They could go even further and label this flavored coffee. Coferments like this are flavored coffee, it’s straight up an infusion.

Unfortunately, with the connotations of flavored coffee, it would be murder on the high end business that’s producing some of the coffee that’s pushing the envelope. Excessive labeling could also be extremely misleading; often the flavors of the fruit used in the coferment don’t come out in the coffee. I had a coffee a few years ago that tasted just like grape soda as a byproduct of being cofermeneted with lychee. If it had been labeled lychee flavored, I’d have been convinced I got the wrong coffee. And also probably pretty mad. It was labeled as tasting like grape soda and I got what I paid for.

That said, Perc’s current labeling is actually pulling back from the slippery slope. I’ve had coferments that were badly labeled. Perc is very explicit and open. And I do think some minor onus is on the consumer informing themselves on what they’re buying; I think @echo@lemmy.ml was correctly informed.

This coffee? It’s cofermented. This coffee? Pure coffee, anaerobically fermented, then dried natural. This coffee? Washed process, standard fermentation practices.

I got my copy last week, looking forward to reading it through. It’s a daunting concept for one book.

The section on extraction is very good. Chopped out it would be a great pamphlet.

There are methods of preparation for flat bottom pourover, cone pourover, phin, moka, siphon, Aeropress, and of course espresso. I would have liked the section on espresso to be deeper. A big part of why I wanted this book is that the author is an award winning expert in espresso. Perhaps this is all Morgan felt was necessary to reach a very high level.

The syrup recipes will be useful for some people. The caramel sauce is accurate, the rest are fine. It goes into oleo saccharum and using fruits and flowers for syrup.

There are 30+ recipes for coffee drinks. Enough for a cafe for a year. I get why they would be useful in a book like this. I’m unlikely to make many of them.

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

It’s between Daggerfall and Morrowind for me.

Daggerfall is incredibly nostalgic to me, it is so expansive, to the point of being overwhelming. So many options, and so many of them fun. So many quests, and enemies, places to go and things to do. A friend set up a simple script to just run across the world and we would check in on it to see how far on the map the PC didn’t get. I never beat the main plot, I would just make characters and see how strong I could get them. Nothing before or since could be bigger.

Morrowind is a very complete, nearly perfect (for what it is) game. I love that the world is so weird. I love the cities, and the NPCs, and the rich quest lines that I never found particularly improved by its successors. I loved that sometimes I had to really think and suffer through some friction. Success in Morrowind was a reward for serious effort.

Oblivion is fine. Even with Sir Patrick, it’s the most forgettable of the games. I liked the DLCs a lot. Skyrim intentionally lacks the sort of huge, sweeping cities that I adore in high fantasy. It’s a prerequisite to compete with Morrowind in my book.

It gets a lot steeper. At the tippy top the going rate for the scarcest, most desirable gesha is around $600 a kilo, $250 a pound, give or take.

Trying it before you buy is very reasonable. I’ve given people coffee similar to what Brandywine does best and gotten blank looks. It doesn’t look like they have an official coffee shop but inevitably near any premium roaster there is a good cafe selling their coffee.

I have an Ode, so not able to go fine enough for espresso. A new grinder would be unavoidable.

I have considered a Gaggia, though I’m hesitant to buy a project. I already have a few projects I’m not doing. The Turin has temperature control and a pressure gauge with the ability to modify in pressure control, I think it might be enough, and a Flair is likewise a consideration. I’m loathe to buy something less capable than those knowing I’ll want to replace it, but a Bambino is nevertheless in consideration too.

I’m not sure what gets me over the hump. For now I’m enjoying amazing pourover.

I don’t consider what I’m about to say a spoiler, but some people might.

I think this coffee would do well in any brewing method.

I’ve been considering an espresso setup recently and I keep hitting a roadblock. I’m making pourover coffee at a high level and I have easy access to two local coffee shops that make amazing espresso. To actually get better coffee I need to spend an uncomfortable amount of money.

I had a chat with a friend about what buying a proper espresso setup would take. The answer is any sort of windfall, at all. So if I win $200 from a beauty contest I think I’m legally on the hook for a Timemore Sculptor 064s and a Turin Legato.

I suspect the Halloweenie on their website now is the same bean, they can’t be buying too many lots from Chelbesa. At the very least it would be similar.

If you’re well familiar with Ethiopia, I think many other roasters sell similarly good Ethopian coffee. If you want to try Brandywine, their weirder stuff is amazing. I seldom rebuy coffees but they had a peach coferment Star Trek TNG themed coffee earlier this year that I tried to buy more of after it sold out. One of the best coffees I’ve ever had. The others I’ve bought have been stellar, too.

Great bag art, too. It’s a little thing but I love it.

I did not actively know that, though I passively expect as much from any Texas company.

If it makes you feel any better, like all but two of my other mugs it’s thrifted. I was aware they’re a big Go Texas Go! company so I was tickled at the idea of the mug being made in China.

It’s tame in the sense that Brandywine is better known for their coferments or infusions, pretty weird coffee. My most recent posts have also been on weird, heavily manipulated coffees from Luminous and Black and White.

In terms of quality, it’s excellent. People unfamiliar with natural process coffee might find it a little odd, but it’s still very coffee flavored, just more lush.

I’ve put some serious thoughts into what I pay for coffee. I wrote about it at some length in a recent post about Luminous, which is a good bit more costly.

If this is outside what you’d like to pay, I understand. It’s well past the point of diminishing returns.

That said, Brandywine roasts some of the best coffee in the world and I’m drinking it for $1.55 a cup, including the filter. Coffee is a hobby to me. I can afford an extra dollar a day to go from meh to best in the world. My demand is pretty inelastic near this price point; I would pay a lot more than $1.55 a cup and not change my coffee habits at all.

Connery’s stance on violence as a means of control, not self defense, is documented in a pretty famous Barbara Walters interview.

Connery: I think it depends entirely on the circumstances, and if it merits it.

Walters: What would merit it?

C: Well, if you have tried everything else. And- women are pretty good at this. They can’t leave it alone. They’ve got to have the last word, and you give them the last word. But they’re not happy with the last word. They want to say it again. And get into a really provocative situation. Then, I think it’s absolutely right.

You may not be familiar with all of this, which is entirely fair because it’s not reasonable to have watched every celebrity interview in history, but I would encourage you to watch it as context. He was inarguably talking about hitting women in his life to shut them up.

First time I saw that interview, I remember being shocked by how blunt and honest it was, because like most people I liked Connery as a movie star. He did not sanitize his opinions. Outside a card game with the boys on a Thursday night, you’re not going to hear a more honest endorsement of violence in a relationship.

I’d love to join a roaster’s subscription service, get the whole curated experience, but right now it would just be too much. I’m in my roaster fling era.

Haha, I suppose $10 would be about right! I would also definitely be on the hook.

I’ve thought about making coffee out of liquids other than water, but only idly. Even just getting coffee right with water can be demanding. It does feel like an idea with some meat on the bone.

What did the tea bring to the finished cup? Did you enjoy it?

Not pictured is 20g of a Perc cinnamon coferment and maybe 60g of a B&W decaf sitting next to my grinder.

I don’t think you or I have a problem.

We live in a time of incredible wonder and culinary delight. I’m not going to arbitrarily limit my enjoyment of a frankly cheap hobby. On different days I want different coffees and brew methods. I am incredibly fortunate that I get to pick what I want every day, on average 15-25g. Sometimes I drink the same coffee for a week. Sometimes nothing.

I give away coffee regularly, I don’t get attached to any one coffee to the point of buying multiple bags or keeping it perpetually stocked, and I don’t buy any commodity coffee for my home. I am attentive to dates, but not slavish. If something goes really stale, it was pretty meh.

We can only healthfully consume so much caffeine. In my home I’m not spending that on meh.

According to its papers, it was finished December 23rd, 2015. I would have bought it a few months after that. I think the retail price was around $180 at the time.

Even budget knives benefit a lot from being sharp. A Spyderco Sharpmaker will last a lifetime and is enough for most home cooks. The rolling sharpeners are okay for plenty of people, too, particularly if you’re not worried about scratching up the blade’s face.

I would rather use a sharp IKEA knife than a dull expensive knife.

Artisanal Japanese kitchen knives are all up, for obvious reasons, but the Yuki skyrocketed. It was popular because it was affordable, stainless clad white #2 with an okay handle. I think that popularity juiced up the price, which sadly defeats the purpose.

That bunka is a fantastic knife for under $100. I paid $150 for my Yuki gyuto, which was a legitimately good deal even at the time.