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Note to self, with coffee
Mar. 15th, 2006 06:38 amDear self,
Espresso-grind does not work well in a French press. No, not even if you try to glom it into place with honey. And once you do that, the honey will sulk beneath the mesh and make a very bad job of diffusing through the volume above it.
On the bright side, the French-press cup seems to be entirely adequate at French-pressing, at least so far. The press lever sinks entirely down into its own opening once it's all the way down, which was pretty neat at first glance but on reflection means the whole assembly would have to be opened up to raise the lever again, in case it had been lowered prematurely onto a too-weak brew. The sipping porthole thing has its own hinged cover with similar design issues-- I was pleasantly surprised at first that it didn't flop back onto my nose when drinking, but as the cup empties out, the porthole cover (still not flopping) ends up pressing against the nose-tip; while not a problem in this case, it could have sticky consequences if the cup had been sloshing around enough to anoint the porthole cover's underside with sweetened beverage.
The honey gradient near the bottom is going to require a followup cuppa. And it would be a good idea to figure out how to take the mesh apart for cleaning, which the instruction booklet airily claimed to be possible but which preliminary inspection did not confirm.
Sadly, I can't give specific shopping pointers; I picked this up a few years ago and forgot about it until last week, so I don't know whether exact duplicates are still available for purchase. It was apparently manufactured by Bodum for Starbucks and is, I dunno, cup-sized (I'd guess the capacity at 12ish ounces). If I revert to a larger handbag, this might be nice to shove into a side-pocket with emergency looseleaf jasmine stored inside, awaiting hot water.
Actually, this cup might also work for Thai (iced) tea; I keep forgetting to try putting some into the Vietnamese drip espresso thingy. I'm pretty well convinced now that in lieu of condensed milk, it's much easier to make Vietnamese coffee by dripping the hot brew onto a generous gloop of honey, and once that's dissolved, topping off the rest of the cup with lactase-treated milk (hot or cold, depending on the weather). So the same substitution should work for Thai iced tea, at least in theory.
Espresso-grind does not work well in a French press. No, not even if you try to glom it into place with honey. And once you do that, the honey will sulk beneath the mesh and make a very bad job of diffusing through the volume above it.
On the bright side, the French-press cup seems to be entirely adequate at French-pressing, at least so far. The press lever sinks entirely down into its own opening once it's all the way down, which was pretty neat at first glance but on reflection means the whole assembly would have to be opened up to raise the lever again, in case it had been lowered prematurely onto a too-weak brew. The sipping porthole thing has its own hinged cover with similar design issues-- I was pleasantly surprised at first that it didn't flop back onto my nose when drinking, but as the cup empties out, the porthole cover (still not flopping) ends up pressing against the nose-tip; while not a problem in this case, it could have sticky consequences if the cup had been sloshing around enough to anoint the porthole cover's underside with sweetened beverage.
The honey gradient near the bottom is going to require a followup cuppa. And it would be a good idea to figure out how to take the mesh apart for cleaning, which the instruction booklet airily claimed to be possible but which preliminary inspection did not confirm.
Sadly, I can't give specific shopping pointers; I picked this up a few years ago and forgot about it until last week, so I don't know whether exact duplicates are still available for purchase. It was apparently manufactured by Bodum for Starbucks and is, I dunno, cup-sized (I'd guess the capacity at 12ish ounces). If I revert to a larger handbag, this might be nice to shove into a side-pocket with emergency looseleaf jasmine stored inside, awaiting hot water.
Actually, this cup might also work for Thai (iced) tea; I keep forgetting to try putting some into the Vietnamese drip espresso thingy. I'm pretty well convinced now that in lieu of condensed milk, it's much easier to make Vietnamese coffee by dripping the hot brew onto a generous gloop of honey, and once that's dissolved, topping off the rest of the cup with lactase-treated milk (hot or cold, depending on the weather). So the same substitution should work for Thai iced tea, at least in theory.