Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[Double 0 Soul]

9 minutes ago, Dr_Heech said:

Are you there in person? jk

Congratulations @beautiful_FrEaK and family, hope all goes well.

 

I was just working my way back through this thread and nearly spat my coffee out on pg330

(just between you and i Chaz.. i think the father could be Casper The Friendly Ghost)

Edited September 15 by Double 0 Soul

[beautiful_FrEaK]

32 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

I've just seen @beautiful_FrEaK baby scan

What brilliant news to wake up to.. congratulations!!

 

 

She is already born mate 😅😉

Thanks!

[beautiful_FrEaK]

19 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

i think the father could be Casper The Friendly Ghos

She's a genie indeed 😅

[Double 0 Soul]

My god! .. Congratulations!!

Feels like i've only been away for a few weeks..

Have you chosen a name?

[mlwdp]

@beautiful_FrEaKCongrats!

[smoothsailor]

It’s good to be young, and naive. I missed all the fuzz on db, 

I was always intimidated by sufu somehow. Thought it was a big, opinionated , crowd.

its good to be here now, still young and naive

[reallypeacedoff]

13 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Have you chosen a name?

Her name is Indigo.

[aho]

9 hours ago, smoothsailor said:

I was always intimidated by sufu somehow. Thought it was a big, opinionated , crowd.

before anyone did anything SUFU did everything 🙏

[Double 0 Soul]

Ive been getting into overnight oats recently.. 

This one is a cup of oats, half a cup of coconut milk, half a cup of cows milk, handful of chia seeds and left in the fridge overnight..

I’ve sprinkled it with *turmeric superblend, handful of flaked almonds, handful of pecans and a squeeze of blossom honey.

*remember that Indian fellow in the cricket whites I was chatting to in A&E when I got knocked off my bike.. he suggested turmeric as a cure all.. I’ve been into it ever since.

[Thanks_M8]

^turmeric as a cure all reminds me of my dad. He used to put a teaspoon in his morning coffee everyday for a few years never tried it tbh.

[Double 0 Soul]

I was in A&E with a wrist fracture, i was chatting to this chap who said .. he used to suffer with a lot of fractures in his fingers because of the cricket ball hitting them.. his dad started giving him Masala Haldi Doodh (turmeric stirred into warm milk) before every match and he never suffered again.

 

Edited September 16 by Double 0 Soul

[mlwdp]

Lady White Co and Phigvel are doing a collab.

[chicote]

Turmeric is amazing! If you’re consuming it for its health benefits, it’s recommended to add a bit of black pepper alongside it. The polyphenols curcumin (from turmeric) and piperine (from peppercorns) taken together greatly increase the former’s bioavailability, meaning it’ll be much more readily absorbed by the body.

 

One of my favorite coffee additives is a masala (spice blend) i had while in India years ago. I came across it in the wonderful cookbook Masala by Anita Jaisinghani - highly highly recommended as a cookbook but also an introduction to Indian spices, their traditional and Ayurvedic uses, and the culinary and cultural histories of the subcontinent. Anyway, it’s as follows:

Coffee Masala (adapted from Anita Jaisinghani)

4 cinnamon sticks

2 tablespoons black peppercorns

2 tablespoons green cardamom pods

2 star anise pods

1/2 teaspoon whole cloves

Ground turmeric, to taste (I recommend 2-3 teaspoons to start, turmeric has a very strong flavor by weight)

Roast all spices, except turmeric, on a baking sheet in a 300 degree F oven (150 C) until fragrant, 3-4 minutes. Let cool about 20 minutes, then grind in a spice mill or mortar and pestle to a powder. Add turmeric as desired. Mix into coffee grounds before brewing.

Makes a great latte as well!

[Double 0 Soul]

I've been buying this stuff

[Geeman]

@chicote you had me hooked till I saw cinnamon. Cinnamon ruins all foods it comes in contact with 😜

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

^ ha. This is what’s in our house.

To be honest, I am an espresso guy. It’s all I tend to have. Pulling my shot in the morning is one of life’s primary pleasures. On occasion an Americano but not often. If I have coffee at all - usually out of necessity - it’s black. That said, I try to take some time off from caffeine about twice a year and am currently about 3 weeks (caffeine) sober, so my wife suggested some tea out of this powder. I don’t mind it. 

Still miss my espresso though, but I may try this in a (coffee) drink once I fall off the wagon again. 

Let me also register a dissenting opinion from above. Cinnamon improves a great many things!

[jeash90]

@AlientoyWorkmachine, what's your espresso set up? 

[MJF9]

I like a good espresso but start the day with a Chemex for a nice, clean cup. I hand grind the beans with a Commadante grinder just before brewing. 

My missus used to make tumeric milk daily and thanks to the convo above looks like it's game on again. Done by... grate fresh tumeric root into a milk pan; add a little coconut oil and heat. When it starts to get golden, lower heat and add milk. Let it boil, then allow to go luke warm, filter it and add honey. Plus you can add cinamon to taste (if you're not Gee!)

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

@jeash90 nothing fancy. Just a breville express. Or honestly I use a picopresso and hand grind a lot of the time when I want a different bean than is in the hamper of the breville. While I enjoy it quite a bit let’s say I get more finicky with denim ha. 
 

@MJF9 chemex is definitely my preferred way to go if I’m doing normal coffee. 

Edited September 18 by AlientoyWorkmachine

[nopal]

I’m very curious to try @chicote’s recipe…

New to drinking coffee for enjoyment rather than the caffeine but I’ve been using a V60 and an 1zpresso hand grinder for a lil while now and really enjoy the whole lil routine. Lots of interesting beans out there to brew!

[Double 0 Soul]

The place we stayed in Sicily had no kettle but it did have a stove top coffee pot.. when we got back to the UK the instant coffee i was drinking previously seemed more hideous than i remembered.. 'i can't drink this shit thought i' so i made steps into the world of online coffee for recommendations.. jeez, it's more repulsive than the instant coffee i was drinking, i watched a few youtube videos.. my god! coffee influencers are a right bunch of wankers!, i did read great things about those 1Zpresso grinders but repulsed by the coffee scene, i thought 'i can't become part of this world' ..and i've gone back to instant

[Maynard Friedman]

Neal, you don’t have to immerse yourself in all that coffee snobbery. We buy bags of coffee beans (Caffè Borbonne Miscela Blu) from a local Italian deli, grind them in a Magic Bullet and use a Bialetti stove top.

We gently heat organic full fat milk from the farmers market in a saucepan and pour it into a bog standard glass cafetière and froth it by holding the lid and gently pumping the plunger up and down (a friend who worked in catering showed us this trick). Once done, give the milk a tap and swirl in the cafetière and pour gently into your coffee. You can vary the amount of coffee and milk if you prefer latte, cappuccino, etc.

 

For a quick fix, I’ll just have a coffee bag (loads of options around now) and either drink it black or add a splash of cold milk.

EDIT: we always use water that has passed through our Berkey filter.

[Double 0 Soul]

..but you type anything to do with coffee into the interwebz (as i did) and you don't find this^ kind of reasoning.. you find a hideous world of click-bait and mansplaining which deosn't garner interest as intended, it just makes you switch off.

[beautiful_FrEaK]

...just like raw denim?!

[Double 0 Soul]

Runs parallel

I think you get the pros at the top who look down on the influencers with contempt

The Influencers

The influencees

The n00bs who're either taken by the scene or don't want any part of it because of said influencers..

[MJF9]

Like denim, you just need to know where to look - and not to look - right!!

My only real personal expenditure other than clothes is coffee.  Agreeing with Maynard, I pass on the nonsense.  Just stick to the actions that make a good cup of coffee.

I buy quality beans from different roasters on a weekly basis, delivered by post - like denim, I like a bit of variety!

Use different brewing methods - Chemex, aeropress, V60, Khalita Wave, the Roc (a tip off on here from Foxy which is a hand-powered 'espresso' maker).  Which means I needed to invest in a good quality grinder, so I get the coffee particle sizes right (it varies a lot depending on method) to get the right extraction times to make the coffee taste good.  Oh and a good brewing guide for each method to begin with and then it's trial and error to adjust.

I did go through a phase of only using filtered low residue water but it's out the tap again now which is good for me

[Double 0 Soul]

5 minutes ago, MJF9 said:

I did go through a phase of only using filtered low residue water but it's out the tap again now which is good for me

Yup.. i always wash my jeans in tap water

[indigoeagle]

If you care about the taste and quality of the coffee, like has been suggested, you can do a few things without danger of turning into an influencer.
Coffee beans that were roasted on lower temperatures for a longer time.
Only with a pressure of around 9bar apparently, which espresso machines generate (either with a pump or traditionally with the lever like the La Pavoni) can you extract the whole profile of flavours out of the bean with the crema oils, leaving the bitter components in the bean.

The cafetiere, mocca stove top thing, reaches around 3bar, I think, but also not bad.

If you don't want to put another gadget into your kitchen, you might like the 9barista. Made in the UK. It's similar to a stove top cafetiere, but manages to create the 9bar pressure.

And a good grinder can make a difference.

I used an old fashioned Zassenhausen.

That was alright. But then I switched to a Comandante. There really was a difference in taste.

The advantage of the 9barista and Comandante combo is that you can take it with you on trips.

For cappuccino or flat whites, if you don't have an espresso machine with a steamer, I had good results, similar to MF with a little bodum jar, in which you also pump the hot milk. You don't get the nice micro foam, which to me tastes best, but it's not too shabby.

The La Pavoni doesn't actually take that much space.
At a friend's place I recently saw the Zuriga espresso machine, also very compact and minimalistic, but more expensive.

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

@Double 0 Soul I would agree that the online world of that is ridiculous! However, one not need to be a part of that to have something better than instant. I took a set it and forget it approach, personally. (Comparison being the thief of joy and all).
 

Found an affordable and solid espresso machine and good local beans, and a good travel solution (that’s the picopresso). Haven’t much messed with that for years now. 

The biggest thing is just buying good beans and grinding them before brewing. 
Anyways, much as I love coffee, I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t drink it at all in a few years. This last round without caffeine has been easier than previous ones and I think it has a net negative for me. Without coffee, I sleep better and am less stressed, which is a bit of a bummer but hard to argue with. 

[MJF9]

2 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Yup.. i always wash my jeans in tap water

Well that reminded me OO…

I was a lurker for a long time on Sufu then joined up and lurked.  I had no plans to post on here as that was just for weirdos wasn’t it.  It could also be a bit cantankerous with a bit of keyboard warrior antics thrown in.  But the denim banter and info was top notch and unique (to my knowledge) so I kept lurking… (the DB / Sufu chat the other day relates)  

Anyhow I was in hotter climes for a while.  The water out of the tap was at least 30C.  I’d gotten a new pair of jeans from Self Edge… and wanted to keep it safe with a cold soak… but the tap water wasn’t cold.  So I bought bottled water, stuck it in the fridge and soaked them in a bucket I bought.  The jeans came through nicely and fit – result, happy days.  So I plucked up the courage to post one for the Sufu weirdos… showing what I’d done… only to be met with a volley of (well, maybe a few) negative reps… that was it then… back to lurking 😉