not to say that there are quite a few Starbucks' in this city, but I went into a Starbucks a few weeks ago and before I placed my order, I decided to go the men's room. Damned if there wasn't a Starbucks in there, too!

I posted this on some thread here maybe three years ago, but for your amusement and amazement, I thought I'd post it again, here. For the memoir/autobio I'm writing (folk music scene in Seattle in the 1950s and 60s, and up until now if I don't run out of steam), I did a bit of research on coffeehouses (big venue for singers of folk songs during that time) and came up with what I thought was some interesting stuff. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and prop up your feet.

    As early as Homer, there were stories of a black and bitter brew that had the power to endow increased alertness on those who drank it, but it was not until much later that the details of the discovery of coffee comes into sharper focus.
    One of the many legends that surround the discovery of this universal solvent of intellectuality and sociability holds that sometime in the 9th century, in the part of north Africa now called Ethiopia, a young goat-herd named Kaldi noticed that his goats became particularly alert, frisky, and playful after eating the red berries that grew on certain leafy bushes. Kaldi tried a handful of the berries, and soon found himself experiencing a refreshing lift of spirits and a pleasant sense of heightened awareness. He eagerly recommended the berries to his fellow tribesmen, who subsequently agreed that Kaldi's discovery had indeed been a worthy one.
    News of these wonderful berries spread quickly. Local monks heard of them, tried them, and noticed that the berries had the salutary effect of producing more alertness and less dozing off during prayers. They dried the berries so they could be transported to other monasteries. There, the berries were reconstituted in water. The monks ate the berries and then drank the liquid.
    Coffee berries soon made their way from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula where they were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. Coffee then traveled north to Turkey. The Turks were the first to roast the beans. Then they crushed them and boiled them in water. The result was pretty stout stuff, hardly what we today would call gourmet coffee, but it was well on its way. They sometimes added spices to the brew, such as anise, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom.
    Venetian traders carried coffee to the European continent sometime in the 16th century. Once in Europe, enthusiastic imbibers regarded this new beverage as the Elixir of Life and the Invigorator of Thought.
    But, as frequently happens when humankind discovers something pleasurable, there emerged those people whose lips are stiff and whose faces are grim. These unhappy souls declared coffee to be "the beverage of infidels" and "the Drink of the Devil." Some members of the Catholic Church called for Pope Clement VIII to ban it. Consider their dismay when instead, the Pontiff, wide awake and alert because he'd already had his morning coffee, blessed it and declared it a truly Christian beverage.
    The first coffeehouse in Britain, called "The Angel," opened in 1652, not in London, but in Oxford. This is, perhaps, not surprising. After all, Oxford had been a college town since the 12th century. Soon thereafter, coffeehouses began flourishing in London. They swiftly became gathering spots for artists, poets, and philosophers, along with their disciples and groupies. Since coffee at these establishments cost a penny a cup, coffeehouses became known as "penny universities." James Boswell and Samuel Johnson were two well-known coffeehouse habitués.
    King Charles II considered coffeehouses to be hotbeds of discontent and a breeding ground for revolt, so in 1675 he banned them. This act nearly caused a revolt. The turmoil was so great that eleven days later he rescinded the ban.
    In 1732, Johann Sebastian Bach composed his "Coffee Cantata." The work is an ode to coffee. At the same time, it takes a poke at a movement extant in Germany at the time that sought to forbid women to drink coffee because some people thought it made women sterile.
    In the late sixteen-hundreds coffeehouses made their way to the New World: to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, where they prospered just as they had in England. They were also patronized by musicians, artists, poets and other suspicious and undesirable characters. Such as Tom Paine and Ben Franklin. In fact, when the United States were still "The Colonies," the Continental Congress, in protest against the excessive tax the British levied on tea, declared coffee to be the national drink.
    So when coffeehouses sprang up like mushrooms in the dank undergrowth of the 1950s, they were nothing really new; they were just another phase of a centuries-old tradition. This renaissance spread through the previous sites: New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; then it vaulted across the continent to California, particularly to San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles.
    Coffeehouses tended to pop up near college campuses. Many of them became hangouts for students, mostly fledgling artists, writers, poets, and musicians. And hordes of chess players. Occasionally someone with a guitar might be quietly strumming away in a corner. Some places discouraged this sort of thing, but many did not. Many coffeehouses had a small stage, and on certain afternoons or evenings, a jazz combo might be trying out a few things. Or a string quartet, composed of student musicians with dreams of Carnegie Hall would hone their performing skills before a live audience by giving an informal recital. Or there might be a poetry reading. Or poetry and jazz. Some places had a more-or-less resident folksinger. Folksingers were not all that common then, but their numbers were rapidly increasing.
    Most coffeehouses didn't serve just coffee. They generally featured a variety of coffees: a demitasse of espresso, strong enough to take the enamel off your teeth and served with a twist of lemon to bring out the flavor(!); a rich and robust Swedish coffee; a dark, French roast; Turkish, thick, rich, and sweet; café au lait; cappuccino, and many others. In addition to these potent potions, the menu included a long list of teas, from English breakfast tea to aromatic brews with strange and exotic names, like "Oolong" and "Darjeeling." There were chocolate libations, from a regular (but very rich) hot chocolate, to café mocha, to mixtures that contained such components as orange rind, cinnamon, and other spices.
    And they often served light meals, such as sandwiches of various kinds (a bit more elaborate than peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese), cheese boards (a variety of cheeses and slices of exotic breads along with fruit, such as orange sections or apple slices), and a variety of exotic pastries, sufficiently elegant to delight the most dissolute of sybarites.

© Copyright 2008, Donald Richard Firth

Fun times! I spent a lot of time singing in coffeehouses back then. No, not the 1600 and 1700s!! In the 1950s and 60s. I the late 1950s and on into the 1960s, some coffeehouses were almost like non-alcoholic night clubs, and actually paid fairly decent money! AND, there is a lot of folk music going on in Seattle's coffeehouses these days.

"Come all ye bold fellers. . . ."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:37 PM

"If you like your coffee strong and you don't mind it to taking the enamel off your teeth"

Definitely not the stuff I've had here. And I'm not sure if Borders in the UK was the same company as in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 09:27 PM

I used to be proud of the badness of the coffee I drank. I would make a big flask of coffee in the coffeemaker & then reheat it every morning till it was gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 06:22 AM

If I made a big flask of coffee, it wouldn't be around for reheating the next morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 07:22 AM

The following urban legend is told about an Indian scientist named Kulkarni (maybe this one): he used to start his coffee machine but, immersed in his science, forget to switch it off or drink the coffee; next morning he would find it evaporated, so he would pour hot water on the brown crust, stir, and drink it. His students, including a friend of a friend of a friend of mine, named this process "kulkarnization".

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 08:49 AM

It depends on the standard you've been used to drinking . For the last three weeks I have been spoiled from drinking good quality stuff in Switzerland . I normally drink the Aldi house brand that somebody mentioned as being particularly bad and am having to get used to it again now. At least it is real coffee .
Camp Coffee - sweetened , liquified and containing as much chicrey as coffee - used to be the very worse . Do they still have it in the UK ?

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: artbrooks
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 09:54 AM

Starbucks has decent coffee - but I like strong and slightly bitter coffee. I normally drink it at Barnes and Noble, since I like to sit and read and the atmosphere at the Starbucks store is a bit frenetic (too many 16-year-old girls with their $5 lattes). At $1.35 (US) for a fill of my 16oz cup, it is reasonably priced.

BTW, Starbucks never "got the Border's franchise" - at least not in the US. Borders started selling 'Seattle's Best' coffee, a different brand that was bought up at the corporate level by Starbucks, Inc. a few years ago. Not at all the same stuff...some prefer it - I don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 10:00 AM

Yes, Guest mayomick it's still sold here, but about four years ago they changed the picture on the front as it was too Imperialist and racist (An Indian servant standing with a tray offering his 'master' a cuppa) Now the Indian gentleman is sitting beside a kilted Scotsman enjoying (?) a cuppa with him. The chicory stuff is just as ghastly as ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 01:30 PM

If it was bad aback then, just wait:

Cost of coffee soars as climate warms

The New York Times 3/10/2011

Production in Colombia has plunged amid higher temperatures, more rain and the arrival of new diseases.

... ...

In 2006, Colombia produced more than 12 million 132-pound bags of coffee, and set a goal of 17 million for 2014. Last year the yield was nine million bags.

Brands like Maxwell, Yuban and Folgers have increased the retail prices of many grinds by 25 percent or more since the middle of last year in light of tight supply and higher wholesale prices.

Profits of high-end coffee chains like Starbucks and Green Mountain have been eroded. Coffee futures of Arabica, the high-end bean that comes predominantly from Latin America, have risen more than 85 percent since last June, to $2.95 a pound, partly over concerns about supply, extreme weather and future quality, said George Kopp, an analyst at the International Futures Group in Chicago.

... ...

The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation says high fertilizer prices have also dented yields.

But it agrees with a 2009 report from the International Coffee Organization that concluded, "Climatic variability is the main factor responsible for changes in coffee yields all over the world."
Average temperatures in Colombia's coffee regions have risen nearly one degree in 30 years, and in some mountain areas the increase has been double that, says Cenicafé, the national coffee research center. Rain in this area was more than 25 percent above average in the last few years.

At the new, higher temperatures, the plants' buds abort or their fruit ripens too quickly for optimum quality. Heat also brings pests like coffee rust, a devastating fungus that could not survive the previously cool mountain weather.

The heavy rains damage the fragile Arabica blossoms, and the two-week dry spells that prompt the plant to flower and produce beans occur less often, farmers say. Arabica beans take about seven months to mature.

"Half a degree can make a big difference for coffee — it is adapted to a very specific zone," said Néstor Riaño, a specialist in agroclimatology for Cenicafé. "If temperature rises even a bit, the growth is affected, and the plagues and diseases rise."

... ...

Starbucks has already bought enough coffee to last until 2012 ...

John

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 05:18 PM

John, this means that eventually we may all become Scots(wo)men drinking Camp Coffee! At least we won't have to wear anything underneath ...

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 10:12 PM

Grishka -

The forecast of rising prices, and even more so the threat of shortages, impelled me to buy another 18 pounds of coffee on our shopping trip today.

(Of course I do that about once a month anyway. I'm sure glad "she" only drinks about a cup per day, cause I'd be buyin' twice that if I warn't the only one in the house that likes it.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:31 AM

The 3 in 1 or 2 in 1 individual coffee sachets Kenco or Necafe both are as bad. It has this horrible synthetic aftertaste which I assume must be the creamer and sweetners mixed in but it is not nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 03:04 PM

Try water. It works wonders.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Deckman
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 10:52 AM

I well remember when my cousin Aria visited us some years ago from Rovaniemi, Suomi. She brought her own coffee with her. I think she was warned about american coffee. Her coffee came in a red foil "brick." When she stuck a knife in it,it pooshed and inflated it self. The coffee she brewed with it was something to behold: a spoon would stand upright in it. For several weeks after she left, all I had to do to have a "cuppa kavi" (that's Finnspeak) was add water to the cup! bob

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:04 PM

And then there is vending machine coffee.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,JUDY FOLKSINGER
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:32 PM

Hi Bob - This is the only way I know how to respond to you and Don F. from your query looking for me in 2002. My sister somehow came across your post from that time and just forwarded it to me this morning. Yes I am still in the Florida Keys and singing occasionally but not regularly. Blown away that you would remember and go looking!! We did spend about 10 years diving on Spanish galleons near Ft. Pierce, FL (not the Atocha but those guys are friends of ours and we worked the wreck they found and left to go look for the Atocha off Key West.) Please call my sister Shary who is still in Seattle - you will find her in the phone book under our last name (which you spelled correctly)- our Navy father's listing. She will be glad to give you my contact info and fill you in some on what we have been doing. Sorry to be so vague but I don't want to post personal stuff without making contact. Regards, Judy F.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:37 PM

Vending machine coffee is so bad that it's simply incredible that anyone would pay for it. Try water instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Deckman
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:40 PM

YIPPEEEEE! You're still ALIVE! I'll send yout note off to Don NOW and I'll contact yout sister. Thanks for getting in touch, MUDCAT STRIKES AGAIN! bob(deckman)nelson ... still hiding out in Everett, Washington

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Micca
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:44 PM

It was on the way from the Getaway(my first in 2001) to New York on the New Jersey Parkway, we stopped, (we were both Very tired and hungry), at a Roy Rogers franchise place, They had the WORST doughnuts I had EVER tasted before or since! and the WORST Coffee also!! it was worse than Mellow Birds instant, Vile,

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:05 PM

I'll make a note to avoid Roy Rogers franchises.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: Deckman
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 12:17 AM

JUDY ... I just talked with you sister and got your e-mail. I'll be sending you a catch-up (ketchup?) note overnight! bob nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Worst cup of coffee ever!!!
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 08:54 AM

I know it seems ridiculous to actually spend money on vending machine coffee LH my excuse is that it was instant warmth in an ungodly hour of the morning in freezing cold weather, even the moon was still out.