Anyone else in love with french press coffee?

[Red]

spill your secrets to great french press coffee.

[trgfbv]

I have one in the cupboard. I'll be watching for the answers to see if I should get it out and start using it again.

[Lulu]

I have one in the cupboard too. The key is the water has to be HOT and you have to have really good beans. It's probably best to grind your beans too. It all became too much hassle and cleanup for me so I'm back to the good ole coffee pot.

[Chachma v'Oz]

I gave up coffee the first of the year. I drank only three cups a day, but I don't remember missing cigarettes after I quit smoking as long as I've missed my coffee. There's something in it that I really, really liked and it wasn't just the caffeine.

[Red]

I gave up coffee the first of the year. I drank only three cups a day, but I don't remember missing cigarettes after I quit smoking as long as I've missed my coffee. There's something in it that I really, really liked and it wasn't just the caffeine.

why not go with decaf?

[trgfbv]

I gave up coffee the first of the year. I drank only three cups a day, but I don't remember missing cigarettes after I quit smoking as long as I've missed my coffee. There's something in it that I really, really liked and it wasn't just the caffeine.

Why did you give it up?

[Chachma v'Oz]

I didn't go with decaf because I wasn't trying to avoid caffeine.

I gave it up because my wife suggested it. Her reasoning sounded good (though I don't remember exactly what it was now), so I thought I'd try it. After 30 years I've learned that some of her "good" ideas are actually good ideas.

I'm glad I did now. The fact that I missed it for so long tells me I was really dependent upon it for some reason, something more than the caffeine. I switched to black tea, then green tea, and I've weaned myself off the caffeine but still craved the coffee.

I don't like being dependent on things in general, and particularly on things I don't control nor really need. At first I thought I'd give it up for maybe six months just to be able to say I did, but now I'm reluctant to go back to drinking it because of what I've learned from the experience.

[trgfbv]

I didn't go with decaf because I wasn't trying to avoid caffeine.

I gave it up because my wife suggested it. Her reasoning sounded good (though I don't remember exactly what it was now), so I thought I'd try it. After 30 years I've learned that some of her "good" ideas are actually good ideas.

I'm glad I did now. The fact that I missed it for so long tells me I was really dependent upon it for some reason, something more than the caffeine. I switched to black tea, then green tea, and I've weaned myself off the caffeine but still craved the coffee.

I don't like being dependent on things in general, and particularly on things I don't control nor really need. At first I thought I'd give it up for maybe six months just to be able to say I did, but now I'm reluctant to go back to drinking it because of what I've learned from the experience.

The reason you can't remember is because caffeine is good for avoiding symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. ;-)

[optimus]

Wow a post from Red!

[Shadoglare]

We have a press but I honestly don't see that much difference between what comes out of that compared to the drip coffee maker, except maybe *slightly* stronger. My wife swears the coffee that comes out of it is amazing, though - even though I'm pretty sure we're drinking the same stuff.

[Chachma v'Oz]

The reason you can't remember is because caffeine is good for avoiding symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. ;-)

Eh? Say what? Talk directly into the ear horn, dear.

[trgfbv]

Eh? Say what? Talk directly into the ear horn, dear.

Oh good. You took it the right way. I didn't want to insult you. Just point out the benefits of coffee drinking.
My grandmother had a saying. "Do everything in moderation, including moderation."

[optimus]

Some of y'all need to read a book called "Caffeine Blues." All these "benefits" are horseshit.

[trgfbv]

Some of y'all need to read a book called "Caffeine Blues." All these "benefits" are horseshit.

Don't be a caffeine hater. ;-)

[optimus]

Oh, I love caffeine. I'm thoroughly addicted.

[Chachma v'Oz]

Apparently I was addicted to something in the coffee, and I don't think it was the caffeine. At the beginning I drank enough strong black tea to get my caffeine fix, and I still wanted coffee. I wonder what it contains that my body craved for four months.

[Shadoglare]

Some of y'all need to read a book called "Caffeine Blues." All these "benefits" are horseshit.

Back around '99/00 I wrote a pretty lengthy article on how caffeine tears up your body after doing research through a number of sources. The ways in which it is bad for you is quite numerous, probably well past the point where any "benefit" more recent studies show balance it out.
As a bonus it's addictive, which is probably why I still drink the crap.

[Shadoglare]

Apparently I was addicted to something in the coffee, and I don't think it was the caffeine. At the beginning I drank enough strong black tea to get my caffeine fix, and I still wanted coffee. I wonder what it contains that my body craved for four months.

Probably bigger doses of caffeine - tea doesn't have anywhere near as much as coffee....

[Chachma v'Oz]

The tea I brewed had about a third the caffeine as coffee, so drinking three times as much balanced that out. I weaned myself off the caffeine by drinking less black tea, then moving on to green tea and before long stopped chasing the caffeine stimulation. That was no problem and took only a couple of weeks.

I knew when I lost the caffeine addiction. There was no withdrawal from quitting three cups a day - I just stopped favorably anticipating my next cup or got irritable if I wanted a cup and couldn't get one. When that went away I knew the caffeine addiction was behind me.

But there is something else in coffee that I was really missing for four months and now I wonder what it is. Is it some natural component no one has researched yet, thinking it's just the caffeine people miss when they quit, or could it be something added to the coffee to make it more addictive, like tobacco companies did (or still do) to cigarettes to maintain sales?

I just did a cursory Web search and all I find is discussion about caffeine addiction. Maybe someone more interested in this than I might look into what all is added to coffee for mass consumption and see if some of it is designed to keep sales up.

[optimus]

Well there's something like 700 different chemicals in coffee, may have been something else. It actually takes about 60 days for your hormones to normalize after eliminating caffeine, so it also could've been residual cravings.