Where are you buying your coffee these days?

Complete novice here lads, love buying coffee when out but only recently purchased a home coffee maker. Just looking for a top notch coffee bean to make cappuccino's at home? Preferably something I can buy in Ireland although ordering online is fine too if it gets you better quality.

keith_d99 wrote: »

For a Cappuccino/Latte you should use an Espresso Bean

Try Ponaire's European Espresso Bean Dr. Winston - nice dark flavour

Tried a good few beans from a good few sources .. and Ponaire's is my favourite so far!

Perfect cheers, will give it a shot. Stupid question alert as well: It offers a choice of either ground/whole bean, presumably that depends on your coffee machine?

Dr.Winston O'Boogie wrote: »

Perfect cheers, will give it a shot. Stupid question alert as well: It offers a choice of either ground/whole bean, presumably that depends on your coffee machine?

Yep if your machine can grind get the whole ... Nicer/fresher than pre-ground

Roquentin wrote: »

how is that when i brew my coffee using a french press that it is never as nice as the barista style coffee using the expensive machines? What does the machine do that makes it nicer can anybody tell me?

Its to do with the pressure that coffee is extracted at. When you use a french press there isn't that much pressure. When you use an espresso machine the water passes through the coffee at about 9 or 10 bars of pressure, extracting coffee at this pressure extracts the oils that are in the coffee, what is known as crema, giving it a nice creamy head and also making it taste much more intense and flavoursome.

If you want to get better results from pressing coffee manually I'd advise buying an Aeropress over using a french press. But you'll never get a proper crema on it like barista style coffee, for that you need a proper espresso machine and a grinder

Roquentin wrote: »

thanks. those barista machines are expensive, about 3k i think. if i won the lotto i would buy one. you cant beat the barista style

An entry level model is the Gaggia Classic, it costs approx €250 or you can get them second hand for €150ish. I have one at the moment and they're perfectly fine for the home user to produce barista style coffee.

What is just an important though is a grinder, one that can grind beans fine enough to produce espresso. There's lots of €30-€50 grinders on the market but they aren't up to the task. An entry level grinder like the Iberital MC2 costs approx €150.

I did without a grinder and just bought pre-ground coffee for the first few months. It was very nice but now I have a good grinder which meant all my coffee is from freshly ground beans rather than from beans that were ground weeks ago in a factory somewhere. Its been a big boost to the flavour and taste and now I'm even more addicted to coffee than ever

adrian522 wrote: »

Was in coffeeangel on Sunday, usually a big fan of the place but the coffee I was buying had been roasted on Feb 10th. This was on March 8th.

I asked did they have anything more recent but they didn't. Was told 2-3 weeks is usually fine. Didn't want to get into an argument so went for a different bag of coffee that was roasted Feb 24th I think.

Just taken an order from coffeemojo today, first time in over a year.

Came to about €20 for 2 bags. See their bags have increased from 227 to 250g.

Got coffee on thursday that was roasted the day before :P
However I got coffee there the week before and it was the 10th of FEB and i was questioning should I buy or not as i knew I wouldn't be finishing it until the start of this week.
Its annoying and something that they need to look into....although if Karls happy to brew with it, then technically shouldn't I:pac:

Hey guys
Got some great reading in this thread - thanks for sharing!

Normally order from ponaire - have tried the european and indian blends and the bobolink - love the european best I think, any other recommendations of something different to try? Or even another roaster round that price point €20 for a kg-ish??

Thanks

The Dublin Barista School on Anne St. sell some decent beans.