Terry wrote:
> Food Snob® > wrote:
>
>>I turn off the heating element immediately after brewing. The coffee
>>cools off, and is reheated in the microwave. It never gets bitter or
>>nasty. If you refrigerate it, you can keep it for several days, then
>>just microwave it. Never heat it up on a burner, at least not w/o a
>>double boiler.

To me the hotter the coffee is brewed the better it tastes. It's why I
like espresso drinks. To me the temperature that I actually drink the
coffee at does not much effect the taste as long as there is no pain.
It's why I tend to heat refridgerated coffee or add ice to very hot
coffee.

> Weeelllll... I agree that turning off the heating element keeps the
> coffee from getting nasty. But it just isn't up there with the first
> fresh-brewed cup. A lot of the volatile components evaporate or
> decompose or whatever. That's why I finally got an Aeropress. Single
> cup maker, no expensive pods, every cup tastes as good as the first.
>
>>When coffee goes bad, no amount of adjuncts will make it decent
>>again. Milk/cream and a tiny bit of sugar or Splenda is nice anyway.
>>I love cafe au lait.
>
> Though there's no accounting for taste... I have a colleague who seems
> to love the dregs of the pot, after a third of a pot has been sitting
> on the heater for an hour or so. Ugh.

I like bitter. My brother does not. He complains that the starbuck
claim to fame is one day they burned the coffee and then sold it
anyways. I point out that's what made them popular because a lot of
people perfer the bitter addition.

Bitter is very easily overdone, though. I like coffee that some who
don't like bitter will call burned. I do not like coffee past a very
definite threshold of how burned.