Coffee

Folgers Breakfast Blend for me. I can usually get two or three Priuschat tirades out of it.

 

I'm also a Folgers fan. A couple three cups of their Black Silk is my daily driver, brewed up in a Braun cone filter drip machine. Weekends I enjoy some single serve Senseo, either the Espresso or Strong/Very Strong. Senseo may have been first or nearly first on the single-serve scene and were rapidly beat out by the K-cup empire. Can't comment on taste or quality of a K as I've never tried one, but their unsustainable plastic litter will be hip-deep some day.

 

I was on the road a LOT in the 80's and 90's, and I remember when it was sometimes better not to have any coffee at all rather than subject oneself to coffee from McDonalds.

Happily, they have upped their game somewhat in the years and decades since then.

McCafe Premium Roast Medium for me, please.
Pour-over if I have the time, or out of an old-school 5-cup Mr. Coffee Drip machine.

Sooner or later you always return to the basics.

Good balance of bite and caffeine kick.
Available in pods, or ground, and in some flavors whole bean.
If you're away from home you can get the same brew just about any time, just about any where.

 

I don't claim to be an expert on coffee. But I have been fortunate to taste different coffee from around the world. The best tasting coffees for me come from the Columbian areas. Also from Guatemala and Panama. A close second is Kona coffee.

However, if you really want coffee with a "kick", take a sip (that's right a sip) of Turkish coffee. You sip it from a small cup. By sipping it, it reaches different areas of the tongue. But man, its 1000 percent caffeine, so watch out!

 

I don't like coffee at all. But Australians - and Melburnians in particular - all think they are experts on coffee and bang on about it all the time. They've all got a favourite artisanal place that's down a back alley and the barista has his own special way of making it and has won loads of awards but you wouldn't have heard of it because it's a place only local connoisseurs know about. It is unbearable.

Every Australian who goes to America complains that they couldn't find a proper cup of coffee anywhere. It seems to be an Australian law that they're not allowed back in to Australia unless they complain about how awful American coffee was. It's weird.

 

There's not much to be an 'expert' on.
It's been around since the ninth century and there are only two ingredients.
Roasted Coffee beans and hot water.

Most people who are devotees of obscure artisanal coffee producers really do not like coffee at all, which is why they use silly things like sugar, milk, and a dizzying array of spices and extracts.

See also:
Tea drinkers, the goofiest of which do not even drink tea, but rather ground up plants that they find laying around that they refer to as "herbal tea" which means that it is "tea-free tea!"
AND I say this as a lover of chamomile not-tea.

I also like a little bergamot in REAL tea.
No milk. No sugar, if it's brewed right and if it's NOT brewed right why in heck are you drinking it????

Owing to the fact that I live in the Southern Portion of the US I also drink some tea in its most refined and best tasting form.

Iced.

NOTE that I did not say 'sweet' because in the US Southern States when one is referring to to 'tea' then iced and sweet is the default state that this beverage is served.
Saying 'sweet tea' is extra-redundant.

Owing to the fact that I hail from a more disadvantaged part of the world I either add ice to bring the sugar content down to a manageable level of just suffer the indignities of ordering it unsweetened.

IIRC, coffee tips the scales at about 4% caffeine in the wild.

Caffeine can kill you, for-real.
if it were 'discovered' today it would require a prescription, and it's already fairly well regulated in the US (and in other places) by dot.gov.
Coffee originated in Africa according to legend when a goat-herder noted that the goats became super-animated when eating the beans from a particular bush.
Since only a goat would eat coffee beans when they are green, drying and roasting were developed, the latter producing that "Good Morning!!!!" smell that has helped tame at least three continents.
The Turks concentrated the resulting brew into something that the Italians would further refine.

Something that we call....expresso - coffee's 'shot' of liquor.

Not more caffeine.
Just a higher concentration.

 

caffeine levels vs roasts and extraction methods

https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-much-caffeine-in-morning-coffee-765274

==
LD 50 means a lethal dose to 50% of tested animals per kilogram of body weight. We are supposed to know the species of animal tested. That info is not here, but it still seems a useful lookup tool for a first pass:

Ibuprofen Toxicity (LD50) | AAT Bioquest
Caffeine and aspirin nearly tie at about 200 milligrans per kilogram
Ibuprofen 636, ethanol 7000, nicotine 0.8, tetrodotoxin 0.334, explore others to get a handle on toxicology.

 

Funny nicotine and ethanol is full-featured in LD knowledge.
How 'bout Tetrahydrocannabinol??

Science.....

 

It is also on that linked page.

 

Very familiar with Turkish coffee after 3 years living at Incirlik AB. You also want to sip carefully so you don't stir up the grounds which occupy the lower half of the little cup. If you're really lucky, you might even get your fortune told.

 

So True! I didn't get mine told though.