[Niteshade]

How many cups do you drink a day?

Just got myself a new coffee maker and a stainless steel basket which replaces those paper strainers. The steel strainer makes a big difference! It just tastes fresher to me. I also started to make two cups at a time so it's always fresh. Type used this time: Folger's Special Roast medium. Four cups (standard ceramic cup) seemed to do well today.

Does anybody use the stove-top percolators?

[moremoremore]

I was buying green coffee from greencoffee.coop, using an RK drum roaster over a gas bbq, grinding it with a Mazzer Mini, and finishing off with a Grimac Mia espresso machine that sported an E61 gruppo.  Used that routine for about five years.  When the planets were aligned, it was the best espresso around.

I quit drinking coffee three months ago and gave away my gear.

 

[satfrat]

2-4 cups a day myself, usually the last cup coming just hours before I go to bed. I've never drank store bought coffee myself,,, it's sad stuff imho. I'm fortunate to have a local roaster, MochaJoes, who specializes in top quality beans from all around the world. I currently drinking a bean from Indonisia, another from Nicaragua and yet another from El Salvador. I'm stocked up with around 14 lbs that I store in my freezer for the winter. I use 3 TightVac vaccum tight containers for each bean that stores a weeks worth on  the counter. The whole idea is to keep the roasted bean as fresh as possible before actual use.
 
 I use a burr grinder that I grind my beans per cup only and I use an AeroPress for pressing a single cup. I nuke the milk, nuke the water using a 5 oz measuring cup and each cup is exact to my preferences.
 
I use to do what you do with the gold basket and I used a 2 cup brewer also but that now still sits on my counter collecting dust for well over a year now since having been turned onto the AeroPress here on AudioCircle. Yes the press uses paper filters but I get around 20-30 cups per filter and quite frankly the freshness of each AeroPress cup stands alone when compared to my old brewer. And it's quicker too. even tho it's a bit more hands-on, it's this that I like the best about making each cup myself. And I'm never forced to drink that 2nd cup til I really want a 2nd cup.
 
Fact is I never drank coffee til 9 years ago at age 50 when I quit the Crown Royal lifetime ride that I had been on. But as it was with my whiskey, I like my coffee ~top shelf~. 
 
Oh yeah,,, I'm too lazy to roast my own.   
 
Cheers,
Robin

[borism]

I am also an espresso/cappuccino fan and use a Gaggia Classic plus a Mazzer Mini. Never got into roasting my beans like moremoremore. However, I remember my grandmother roasting coffee beans. The aroma was incredible. The main thing IMHO is to have good beans and only grind them just before making the coffee. For filter coffee I love Costa Rican beans.
Enjoy,
Boris

[Letitroll98]

Please Nite, I'm glad you're into coffee, I'm a big fan, but you have to look beyond Folgers, it's not coffee.  Coffee is sweet and delicate, with hints of fruit and floral in the cup, something I'm quite sure Folgers doesn't exhibit.  Try some blends or single origin coffees from Paradise Roasters http://www.paradiseroasters.com/ , Intelligentsia http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/ , B&B http://www.batdorf.com/, Green Mountain http://www.greenmountaincoffee.com/ , or any of the many other fine specialty roasters.  Try reading http://www.coffeereview.com/ for some great coffee reviews and fine educational articles. 

Oh, for your OP, I drink exactly three cups, 42 gr of one of the coffees above or lately my local roaster, ground in a Kitchen Aid Pro Grinder and brewed in a Capresso coffee machine.  When I have time on the weekends it's often espresso made in a Gaggia.  The Aero Press mentioned in other posts is a wonderful alternative, as is a French Press, something I go back to from time to time.

[dangerbird]

3-4 cups a day,, grind my own beans(Jamican Blue Mountain,,or some Kona) and french press it,,until recently a old school perculator was what I used.

[Tyson]

If I didn't have a super-badass coffee shop on the first floor of my building, I'd own an espresso machine.  But since they are there, I use them for that.  For home brewing, I usually buy my beans from them, and I have a Kitchen Aid Pro Burr Grinder (best coffee purchase, ever), and an Aeropress.  I feel exactly the same way about mine as Robin.

[bside123]

I enjoy coffee so much that 13 years ago I bought a Coffeehouse! We buy only Fair Trade Coffee, and we have an arrangement with a small, regional roaster. We get beans delivered to our spec twice a week and are in the process of developing our own blend.

I generally drink one (1) cup of coffee a day. My potion is a 7 oz cappuccino using 4 "short" shots of espresso. A real nice kick. It might not be well known that although the flavor of an espresso is more robust than other methods of brewing, it actually has less caffeine per serving than drip or pressed coffee... and much less acid & oil. Nonetheless, at this point I drink a high quality decaf.

When drinking coffee at home, I use an Italian made, stainless steel, stove top espresso maker that blows the steam through the grounds into an upper chamber. Some of my favorite blends include, but are not limited to: Jamaican Blue Mountain, Hawaiian Kona, Puerto Rican Mountain. I am also fond of the Turkish and Arabic style of making coffee. 

[Jaketh]

1 cup a day during the week. Get my coffee green from sweetmarias.com. Roasting in a behmor for about 3 months (After 2 years, my iRoast2 shattered thanks to my youngest...was ready for an upgrade anyway!).  French Press in the mornings on weekdays, pull my espresso on weekends from Rancilio Miss Silvia from my roast ground in my Rancilio Rocky.

[S Clark]

Well, I'm way off the charts, probably 6-8 cups a day  .  I've enjoyed good beans for probably a decade, but just started roasting a few months ago- and doubt if I'll ever go back.  I use a Gaggia Baby and a Gaggia MDF grinder.  None of the coffee shops around these parts can come close to what I can make at home.

[satfrat]

A heads up on a limited supply roasting for this thursday only of a Cup of Excellence winner from El Salvador at my local roaster, Mocha Joes. It's expensive at $24.95 a pound but my boys are saying it's the best bean they've had all season in a year where coffee prices have gone up while the bean quality has gone down.
 
Here's the link to their website, preordering only and need to be placed before 9:00am est Thursday November 18. A bean description from their website:

El Salvador Cup of Excellence winner “La Pinera[/].” This year’s international jury has described the flavor of this coffee as, “mandarin, tangerine, strawberry jam, honey, dark chocolate and almonds.” With a sweet, pink grapefruit acidity and creamy finish, this coffee is one of our most exciting offerings this year!   This coffee is available in very limited quantities and therefore must be pre-ordered for roasting and shipping on November 18th. Orders must be received by 9am on November 18th to be filled. Please order items for immediate shipment separately from this coffee. Any other coffees included in your order will be shipped with the "La Pinera" on the 18th of November.

 
 
I presently have 12 pounds of beans from Nicaragua, Indonesia, and El Salvador. I need more beans like I need to download more albums. I ended up ordering 6 pounds.   
 
I freeze all my roasted beans and keep a weeks worth on the counter in a vacuum sealed container. I suspect I won't be placing another order with Mocha Joes til next summer. But I always keep my eye on their website,, just in case a bean like La Pinera pops up. 
 
Cheers,
Robin
 

[Eric]

1-2 cups for me

[firedog]

3-5 cups a day, mostly double espresso's or double espresso's with hot milk added. Sometimes I drink Turkish.
Roast my own blend of beans so coffee is always fresh.

[taoggniklat]

Zero

I love the smell of coffee, but I can't stand drinking it.

[Mama Virtue]

no offense to anyone but ugh Folgers! I think of myself as a coffee brat, I hate going to my parents house my dad tends to be cheap with everything including his coffee, cheapest thing he can find at Wal-mart or Fry's  ...when I was little (growing up with Hispanic tradition I have drank coffee since I was 3) I used to see Maxwell and Folger's commercials and ask my dad to buy the "good stuff"....didn't know I wasn't missing anything. It's scary that my dad drinks the crap black too! Anyway, generally we buy our beans from Costco, as much as I wish I could spend a ton of money on awesome beans (and would probably enjoy roasting my own) I am on a budget for now. We just got a new KitchenAid maker, it does ok. One day we will own our own kick-ass coffee gear. Until then, its the wire basket (yes, this does make a difference!) and coffeemate creamers...have been trying to move away from those...they can't be good for me! Generally I lose track of my cups during the day but I am a slow sipper and constantly am topping off my cup. I switch to decaf after 4PM otherwise I have a very restless night. (Starbucks decaf from costco is pretty good, 10.99 for a 2.5 lb bag I think)
Also, I have heard you are not supposed to store coffee in the freezer, or at least it shouldn't go in and out of the freezer constantly?

[Thebiker]

A minimum of 2 cups per day to get the pump running for the day.  Currently drinking Sumatra medium roast, ground fresh and brewed strong with a Cuisinart burr grinder/brewer into a thermal carafe.  Stays hot while I get it on the inside without making it bitter.  Time for the third cup of the day .

Walt

[satfrat]

Also, I have heard you are not supposed to store coffee in the freezer, or at least it shouldn't go in and out of the freezer constantly?

Maybe you're thinking about fresh bean storage? It was my own roaster who recommend that I freeze unused roasted beans til I'm ready to store a weeks worth on the counter. Before that, I had always stored my beans in the refrigerator and I was told that's an absolute no-no. What will degrade the coffee oils in a roasted bean the most is grinding, 1st and formost. Your Folgers starts regrading at it's factory grinding and coffee oils simply continue to deteriorate with it's time in shipping, shelf life and home life. Light, air, moisture, and temperature will also degrade these oils. It's because of moisture buildup(condensation) that refrigerature storage is so bad. It's not so bad in the freezer tho, it really only occurs with the bean's continued removal to and from the freezer. I keep a weeks worth of beans on the counter as that's about the life expectancy length of a freshly roasted bean before deterioration begins,,, 1 week. I use solid vacuum containers to combat the light and air deterioration with the week timeline I give them for counter storage. It's all about maintaining the post-roasting flavor & potency of the oils contained inside the roasted bean.
 
A lot of these same traits are the same for marajuana stroage for which I use to be very proficient at when I grew my own for personal use only many many years ago. It's all about maintaining precious oil's potency for the long term. So for me, it was a natural transition between the oilbased byproducts that these 2 plants have in common with(different type oils mind you).   
 
Cheers,
Robin