COFFEE!!

[Shapley]

Whenever I was in Hawaii, back in my Navy days, I used to drink coffee at a Denny's restaurant on the main drag in Waikiki, about a block from the beach. It was open 24 hours, and the coffee was pretty good. It had a different flavour than the usual Denny's house brand, which I attributed to the water. Chatting with the waitress one evening she told me they used Hawaiian-grown coffee at the Denny's on the island (it was cheaper, I suppose, than shipping it in, and there may have been some restrictions on non-native coffee). I didn't know enough about coffee to ask if it was a Kona blend though, I suppose, it probably was.

The waitress was cute, though.....

[Giant Communist Robot]

Sweet Okole

Okole is Hawaiian for, well, a person's butt.

[Shapley]

Sweet Okole

Okole is Hawaiian for, well, a person's butt.

That would explain why it tastes like,...welll, ...... anyway, that's nteresting. Remind me not to order any of that brand from their website.

[barfle]

In my previous occupation, I did a lot of travelling to our company's field offices. One of them was outside Honolulu, and I usually tried to make that a weekend trip. So three times a year, i would pick up some Kona coffee in Hawaii and savor it on the weekends. I have also bought Kona at Hilo Hattie's and at World Market (although that source is notoriously unreliable).

I enjoy the taste of coffee - some of my associates express surprise when they find I drink mine black. But I don't like coffee flavored stuff like candy and ice cream.

I'm fairly discriminating - I can tell the really good stuff from the good stuff from the regular stuff. But most of the time I drink the regular stuff. And Fourbucks doesn't make the grade.

[dai bread]

My supermarket stocks Scarborough Fair instant coffee, which I buy with a glow of smug self-satisfaction as it's a Fair Trade brand. It's also rather nice coffee, at least in the dark roast I get.

I have to have it with cream (or milk, but cream's better) and therefore also sugar, to keep the peace with my stomach. I used to have black coffee, but can't take it any more.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Scary. I got 10/10 right.

Excuse me, I have to refill my cup...

[Shapley]

My supermarket stocks Scarborough Fair instant coffee, which I buy with a glow of smug self-satisfaction as it's a Fair Trade brand. It's also rather nice coffee, at least in the dark roast I get.

I have to have it with cream (or milk, but cream's better) and therefore also sugar, to keep the peace with my stomach. I used to have black coffee, but can't take it any more.

I would think one would drink Scarborough Fair coffee with a bit of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, & Thyme.

[barfle]

I took the quiz, and got 8/10. I missed the weak/strong caffeine question (which I chalk up to wording) and the latte/cappuchino question because I don't mess with my coffee that way. I undoubtedly had a few lucky guesses in those I got right, though.

[jamiebk]

So...I am off to Peets for a large extra strong (w/shot) of that wonderful Major Dickason's blend. If you have not tried you're missing out...yum (even without the extra espresso shot)

[barfle]

I've tried a handful of those concoctions that are ostensibly coffee but have hazelnut, mint, cinnamon, cocoa, anise, strawberry, brocolli, tuna, or goat cheese in roughly equal quantities, with an attempt to smooth it out with milk.

The only one I've actually enjoyed is the one with Irish whisky. I recommend you visit the Buena Vista in San Francisco and have a few.

[jamiebk]

I've tried a handful of those concoctions that are ostensibly coffee but have hazelnut, mint, cinnamon, cocoa, anise, strawberry, brocolli, tuna, or goat cheese in roughly equal quantities, with an attempt to smooth it out with milk.

The only one I've actually enjoyed is the one with Irish whisky. I recommend you visit the Buena Vista in San Francisco and have a few.

I could not agree more....Black coffee strong and straight (and perhaps a bit of Irish for good luck)

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Avoid the tuna and the broccoli blends - but the goat cheese is better than you'd expect. :tongue in cheek:

Seriously. Broccoli? Eck. I like the strawberry better in a biscuit, myself.

[Giant Communist Robot]

I have an aquaintence that lives on the leeward side of the big island, near Kona. His house is in the coffee growing area, and has some robustus coffee trees on his property. At the moment, the cherries are turning red. He picks them by hand and so assures that only the best are chosen. He has an old, hand cranked pulper which has had an electric motor Mickey Moused onto it to remove the beans. After soaking overnight, the beans are dried in the sun. He claims this is the critical step, as commercial beans are dried in an oven. The ovens, he says, take away the mellow palate and leave a bitterness that many Kona coffees have. After drying, he goes across the street to a coffee farm and has them husked. He used to roast them in a frying pan, but now has a small "I Roast" machine. His recommedation is to buy green beans and roast them yourself. He maintains it is the best coffee he has ever tasted.

[jamiebk]

I have an aquaintence that lives on the leeward side of the big island, near Kona. His house is in the coffee growing area, and has some robustus coffee trees on his property. At the moment, the cherries are turning red. He picks them by hand and so assures that only the best are chosen. He has an old, hand cranked pulper which has had an electric motor Mickey Moused onto it to remove the beans. After soaking overnight, the beans are dried in the sun. He claims this is the critical step, as commercial beans are dried in an oven. The ovens, he says, take away the mellow palate and leave a bitterness that many Kona coffees have. After drying, he goes across the street to a coffee farm and has them husked. He used to roast them in a frying pan, but now has a small "I Roast" machine. His recommedation is to buy green beans and roast them yourself. He maintains it is the best coffee he has ever tasted.

I've done the coffee roasting thing at home (machine). You'd think that it would have a wonderful mellow coffee ordor, but I find that it does not. From my experience, I found the smell to be unpleasant, harsh, pungent and "burnt"...not at all like I thought it would be. Then again, maybe it was my own incompetence in attempting the roasting.

[Giant Communist Robot]

He has said that gasses escaping from the bean is what you smell and are taking the flavor with them. Try slow roasting them in a cast iron frying pan with a spatula; that way you get great control over the process.

So much work. I'm glad I drink tea.

[barfle]

On one of my trips to Honolulu, I visited a nursery way up on the north west end of the island, and they were able to ship a coffea robusta and a plumeria to California. The plumeria was bar's, but the coffee was mine (bar doesn't drink coffee). Although the coffee tree did well, it never produced much in the way of beans.

I harvested a dozen or so cherries from the tree, removed the beans from them, and dried them in the sun. They ended up being hollow, so I never got any java from my tree. When I moved from California, I gave it to my brother in law, who is a professional groundskeeper, and he couldn't get anything to drink from it, either. I never found out what I did wrong, but now that I'm in a climate where the tree would not survive, it's become unimportant to me.

[Shapley]

On one of my trips to Honolulu, I visited a nursery way up on the north west end of the island, and they were able to ship a coffea robusta and a plumeria to California. The plumeria was bar's, but the coffee was mine (bar doesn't drink coffee). Although the coffee tree did well, it never produced much in the way of beans.

I harvested a dozen or so cherries from the tree, removed the beans from them, and dried them in the sun. They ended up being hollow, so I never got any java from my tree. When I moved from California, I gave it to my brother in law, who is a professional groundskeeper, and he couldn't get anything to drink from it, either. I never found out what I did wrong, but now that I'm in a climate where the tree would not survive, it's become unimportant to me.

You probably need a pollinator. Arabica is self-pollinating, but Robusta requires cross-pollination.

[i]I had to Google that. I found that bit of information here.

[Shapley]

We had a priest at our parish for a time who had previously been pastor in some tropical paradise or other. The church was part of a mission compound, on a large tract of land. The priest planted a couple dozen banana trees along the walk to the rectory, and elsewhere in the compound. He complained to one of the locals that, after several years, he had yet to produce any bananas on the plants. The local responded: "Well Padre, I can see that, you being a priest and all, may not understand why this matters, but all of your plants are males..."

[Trumpetmaster]

Working my second overnight deployment this week...

drinking lots of coffee right now...

[Shapley]

People who drink too much coffee could suffer hallucinations

I prefer to think of it as "people who don't drink enough coffee suffer from reality"...