I used to use these too, and "designed by italian engineers" means Philips collaborated with Saeco and in turn took over their brewing unit.
The reason i went to DeLonghi, which do the same job in terms of making a good "everyday coffee" was that the Saeco brewing group was a real pain in the ass to clean.
I don't want to talk you out of Philips, but keep DeLonghi as a alternative in mind if you can't stand the burden of regularly cleaning the Saeco "design".
gonna have to look into these things. i do french press and pourover, grind my beans and use reverse osmosis -> distilled hot water from a temp controlled tea kettle. old sckool i know but hey thats me.
but im getting lazy. any machine i get would be judged about 50% on ease of cleaning and 50% ease of use to make the drink.
no i have a new quest.
Ain't nothing wrong with that.
A coffee maker once told me, that all machines are worth shit when it comes to deliver the character of coffee. I use mine for convenience, mostly for whole milk Lattes, so the character doesn't matter
that much. Here, the taste of the milk is way more important. Real coffee farmers do roast by hand, grind by hand and pour hot water from the kettle over it in tiny, thick glasses (like a whiskey glass, but ordered at "Wish"
). They wait for the coffee to settle and sip it after a minute or two.
The same coffee maker got me a cotton-pad machine with italian coffee-pads, which was "the best coffee you can get, without much hassle", because i fixed some of his computers for free and probably because i was dating his daughter. He maybe also tried to help me get away from filtered and machine-coffee for good. I used this for almost a decade, and i was a regular guest at the factory, where i got the most intense coffee served, every time, for free, fresh from the roasting machine.
Rarely, i do espressi using a coffee cooker, which uses low pressure, high temperature steam, by just being put on a stove. I like them with equal to a little less of cold milk. Very strong.
If i want iced coffee, i set up a liter of cold brew with beans, coarse grinded by hand, for 24 hours. It's working well (caffeine wise), and the taste is a bomb. It's the only type of black coffee that doesn't give me stomach discomfort, but most of the time i mix it with 1:1 - 1:2 milk and one or two icecubes, using a stainless steel strawl.
Whenever i used the frech press/pourover, i added some crumbs of Cinnamon and/or Cardamom, but more like filtered coffee it's on the bitter side of the coffee "spectrum", while it's less acidic. My wife introduced me into this type of making coffee. Before that, i used the french press for tea only.
What I've found is that Americans simply make the coffee too weak. Maybe it has something to so with the cost and the "bottomless" cups they like to serve at diners. Starbucks makes a pretty good coffee if you get the blonde roast - otherwise, they suck. That burned bean crap is only good for mixing into their overly-sugared frappes so people can still "taste" the coffee.
My doctor told me a while ago to stop drinking coffee because... muh cholesterol and being the know-it-all I am, I refused to stop drinking coffee because how the hell does a plant-based drink cause an increase in cholesterol?! Turns out that nice rich foam they call
crema contains some nasty little molecules called
cafestrol that when ingested, can cause your body to retain and even produce more cholesterol by blocking cholesterol homeostasis. WTF!? That's the best part of the coffee experience! Apparently, filtering through paper removes most of those nasty molecules but I find it also removes some of the depth and richness of flavour.
I'm still soft-killing myself with a double espresso first thing in the morning which I usually turn it into an Americano but the nice clean taste of a filtered coffee has become a welcome change. I've learned to appreciate the subler notes in my coffee. So after my first death cup in the morning, I have filtered coffee and if I order one out, it's either a pour-over or an AeroPress. Recently, while on vacation, I had a very pleasant surprise ordering an Ethiopian Guji pour-over. I tried to buy a bag to take home but they were sold out
I would assume filtering it through a cloth would also remove the cafestrol but then I already assumed that coffee couldn't possibly raise my cholesterol levels. You might have to substitute those shop towels for some paper ones just to be safe philipma1957
Some thoughts on this:
"Paper" towels are typically not pure paper, there is stuff in them you don't want to have in your coffee.
There are sheet of filtering fabrics, originally for making syrup, which you can use. They should keep most of the aroma, while getting rid of crema.
The crema-info you provided is interesting, i will follow it soon.
(Blood-) Cholesterol has been said to originate by various sources, but many of the theories have been proven wrong over time. If troubled, add Serratiopeptidase (a fibriolytic enzyme) to your diet.
I also came across some research that was investigating Cholesterol as a biomarker for inflammation that causes blood clots, rather than being the cause for arterial clogging. Didn't follow it, though.
American coffee... i always asked myself how to get a coffee so weak that dark. However, less bitter.
Starbucks roast is too strong, and strong roasts contain more Acrylamide than light roasts, and AA seems to be able to cause cancer. Hands off!
61k looks very good.
maybe we go higher soon.
I suggest we'll either recover to sub $70k levels, when the market grasps that the recent "crash" was just a shakeout of weak hands and a hunt for late longs.
Either that or Bart. (down to $55k-ish)
#GN
