cliffs?

It allows you to brew up to 4 cups at once, and has a "strength" setting that gives you the ability to choose how bold you want your cup of joe. Other features include an ideal brew setting, a "k-carafe" pot, and hot water on demand. Pretty cool.

Anyone know any good travel mugs that aren't gonna leak on me?

depends on what you're doing I guess?

Mainly for just bringing into school!

Does anyone know any good instant brews other than the Starbucks ones?

I use this cup and I love it:

http://store.starbucks.com/starbucks...3&navid=search

It's ceramic, though, so it's a bit heavy and I've broken two of them now. It's a lot better than most of the travel/vacuum tumblers I've used, though, because it's super easy to clean (it's all one piece so there's no seams or cracks were coffee gets trapped and gunks up, the lid snaps apart for easy cleaning, too). It will leak a bit if you turn it upside down but for the office and car it's fine, just don't go skydiving with it.

It's double-walled so it does keep coffee warm longer than a regular cup but not nearly as long as a good vacuum tumbler. But I rarely take enough time drinking a cuppa to let it get cold anyway.

One other downside is that it's only 12oz, but then again, if it were any bigger I would probably run into the problem of the coffee getting cold before I finish it.

I'd actually be interested in this as well. I've tried VIA and it's pretty turrible (and I'm not a supersnob here, I'll drink a cup of regular bux without too much complaining, but the instant **** literally tastes like mud), but the idea of having SOME sort of emergency coffee in my bag is pretty intriguing.

Any good grind & brew machines out there? I've been using a hario hand mill and aeropress with great results, but I'm having twins very soon and would really like simplify things.

I tried going back to my pre ground coffee in a drip machine and it was just awful.

Big Bubba.

I've had several. Not perfect, but they do a great job of keeping coffee hot for a long time. And they come in a wide variety of sizes--even some of the large ones fit the cup-holder in my car.

Thanks for the replies I'll make sure and check them out

starbucks via columbia (medium) is my goto instant coffee for cottaging (i don't camp, but if i did, same answer).. it's pretty damn passable all things considered and tastes better than many drip coffees IMO..

http://store.starbucks.com/starbucks...efault,pd.html

Hi I'm Fran and I'm a coffee addict

I'm sure it's been talked about a lot ITT, but this this is huge, so, any recommendations for places online to buy good coffee beans? Preferably not huge quantities at a time, I'm new to using my own beans so I guess I'd like to try a lot different kinds out. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Find a local roaster if you can. You can get the freshest beans and support a small local business.

for those of you who use aeropress: how many tablespoons of beans (or ground powder) do you use? How soon after boiling the water would you start to brew? Whats your preferred method? Do you add water after?

What he said, though my opinion may be skewed a bit living in an area with a lot of very good or better roasters. Case in point, my current "go to" roasters are Ritual and Sightglass, both local but who I guess would hold their own against pretty much any competition. You may not be so fortunate.

That said, I've also recently ordered from both Stumptown and Counter Culture. I was not overly impressed by what I got from Stumptown but loved the Counter Culture; a lot of that may have been due to ordering the "right" beans in the latter case and not the former, since by all indications Stumptown is one of the top handful of roasters in the country. It comes down to what you like in terms of flavor profile and roast - there are beans from Ritual that I love, others not so much. YMWV.

Assuming that you're talking about brewed coffee, in addition to the ones mentioned above, other good roasters that I have tried include Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, Verve and La Columbe Torrefaction, though I haven't made the first or last at home, only had it at a coffeeshop.

AUTOSEAL® West Loop Stainless Travel Mug with Open-Access Lid by Contigo, don't buy the model with the really fat buttons (Avex I think) as it sucks.

For anyone in the UK looking for a coffee bean delivery service, I'd recommend Pact Coffee. They've been around for about a year (I think) and offer a great little range and good service. There are plenty of promo codes online to get your first bag for £1. Google is your friend.

Thanks for this post sir

i use this as a general guide but do about 18-19 grams

http://www.bluebottlecoffee.com/prep...ides/aeropress

Londoners: New website listing all the best coffee spots: http://londonsbestcoffee.com/

This question has probably been asked numerous times, so sorry in advance.

I would like to make a decent cop of coffee at home such as Starbucks (I actually sometimes prefer Java City's Utopian blend that my cafeteria serves).

I have a Mr. Coffee 4 cup coffee maker and have been using Maxwell House and similar brand coffee. So far it's passable, not very good.

I am assuming I need to upgrade the coffee brand I am getting (although I don't want to spend too much). Any suggestions? I thought I saw Trader Joe's mentioned a few times. Any other options that should be more ubiquitous that we would be at most grocery stores?

Also, does the coffee maker matter at all? Or do most entry level ones do almost the same thing?

Thanks

The most important factor is going to be the delay between roasting and brewing. If you can find a local roaster, preferably one who dates their bags, you'll see a huge improvement, much bigger than changing your equipment IMO.

Yes, most entry level coffee makers do the same thing . . . make mediocre coffee. You might want to look at something like the Bonavita, which gets the water sufficiently hot and doesn't cost that much.

As for coffee, you should experiment with different brands/beans/blends - there's a huge variety, and what one person likes may not be someone else's cup of tea . . . er, coffee. Grinding at home, rather than using pre-ground, should make a significant difference as well.

^^^^ another major factor. The rule of thumb is no more than 15 days between roasting and brewing.