THE LAST couple of bags of Seattle's best (5th ave dark roast) have been non-impressive.
i might hav dover cleaned the Braun maker, or Seattle's best is run by Pete Carroll 2021
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i might hav dover cleaned the Braun maker, or Seattle's best is run by Pete Carroll 2021
We had a really good rapport with many of the baristas. Unfortunately, at least in our area, that time has passed. I just don't get the same 'hang out' vibe anymore. Maybe I put some nostalgia on it that wasn't really there, IDK. It just seems more like a place where everyone is in a hurry now.
That's cool though that your barista took the time to write that. From what I see now they have very little time just to make the drinks, let alone customer service.
Although I may have missed mention of someone else bringing this up earlier in the thread, former Seattleite here chiming in:
I don’t wish to be the bearer of bad news (and old news at that), but Seattle’s Best™ was bought out by Starbucks® circa late 2003 or early 2004 and has since been nothing more than a brand marque in the Starbucks® stable. When you drink Seattle’s Best™, you’re drinking Starbucks®.
An alternate Seattle roast which is light years ahead of anything touched by the Starbucks panopticon: Vivace’s Vita Blend. They don’t ship outside of the U.S. (something-something about roasted coffee not being exportable, blah blah blah), but they will ship anywhere within the U.S.
That coffee bean is money very well spent. It’s been more than a half-dozen years since my last sip, and that’s only because I now live in another nation-state (where I can’t have it delivered).
Yes, this is part of why @WriteNow and I have been discussing SeaBest. We reached a consensus that the decline of SeaBest is mainly by design. Starbucks is not paying attention to the quality because SeaBest was a former competitor. I might also hazard an opinion that Starbucks has positioned SeaBest as a low-cost, 'better-tasting' brand to compete with the canned coffee you find on grocery shelves (such as Folgers, Maxwell House, Don Francisco, etc). In that way it would remove SeaBest from directly competing with Starbucks main brands but provide a 'better' alternative to those lesser coffees (that every non-discriminating American drinks).
The result would be that Starbucks doesn't have to put as much money into the quality of SeaBest brands and the discriminating customer becomes likely to buy the higher priced Starbucks blends (also in the coffee aisle).
Which, I think explains exactly what is happening. But who knows. I could be wrong.
SeaBest was launching stores in my area and we actually visited one twice before the buyout. The fact that they disappeared just as quickly as they were built led me to look up what happened. And that is how I found out about the buyout.
I'm going to investigate the link you posted and see what happens. We (my wife and I) have Death Wish Coffee as our daily coffee precisely because a guy I worked with mentioned it.
I stop at Black Insomnia though. I am on high blood pressure medications after all.
Black Insomnia Coffee | EXTREME CAFFEINE
blackinsomnia.coffee
Some others here, although we are sticking with DWC: https://www.caffeineinformer.com/strongest-coffee-brands
Now we shall see.
Placed an order for a 12oz bag. Apparently they have a recurring subscription so if we like it I might take advantage of that. Lord knows, we're already giving Death Wish Coffee $34 every two weeks, LOL!
PS. Visiting my sister for Christmas. She lives in Seattle. So, likely to get some good coffee.
I remember enjoying the atmosphere inside Seattle’s Best, just before the buyout. I also remember my beverage of choice around that time was not coffee at all, but steamed whole milk with a shot of hazelnut and a shot of vanilla. It was probably the barista’s doing or maybe the syrups Seattle’s Best used, but they were tastier than the equivalent at either Starbs or Tully’s or even Caffe Ladro (another Seattle chain, literally “Coffee Thief”, after striving to siphon sales from the saturation of Starbucks).
The thing about the Vita Blend is it has the caffeine you want and expect in a coffee, but it also has an amazing body of flavour — whether you drink it black or sweetened and/or creamed. If you like the taste of cinnamon next to coffee, those LU-brand cookies you can get at the supermarket, the rectangular cinnamon cookies with the three ridges on them, go supremely well with this coffee. This combo got me through a lot of grey, wet, and chilly days when I lived there.
For a short bit, also in the mid-2000s, we’d mail-order this one coffee no longer made (I think it was roasted in Nevada or else Arizona) — which was not only a light roast (to retain most of the coffee bean’s caffeine), but after roasting, the beans were washed in a bath of caffeine solution. I completely cannot remember the name (and they’ve been discontinued since), but their target market for that were people who needed a heavy jolt of stimulant to get through 16-hour days, the dreary PNW weather, or both.
I stop at Black Insomnia though. I am on high blood pressure medications after all.
Black Insomnia Coffee | EXTREME CAFFEINE
This appears to be made in the same spirit as the stuff I was just describing.
Just, you know, be sure to take an extra beta blocker with every cup! Propanolol is my go-to…
Yeah. This list is more recent and I’m sure the kind we had fifteen years ago has been superseded by one or more of these.
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Now we shall see.
Placed an order for a 12oz bag. Apparently they have a recurring subscription so if we like it I might take advantage of that. Lord knows, we're already giving Death Wish Coffee $34 every two weeks, LOL!
PS. Visiting my sister for Christmas. She lives in Seattle. So, likely to get some good coffee.
If you’re visiting her in Seattle, you can just walk up to the Vivace kiosk on Broadway in Capitol Hill and sample it when you’re there at the source. It’s outdoor and open year-round (and if you need the indoors and shelter away from the drizzle and cold, there’s a sit-down Vivace just up the block).
Thanks. Unfortunately, we are going to be dependent on my sister for transportation and we'll only be there for four days, one of those days being Christmas. I expect we'll get somewhere, most likely the places my sister likes to get coffee, but depending on her mood it will determine whether a request to be driven somewhere is going to be honored or not. If it's close to where she lives though I might take a shot at it.
Normally, we'd not be up there, but my mom is staying with my sister (has been since my dad died) and we were encouraged to come up. Without totally getting into family dynamics there are reasons my wife and I live in Arizona, my parents lived in California and my sister lives in Washington.
I'll just leave it at that.
Well, this may or may not matter a whole lot, but in the time since I lived there a light rail station from downtown was added to Capitol Hill, also on Broadway, just two blocks from that Vivace sidewalk kiosk — in case you find yourself stuck with her all day somewhere in or near downtown (or the UW campus), and you need a two-hour diversion/break from, well, family matters. Just say you want to see the Jimi Hendrix statue (yes, there really is such a statue on Broadway, but two blocks in the other direction from that new station).
You don’t need to explain this part to me; I have similar analogues, with me being the most distal of the family of origin lot.
I'll just leave it at that.
You betcha.
I know this sort of thing happens. At least, in your case, it wasn't, say, someone in Seattle, someone in NYC, and someone in Dallas--and everyone complaining they were still too close to each other!
LOL!!!!
My dad was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. One of six children. His mother (my grandmother) could have clinically been classified as nuts. But her history demands a certain amount of sympathy.
In 1952, when he was 17, my father chose to join the Marine Corps and go off to a war in Korea - simply to get away from his mother. When his enlistment was up (shortly before the start of the Vietnam War) he got out and ended up in Southern California - where he stayed. At least until he met my mom and had me anyway.
But yeah…I get that.
Our families are also spread all over the country, but compared to the USA that's kind of being spread over one or two states. And even to go from the Baltic to Vienna/Austria, where our son currently lives, seems to be no big deal ...
When it comes to coffee, thankfully Italy is close by ... ?
When it comes to coffee, thankfully Italy is close by ... ?
@WriteNow. So, in the spirit of you using the drip coffeemaker, I've made several attempts with a French press. Despite my best efforts at controlling water temperature, grind and time steeping the end result is still a bland, watery mixture that somewhat resembles the taste of coffee when I consume it.
I'm using Starbucks Espresso roast with a coarse grind. Do you have any tips or suggestions? Compared to my drip coffeemaker, what I'm coming up with is pretty weak.
I'm using Starbucks Espresso roast with a coarse grind. Do you have any tips or suggestions? Compared to my drip coffeemaker, what I'm coming up with is pretty weak.
For coffee with a press, I use the finest ground setting my grinder can make (finest grind == more coffee surface area accessed in less time per grain/ground). I generally don’t fuss with most of the espresso-purpose grinds (such as the Italian, vacuum-sealed bricks like Lavazzo), as these coffees are frequently (though not always) sourced from robusta beans (and not arabica), and they are generally more bitter and less rounded in flavour (as well as less expensive generally).
I usually don’t fuss much with water temp, except to make sure the water kettle (I reveal myself in Canada as a U.S. expatriate solely because I use a stove-top kettle and not an electric one!) is rolling-boiling when I begin pouring it into the press. I let the coffee steep in the press for not terribly much time — usually 30 seconds to two minutes before pressing it through. The quantity of coffee used in the press, at least for me, determines the strength. I use one heaping scoop per cup (the scoops are, I think, are sized at or just over a tablespoon, and a heap in my half-awake judgement is probably closer to two tablespoons).
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Thanks. I'll play around with that tomorrow. I've been using a coarse grind because…instructions.
PS - no matter what we're using, we tend to go one for one. Meaning, one scoop per cup. +1 scoop. Whether that's beans into the grinder or ground coffee into the coffeemaker (or press). I know because the beans are larger that's going to make for a less strong cup but it works for us.
So, if I'm brewing eight cups of coffee (our usual in the morning for my wife and I) that's 9 scoops. Now, our automatic burr grinder (which has only seen DWC beans since we got it) pumps out a more accurate quantity. I have that set at 10 because we always brew 8 cups in the morning and there isn't a setting for 9.
It's when I'm making our non-daily brew that all the specialty blends and the manual grinder come out. But that's generally on weekends, which is why I'm trying to nail down the process for the French press.
PPS. Nothing like a quad venti Flat White when you need the caffeine hit!
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Sorry for the delay in responding!
I've always used finer grinds than suggested--it seems to work better for me. So I think your plan to play with the grind is probably the place to start.
So electric kettles are a standard thing up there? (I knew they were a staple in some parts of the world, but didn't know what might be the case in Canada.)
I used an electric kettle once--I liked the speed--but a stove kettle gets the job done.
Right now I'm using my 4-cup coffeemaker to heat the water, LOL!
We don't own a kettle as it's never been a thing for us. But I am starting to warm to the idea.
You might also experiment with heating water on the stove--the temperature of the water from the coffee maker might be an issue (being too cool by the time it reaches the French press).
Right now I'm using my 4-cup coffeemaker to heat the water, LOL!
We don't own a kettle as it's never been a thing for us. But I am starting to warm to the idea.
HA!
</alf>The kettle I use is a stainless steel stove-top one I bought from IKEA in the ’90s. It was the cheapest, if not only one they had on sale at the time. Almost 25 years later, it still boils and still whistles and still does the job. The only thing I wish it had is an enamel coating of something like a bright red or bright blue (like the kind of enamel used with Le Creuset cookware), because it’s shaped like a half-moon/half-globe and it definitely derives from that post-Memphis group/postmodernist style which stuck around through about 2001.
Incidentally, when making coffee this morning, I glanced at the scoop (a Bodum scoop which I think came with the French press when new): a level scoop is 7g, or 0.25oz, according to the scoop handle info. This means my one-mug scoop for the press, when I wake up in a somnolent stupor, is probably closer to 14g/0.50oz.
OK. Picked up a kettle this morning. Not bad for about $26. I've never owned one - my wife is likely to wonder, until she actually uses it. But…we buy ice, shredded cheese, microwaveable potatos, etc now so we shall see, LOL.
I let it steep for a minute, then plunged. With the kettle giving me the hot water it seems to have come out okay. I didn't give the kettle a first wash (which they recommend) so allowing for that it seems to have turned out better. I think I now have the temp and grounds right (I used Dunkin' Dark direct from the bag this morning). Going to try letting it steep a bit more and see what happens.
Thanks guys, I think I'm on the right track now.
I let it steep for a minute, then plunged. With the kettle giving me the hot water it seems to have come out okay. I didn't give the kettle a first wash (which they recommend) so allowing for that it seems to have turned out better. I think I now have the temp and grounds right (I used Dunkin' Dark direct from the bag this morning). Going to try letting it steep a bit more and see what happens.
Thanks guys, I think I'm on the right track now.
The kettle I got this morning. It glows blue around the base when heating.HA!
The kettle I use is a stainless steel stove-top one I bought from IKEA in the ’90s. It was the cheapest, if not only one they had on sale at the time. Almost 25 years later, it still boils and still whistles and still does the job. The only thing I wish it had is an enamel coating of something like a bright red or bright blue (like the kind of enamel used with Le Creuset cookware), because it’s shaped like a half-moon/half-globe and it definitely derives from that post-Memphis group/postmodernist style which stuck around through about 2001.
Incidentally, when making coffee this morning, I glanced at the scoop (a Bodum scoop which I think came with the French press when new): a level scoop is 7g, or 0.25oz, according to the scoop handle info. This means my one-mug scoop for the press, when I wake up in a somnolent stupor, is probably closer to 14g/0.50oz.
LOL!How very English.
I wanted glass instead of stainless steel. The water is going to come from the water cooler (you don't use Phoenix, AZ tap water (or any tap water for that matter)) so I need to see how much I'm putting in.