Coffee Appreciation

Haha; forgetting to put the filter in is also the funniest fail with the screw-type-stovetop-thingies.
Some mornings you need a strong cup of coffee, like, before you can make coffee.

: ]

I'm in San Francisco this week. I'm trying to compile a list of interesting places to try good and interesting coffee.

So far I've got:

Ritual
Four Barrel
Sightglass
Bluebottle

As well as a few local places that mostly brew with Bluebottle coffee. I've already been to all of the above, so, short of revisiting my old haunts, anyone got any further recommendations?

i had a really nice flat white today, one of the best i have had in a long time. some cafe on TCR with a bike hanging up outside. dunno the name of the place.

I've just planted 10 coffee beans at home. Not sure any of them will germinate - may be too old. Anyone know where I could get some fresh, unroasted, unprocessed beans? Could just buy a small coffee plant, but the awkward bugger in me wants to do it from scratch...

MrSmyth, it's probably a new Tapped&Packed shop

Sparky, i might be able to help, not sure if can get unprocessed, but i'll check.

Nice plant!

MrSmyth, it's probably a new Tapped&Packed shop

Sparky, i might be able to help, not sure if can get unprocessed, but i'll check.

Cheers, would be appreciated, and compensated with beer...

^Just remembered that we do have unprocessed, but how fresh do you need it to be?

Just the fresher the better, really. I bought a cheap propagator (think 1 inch deep tray with soil in and mini perspex greenhouse lid on top) to try and germinate them. Apparently it can take months. So I plan on burying a few dozen more of the buggers, keeping them lightly misted with water and seeing what happens.

This is what I bought. If I was to get more than one plant, then people on here could come and have one. Not sure what the chances of that are though.

last Q, how much do you actually need?

I've heard that the chances of germinating are in the low single-digit percentages, and I've bought ten seeds from Amazon. Ideally I'd like to plant 20-30 more. Wouldn't need any more than that.

ok, i'm off next two days, but pm me before weekend and i'll see what i could do about it.

I planted lots (cannot remember how many) only one germinated, and it took around 3-4 months I think.

The cat knocked them over a couple of times as well.

Just to make sure, no one is planning on making coffee with theses plants right? Coffee is like apples. Seeds grow awful coffee 99.99% of the time.

Eh? Forgive my ignorance, but how then are 'good' coffee plants grown?

Yeah, I've no dream of getting a roast out of it. It takes 4+ years to get beans, apparently. Plus you won't get many, and they'll taste awful.

Hydroponics.

dibs!

dibs!

On a plant? I'll keep the thread up-to-date. My chilli plants did well this year:

I used to grow weed chillis. It was the only thing that ever survived, except for spuds.

Eh? Forgive my ignorance, but how then are 'good' coffee plants grown?

If you have a good coffee, the genes for that good coffee are within the plant itself. The seeds of that coffee plant have different genetic material and are not direct clones so will not grow the same coffee beans. In apples, the majority of these seeds lead to trees which grow awful apples. There is, of course, the chance that you'll get a winner (though probably can't give it the optimum conditions in which it will thrive). Grafting is how most of these types of plants are grown. This allows the fruiting section of the plant to be identical throughout your farm.

agreed, it's not quite as simple tho - downsides to grafting tho include reduced resistance to pests / disease leading to need for more use of chemicals etc to control. Genetic variety is essential in the long run, even if it means unproductive plants out there at times.

Dreadful photo, but taken this morning- my coffee plant has doubled in size since I took the picture a few posts up-thread:

It looks less glossy and green now - is that because it's outdoors?