Why does coffee in cafes taste 100x better than at home?

[john1]

I am sure others have this question but how come when you go to dunkin donuts or starbucks the coffee is great but when you make the k-cups from them at home it tastes nothing like it?

I have a k cup coffee maker at home to cut down on going out for coffee and i still find myself not satisfied as i am with the coffee at the shops themselves.

Thoughts from other coffee drinkers?

 

[GAC05]

Same here, the coffee at home tastes nothing like the coffee I sit and drink at Hooters.
No idea why really.....

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Dave Drane]

Becoz it costs 10x times more!! lol!

 

[skyhigh]

Buy a percolator. k-cups and instant coffee makers are not for the true coffee drinker. They just look cute and stylish on the counter top. (ya don't see starbucks with a row of keurig makers on their counter) Although the ability to make a single cup of the different flavors is appealing to some, I am a coffee purest. (3 pot a day)

Once in a blue moon I do enjoy a French Vanilla Cappuccino, but have a hard time calling it coffee.

 

[Mainframe]

You need to get the right coffee maker, you have to buy the Bunn coffee maker for around a 100 bucks, also you need to get a grinder.

Buying your coffee whole is the best way to have it fresh, you can get a really nice grinder at staples for 20 bucks, I think Mr Coffee makes it.

Also, you need good filtered water or good spring or well water, you can't use stinky tap water.

If you follow this formula you can buy the unground coffee from Starbucks or most any smaller coffee roaster company and your brew will taste EXACTLY like it does from the store.

 

[visual800]

nah great coffe at home here just the way i want it. I dont usually purshase coffee out in the real world, ie starbucks, restaurants

 

[BobM]

Go to my mother-in-laws. She still perks the coffee until you can smell it all over the house. Then she serves it. Ahhhhhhhh, so good.

 

[Si Allen]

+1 on the Bunn coffee makers! A great pot of coffee ... in 3 minutes!

 

[FatCat]

Buy a percolator.

This

Percolators make "real" coffee
-REAL strong
-REAL black
-REAL hot

:Big Laugh

*Oh yeah, and I only buy whole bean coffee and grind only what I need each time I make a pot.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

First off, I'm not a coffee fan at all, but the way that mom and the ball and chain do a work around on the coffee house v. their house is that that the get the whole coffee, grind it and use the my k-cup. They only do that when they are wanting the coffee house experience though. They love their keurig otherwise and these people are coffee nuts. Their keurig was not to cut down on coffee house visits, but to supplement it during times of bad weather.

They do hate doing the whole pot thing too. No one at our else other then Alicia drinks coffee and mom is the only one that at the folks home, so a pot does go wasted through the day. Much more efficient and plus she says that the later cups in the pot don't ever taste as good to her as the compared to when it's fresh, so why waste it?

 

[genericname]

If you're not a huuuuge coffee guy (i.e. more than a pot a day), go with all the above advice (whole beans, grinder, filtered water), but get yourself a french press instead of percolator. A lot of upper scale coffee houses offer french press coffee as a higher end option when you don't want an espresso-based drink.

You can get them in any serving size to suit you, be it a single cup, two, four, probably more, and when you're done, you have lovely grounds with which to put in your fridge to eat up odours, or to do the same by pouring down your drain with hot water.

Sad fact: some of the larger coffee chains (Tim Horton's up here that I know of for sure), when roasting their beans, burn the coffee on purpose. Coffee taste and composition can vary wildly from crop to crop, and when you're a huge chain worried about maintaining a flavour as part of your brand, you often look for the lowest common denominator. In this case, it's burning the hell out of the beans to make sure they all have the same taste, even if it's crap.

 

[SightLine]

I feel the opposite and generic sort if hits on what I've found. I cannot stand Starbucks coffee. Tastes burned to a crisp and nasty to me. We do have a Bunn at home but our slower Mr Coffee does make better coffee. I'm thinking its because the water has a little more time to take on some flavor versus the ultra fast Bunn. I like a strong dark roast, not a stong burnt roast. I'm no snob though - I'll drink crap coffee with no complaints but I do very much enjoy better quality coffee that is fresh ground and brewed with filtered water.

 

[David Wright]

Local coffee shops here tell me they use much more coffee to water ratio which for one will make it stronger. Mr. Coffee isn't going to cut it if you want a really good brew.
As far as tap water vs. bottled, no difference, they all use tap and water is water.

 

[shakey0818]

I never drank coffee so I might not get this right.I heard it a long time ago.From what i can remember what i was told it has a lot of factors.1 is that all the flavors are stored close to each other,and brewed next to each other,the pots retain some of the flavor from continued use and from what others said it is brewed verry hot almost burned.

 

[neato]

If you're not a huuuuge coffee guy (i.e. more than a pot a day), go with all the above advice (whole beans, grinder, filtered water), but get yourself a french press instead of percolator.

This is it! I've tried everything and nothing beats a french press and freshly ground coffee with a burr type grinder. A little more work, but you will get coffeehouse grade coffee at home this way.

My new favorite beans are the Gevalia Espresso Roast now available at WalMart.

 

[TyrantDesigner]

Speak for yourself ... I grind my own coffee, brew dark and awesome and use good quality beans ... I often also find myself rubbing that thin ultra fine residue in my grinder and rubbing directly to the gums ... oh man, shot to the heart. star bucks aint got nothing on my labor of love. All they have is burnt tasting vomit water in comparison. If I want truly fantastic coffee I will french press it, lot of cleanup though, I have a stove top espresso maker that is truly out of this world if I want a latte (really clean flavor too ... no bitterness only flavor) and damned if I don't have my down and dirty coffee maker ... the key is the water temp ... I let the water cycle a little before it brews and the coffee adds a lot to the flavor profile of the coffee. Your grind as well is a massive part as well, stuff straight from the can are all middle grind, they sift it so the ultra fine espresso grind is lifted out ... an espresso grind in your coffee maker will be a cleaner profile as well. heck, if you wanted an almost Argentinian style cup of coffee ... just grind so fine that you just put boiling water in the cup and stir in a spoon full ... a good coffee will come out almost like cocoa at that point. mmmmmmm

 

[Jillbeans]

I loathe Star*ucks coffee. Dunkin' Donuts is good, and Tim Horton's is too.
Last week I tried regular old store brand (Giant Eagle) Columbian coffee and even with my icky well water it was awesome.
I always use fat free half-n-half, my one luxury.
Maybe cafe coffee is better to you because you don't have to prepare it?
Love....Jill

 

[Fred Weiss]

I spent almost eight years in the office coffee business many moons ago. We use a Bunn for our brew to this day. It meets the standards for brewing established years ago by a number of groups involved in professional food service.

Those standards call for a water temperature of 200° (+/- 4°) and for the water to be in contact with the coffee grounds for no less than 2.5 minutes and no more than 3.5 minutes for a 12 cup (64 oz.) pot. The result is a range of extraction of the coffee oils considered ideal with variables for taste being the weight, grind, roasting and blend of the coffee itself. The Bunn uses an internal tank to heat and store hot water and keep it at the ready for the next pot. Brewers like the Mr. Coffee and stove top percolators heat the water from scratch resulting in a much slower brew, higher temperatures and over extraction of the coffee oils.

Starbucks and others have certainly changed consumer expectations of how a "good" cup of coffee tastes by using French Roast standards with their offerings. To me, French Roast is little more than burning of the coffee during the roasting process to hide the poor quality of the beans used in the blend. The most widely used blend, and the highest quality IMHO, is the "Pan-American" blend which consists of 1/3 Brazilian Milds, 1/3 Columbian, and 1/3 of any of the Central American mountain grown beans. It is medium roasted and a standard drip grind. Folger's Classic Roast is as good as it gets as far as what is available in the grocery store.

 

[Speedsterbeast]

Many reasons as stated above.
-Yes, a good quality coffee maker
-Fresh Ground Whole Beans
-Quality Beans (I pay about $15.00 .lb for the coffee I brew in my shop)
-Also, if you take cream, you probably use 1 or 2% milk at home and when you get a coffee out they are putting 18% or so fat content in your coffee. That is a HUGE difference in taste.

If you spend a good buck on a maker and beans, you still come out way ahead of giving billions to the coffee corporations one dollar at a time

 

[Mainframe]

My buddy owns 3 roaster machines, I buy the whole bean coffee from him, (I did his logo and signs)- I can never go back!

http://hallowedgrounds.biz/