It's All About the Beans

    Cycling '74 may not have made it to the 2014 Most Admired Companies list, but maybe sharing our obsession with coffee -- since you already heard of the one with cats -- will get us a few more admirers. Don't worry, we love tea, juice, and other tasty liquids, too.
    We agree: It's all about the beans. Second to that, we use different kinds of gear. Here are some of our favorites plus a few tips:
    • Tim uses a french press with these instructions: 1. use a super coarse grind 2. don't skimp! 2 tablespoons per cup. If you use too little coffee it ends up getting kinda acidy and gnarly. 3. don't use boiling water, it will ruin it (especially if you have a light roast) -- water should be around 195-200 F. 4. because the water is colder, I recommend pre-heating your cup (I usually just pour some extra hot water into it while the press steeps) 5. let it soak 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. usually this doesn't need to be precise, but with some coffees it seems to make a difference
    • Joshua prefers the simplicity of a slow pour.
    • AndrewB's brother-in-law swears by the AeroPress. Yes, we get our families involved in the obsession, too.
    • Wes is a fan of his Bialetti Christmas gift.
    • Jill uses the Clever Coffee Dripper every day, a gift from her brother. [Note that we are giving gift advice here, too.]
    • Florian may get the gold medal for his use of the ROK Presso at home, and specifies that not all beans work well with it.
    • And just to prove that we're not all coffee snobs, BenN admitted he had a delicious cup at McDonald's this morning.
    My question is: How can Max become a part of our coffee-making ritual?
    • jfhouser
      Mar 01 2014 | 4:10 am
      Max and arduino based coffee press?
    • MuShoo
      Mar 01 2014 | 4:48 am
      I'll post this here, since I've noticed them a bunch now - I assume these forum posts are auto-generated when an article is posted (and our comments in the forum appear under the article, it seems).
      But man, the number of characters that get posted to the forums side of things before being cut off by "[see the full post at..." is just WAY too small. This one, it's not even a full sentence!
      Honestly, unless the article is like 2000 words long, why not just mirror the entire article here in the forums, instead of just a half of a sentence.
    • Christopher Dobrian
      Mar 01 2014 | 4:58 am
      Really? We've reached the point where one click is too much work?
    • MuShoo
      Mar 01 2014 | 5:15 am
      I already used that one click to click the forum link! Now you want me to click AGAIN!? I already clicked! GIVE ME MY INFORMATION IMMEDIATELY.
      I'm still waiting for when I don't have to click at all and my computer can just read my thoughts directly.
      :DD
    • vichug
      Mar 01 2014 | 9:34 am
      I'm sorely disappointeed. I was expecting that kind of thing : http://www.chud.com/60942/breaking-bad-set-visit-photos-4/ !
    • dtr
      Mar 01 2014 | 11:01 am
      > How can Max become a part of our coffee-making ritual?
      You know, I'd rather keep Max real far away from my coffee! Bialetti mokka coffee making is my ritualistic break away from long days of Max'ing. The only debugging I wanna do on it is replacing the rubber seal from time to time ;)
      (ps: that ROK Presso just... rocks :)
    • joeman
      Mar 01 2014 | 1:57 pm
      I agree with Mushoo. It is a bit silly and annoying. Please give us the actual link to the page directly from https://cycling74.com/newest-topics/. Or similar.
      Personally, I am not at all interested in how you like your coffee. To have to click twice to find out that this article was actually, seriously, just about coffee(!) compounded the normal annoyance felt by this double clicking.
      No harm intended.. I'm just submitting feedback from humble user of great software and forum.
      > How can Max become a part of our coffee-making ritual?
      What Vichug said.
      Joe
    • Lilli Wessling Hart
      Mar 03 2014 | 9:11 pm
      I understand there are times when the excerpt doesn't give the reader a good enough summary of a blog post, and that can be frustrating. I thought the line "maybe sharing our obsession with coffee" was pretty clear on this one though.
      Based on your feedback, I will look into options for extending the standard excerpt length and consider displaying the full post. However, I don't believe we can link directly to the actual post so we have to live with 2 clicks for now. I'll check into it to be sure.
      Lilli
    • Lilli Wessling Hart
      Mar 05 2014 | 8:04 pm
      Due to some styling limitations, we were not able to display the entire article (interview, project, etc) inside a forum topic window.
      As an alternative, Ginger implemented a redirect. If you click on an article title (see attached screen shot), you will be redirected to the entire article in a separate window.
      Lilli
    • MuShoo
      Mar 05 2014 | 8:06 pm
      @Lilli - I like it!  Thanks!
    • joeman
      Mar 06 2014 | 12:14 am
      Yes, thanks Lilli. This is much better. :-)
    • Peter Castine
      Mar 07 2014 | 11:21 am
      I don't care how many times I need to click as long as I get my coffee made right.
      Tim may like his at 90°C, but that's just a bit off. 97°C is the optimum water temperature (206.6°F). No more, no less. Also, don't forget to warm up the French press before making the coffee.
      Otherwise (following the example of Phileas Fogg) I would fire my manservant for messing this up!
      -)
    Published
    February 28, 2014
    Creative Commons License