coffee

[cellio]

Dear LJ Brain Trust,

We recently received a Keurig coffee maker as a gift. This is one of those gizmos that takes individual packets for making coffee (or tea or cocoa). Pour in water, put in individual packet, push the button, and out comes a cup of hot drink a couple minutes later. As the pitch goes, if you and your spouse like very different things, this gadget's for you.

To my surprise, I have found a coffee-based drink that was actually pleasant. This is a first, so I turn to you, o brain trust, to guide my further explorations. Because while this was fine, it isn't exactly healthy. Also, I'd kind of like to know about non-dairy options (for meat meals), assuming any exist that I'd like. For this experiment I started with Dani's mantra that coffee is a good source of calcium.

What worked: a French vanilla packet turned into 8oz of coffee (the gadget supports 6-10), about 4oz (!) of half-and-half (didn't have cream in the house), and about two heaping tableteaspoons of sugar (ack). These were added incrementally, alternating half-and-half and sugar in small quantities until it tasted good. So possibly a better answer is more milk product/no sugar, and I don't know how cream versus half-and-half will play out. There is also the question of other coffee bases to try, particularly if I can find them in variety packs or something so I'm not committing to a whole box of something we turn out not to like. I am categorically uninterested in decaffeinated coffees (defeats the purpose of coffee for me).

For calibration, I also like most black teas. For a "regular" tea I default to English breakfast. I do not care for Early Grey but Lady Grey is ok. I like most strongly-flavored or spiced teas, so my instinct is to look for coffees with some flavor additive. (This is why I gravitated to the French vanilla, and I have my eye on the hazelnut packet.) I think what this all means is that I don't like bitter flavors. What does that imply about coffee roast types? I see a variety of descriptors in that space but I don't know what they tend to mean for flavor. And how should I be thinking about the trade-off between stronger coffee flavors and brew strength?

Comments

[alienor.livejournal.com]

I notice that some comments are giving you alternate brewing methods and such, but I'm guessing that you want to know how to get what you want with the Keurig?

I looked through their offerings. Most of what I could identify as what I'm guessing you would like (your tastes sound similar to mine for coffee) are labeled as Breakfast Blend, so that would give you one place to start.

People who add a lot of additives can get away with less additives by using a light roast since it's milder. Folks who don't add much are generally trying to get the STRONG coffee taste, and that's when they want a dark roast.

As far as the specific additives, I'm not sure how you feel about artificial sweeteners. My standard coffee flavoring is a Splenda sweetened Torani almond syrup (http://www.torani.com/products/sugar-free-almond-syrup). They have a huge range of flavors (both in real sugar and splenda versions). I'm not sure what vendors are available to you (and shipping the bottles is prohibitive), but I buy mine at World Market.

As far as non-dairy options, I know the vegans on the tea boards I frequent use a variety of milk-substitutes (almond milk, soy milk, etc). You're probably more familiar with them than I am. I imagine that they would work for coffee. Coconut milk may be especially interesting for flavor. (mmm, now I'm going to have to try that!)

As a random data point, I also like dumping a half a packet of hot chocolate into my coffee, but that's not particularly helpful on the "make it more healthy" quest! :-)

[cellio]

I'm guessing that you want to know how to get what you want with the Keurig?

Yup.

Thanks for the tips! I didn't think to try Splenda but will next time.