Bad Coffee: Why Do People Love It?

Sprudge wrote:I'm curious about the widespread affection our society has for a regular no-fuss cup of joe. With apologies and a warm heart for those who adore the stuff, I've started to ask why, exactly, people like bad coffee so much.

Bad coffee is just that, BAD! I politely turn down any coffee offered if I know it is the standard fare. As for other folks your guess is as good as mine.

I think the article covered it well. I am sure cost is a large part of it. As someone who travels for work it can be quite difficult to find a good shop other than Starbucks (sometimes they are hard to find) outside a major metro area.

The social experience is more than the coffee as well. Something I have always hated about snobby barista places, if you ruin the social part of the service I don't care how great your coffee is as you ruined half of it.

And in the end bad is subjective, and to each their own. I stick to the middle medium roast yet I have a friend who swears by her Starbucks. I travel with my La Pavoni and no longer worry about coffee that is made differently than mine though I do make a point to try a few shops (if I can find any) a trip for my afternoon caffeine fix (amazing what can be fixed with sugar).

Bad coffee was good before I had good coffee. Now, bad coffee is just bad. In a way, this makes things worse, as I can no longer have coffee out at most restaurants. I used to enjoy that.

I feel like this comes down to the basic nature of people to feel that we are above-average in all things... so clearly our choices are going to be superior... even if we haven't the context to appreciate the differences

To me it is more about training and development of senses than snobism

I gently turn down the offered coffee on most occasions, and when I do accept it the taste typically confirms why I normally decline. The hard part is seeing perfectly good equipment in cafe's, going in assuming the espresso will be OK and being offered something like a weakish battery acid made from stale beans roasted beyond recognition...(we have at least three places in town with a KvdW and none of them know how to make a decent tasting cup) if only baristas would be trained by the taste in the cup....

In the early 80's I was drinking cappuccinos at a cafe in Marina del Rey that had a 5kg roaster in the front that they roasted their coffee in. 2 or 3 group lever machine, maybe a Gaggia with an eagle on top, but I don't really remember anything else about it. They sold greens if you asked and so I started roasting in a yellow pop corn popper back then. Soon modified with a separate switch on the heater and a thermometer hanging into the bean mass. Some book or another I read back then talked about profiles and so I tried to follow those rules and the coffee was good. Brewed in a Chemex I think or sometimes a french press.

I have no clue about the quality of the drinks from the cafe, I went for the music on Fridays and Saturdays, but I do remember that some of the coffee I roasted was spectacular, in particular one bag that he claimed was from Oaxaca. I guess it must have been good, as I still remember it 30+ years later.

Sometime earlier, late 70's I picked up a Baby Gaggia, as far as I remember, the "best" home machine you could buy back then. At least that I knew of and those days in Los Angeles, there was not much knowledge. It was a huge amount of money for me at the time and I think I hardly used it because the espresso was bitter as all get out and I don't think I ever figured out milk. By that time I knew to grind beans fresh and either had a whirly blade grinder or had moved on to a Spong #2.