I won a Gran Gaggia coffee maker in a raffle yesterday and was amazed to find out it was just under £200 on Amazon.
Coffee to me is a spoon of Nescafe or a cafetiere of Jamaican Blue Mountain if we have guests around .I have never been into the ritual or the fandangling that some people attach to coffee drinking.
What does the team think....
Love it or list it on Ebay?
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If it were me I'd flog it I don't really like the taste of coffee. More of a tea drinker, OH is the same. I'm pretty sure we don't even have any coffee at all in the house.
Is it one of those with the pods you have to buy?
As for fandangling about I've seen people go as far bringing weighing scales into work seems a bit of a faff to me. But they enjoy it and does me no harm, so whatever floats your boat I guess.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Sun 20 Jan 19 at 16:52
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Sell it. Our Gaggia makes excellent coffee but has sat unused in the cupboard for five years. Its just too much faff to use, clean (including descaling) and stow away.
What I use instead is my Aeropress. It was recommended on Radio 4 a few years back by a coffee expert as a standby when a fancy machine isnt available. Its a simple manual plunger in a perspex tube with a filter unit at the end. You fill it with hot water and manually force the water through the ground coffee into your cup. Its well made and about £25 online. Cleaning just involves a quick rinse under the tap.
The coffee it makes is good. Its not as good as the Gaggia for espresso of course and it can't steam milk. However for convenience its hard to beat. While £25 isn't cheap for a bit of plastic its saved me a small fortune as its been in daily use for five years.
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>>
>> Is it one of those with the pods you have to buy
Both ground coffee and pods apparently Sooty and it seems to require all sorts of steaming and milk frothing and danger of scalding .
Online reviews are mixed with a mark of 3.6 / 5. Common problem seems to be leaking but no midway marks, generally 5 star or 1 star.
It may well end up unused in the dark recesses of the kitchen along with the juicer, breadmaker etc
Last edited by: helicopter on Sun 20 Jan 19 at 17:29
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Beginning to think you are right Martin and it will end up on Ebay. Too much faff.
Can you tell me what advantage or difference there is between the Aeropress and Bodum cafetieres with a wire mesh? Seems to me the Aeropress uses paper filters rather than wire and thats about it.
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Hi helicopter.
We have a cafetiere too and its OK when you want to make several cups at once. However for me its only one step better than instant. There is no pressure applied when you plunge, its just filters out the solids.
The Aeropress is compact and very portable but only makes one cup at a time. It does so using hand pressure with a tight fit plunger. By doing that it makes a more intense shorter measure than a cafetiere Of course that pressure is not consistent as it would be with a fancy machine but it works for me. I also spent a fiver on a reusable mesh filter inset rather than stock up with paper filter discs.
After use my cafetiere leaves a mix of water and grounds that are a bit messy to dispose of. The Aeropress just leaves a plug of damp grounds you can eject into the bin without a lot of attendant water.
I like strong coffee. My ranking would be - instant, cafetiere, Aeropress, Gaggia/pod machines and, at the top, professional barista.
I hold no brief for Aeropress and I expect there are other similar pressurising products available.
Last edited by: martin aston on Sun 20 Jan 19 at 18:26
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£8.00 upwards & a nice coffee - Amazon site but I am sure other places sell them!
tinyurl.com/ybxds463
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I've had an espresso machine, not an expensive one but it worked well enough, however I didn't and wouldn't use it daily because of all the pratting about filling the filter for every 2 cups, the time it takes, then the theatrical banging out of the grounds.
We have a bean to cup machine, Delonghi, I think it cost about £300 odd. I press a button, it grinds, fills, tamps, brews, and ejects a puck without further interference from me. It's a lot cheaper than Tassimo, it's done c. 5,000 cups I think (usually have a double long in a mug, I haven't worked out yet whether that counts as 1 or 2 cups) that costs about 10p a go in beans. It's easy to clean about once a week.
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Sell it, too much faff.
When I want coffee, I want it now. I have a Dulce Gusto pod machine. Its quick, it makes good coffee - with proper crema- gets used multiple times a day, and the pods are cheap(er) in Costco.
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I have the same. Several of them in fact, they get used a *lot*. Quick and easy and pretty good coffee.
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Our coffee habits vary - we have a pod machine which is used pretty regularly. My preferred option is Kenco instant coffee - some hot water and some frothed milk on top. We have ground our own beans, but that's a pain in backside. We occasionally use a cafetiere when a dutch friend brings some decent coffee.
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>> We have ground our own beans, but that's a pain in backside.
You know you can get machines now to do that? :-)
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Reading this thread I’ve just totalled up our spending on coffee in local cafes for the month. It’s more tha I’m spending on gas and electricity or petrol.
There’s money in them beans!
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I don't really like Starbucks and all that type of coffee shop chain but the daughters do.
The prices are gobsmacking. The amount of money my two spend in those places each week makes my eyes bleed.
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Starbucks aren’t my favourite but I will use them. I have a few favourite independents I use regularly but in a strange town tend to head for a Cost? Cofffe shops have surely been one of the best developments on the highs street in recent years. They are a social place. A place to meet friend, do business, or just while away an hour or so reading the newspaper or browsing the Internet. They provide the sort of social,space that pubs used to but are far more egalitarian. Women with babies can used them, teenagers can can use them, they are open to all and open all day.
For the price of a coffee you get a warm comfortable place to sit, a newspaper to read,free WIFI.
As they say what’s not to like?
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>> As they say what’s not to like?
Women with babies use them, teenagers use them, people doing business - loudly - hog the wifi and best table all day, the newspaper is the Daily Mail or The Telegraph, the coffee is not good and its expensive.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 21 Jan 19 at 09:58
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Perhaps you are going to the wrong cafes or more likely you are just getting old and grumpy. Perhaps you need to change to a mellow decafeinated.
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A local Wyevale garden centre has for years had a Costa as well as their own coffee shop. It's bizarre. At one point they were merged in such a way that if you joined one queue you got their own coffee, and if you joined the queue next to it you got a Costa coffee. All served by the same staff in the same uniform, and you paid at the same till.
However, their own coffee is much nicer and cheaper. You'd be standing behind someone to pay and their coffee and a bun was a few quid more than yours, because it had the word "Costa" on a horrid cardboard cup thing.
Now they have moved the Costa bit, so it's separate. But still their own coffee is (to me anyway) much nicer and still cheaper, and comes in a proper cup with a saucer. I guess there's less of it, to be fair, but people do use the Costa bit when there is another section with nice tables, waitresses and window seats for a better cheaper product exactly fifty feet away. Perhaps I'm missing something.
Still, Wyevale are selling all their centres and now this one is a Dobbies, so it might all change again soon.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 21 Jan 19 at 09:58
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>>Perhaps I'm missing something.
Good? advertising doesn't just circulate information, it penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.
-William Bernbach
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>> I don't really like Starbucks and all that type of coffee shop chain but the
>> daughters do.
>>
>> The prices are gobsmacking. The amount of money my two spend in those places each
>> week makes my eyes bleed.
Funnily enough I am off to Costco today to get some coffee. Looking at my shopping habit there, It seems I get through 42 cups of Dulce Gusto Americano a week, at about 21p a cup.
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>> It seems I get through 42 cups of Dulce Gusto Americano a week
Looks like the Mail was wrong then...
www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/four-cups-of-coffee-a-day-protects-against-bowel-cancer/
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>>
>> >> It seems I get through 42 cups of Dulce Gusto Americano a week
>>
>> Looks like the Mail was wrong then...
>>
>> www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/four-cups-of-coffee-a-day-protects-against-bowel-cancer/
Yes I was about to point that out. Perhaps the 3 sausages and 3 rashers of bacon a day has overpowered the coffee?
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 21 Jan 19 at 10:54
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>>Yes I was about to point that out. Perhaps the 3 sausages and 3 rashers of bacon a day has overpowered the coffee?
Indeed - probably the equivalent of half a pack of fags inhaled through the anus.
I recall seeing a programme (Michael Moseley perhaps) where they noted that BBQd meat was loaded with carcinogenic chemicals, but a nice marinade in beer (darker the better) much reduced the formation of said chemicals.
Not sure it works for processed meat though.
Or coffee marinades....
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>>the equivalent of half a pack of fags inhaled through the anus.
A coffee enema would be more efficacious.
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Dunno - 300 years ago it was all the rage in resuscitative medicine
allthatsinteresting.com/blowing-smoke
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>>300 years ago it was all the rage in resuscitative medicine
Only in England eh!
Black or with milk? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_enema
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>> Reading this thread I’ve just totalled up our spending on coffee in local cafes for
>> the month.
Me ? £0.00 I get two free coffees each visit to Waitrose.
But I do get a regular reminder on how much I have saved on coffees and newspapers :-)
>>
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If you’re not going to make enjoyable use of it then sell it. Spend the proceeds on proper drinks. Good beer!
The only time I ever buy a hot drink away from home is before a morning flight, treating myself to a cappuccino from the Camden Food outlet airside at LBA ( they also fill my water bottle FOC). When I flew earlier this month the Jet2 staff at the boarding gate wouldn’t let me take it on board, as it was ‘a safety issue’.
I didn’t argue so stood aside whilst I finished it and was the last to board.
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>> Me ? £0.00 I get two free coffees each visit to Waitrose.
Oh Dire, the free coffee in Waitrose tastes like burned fish. And its not exactly chic to drink your coffee perched o a tiny stool between the JLP pickup desk and the Baskets only checkout!
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>> >> Me ? £0.00 I get two free coffees each visit to Waitrose.
>>
Well at least I did but now I am no longer able to visit due to changed home circumstances.
>> Oh Dire, the free coffee in Waitrose tastes like burned fish
>>
The "coffee" is for SWMBO for home consumption so who am I to argue.
She gets great enjoyment from it so that is a big bonus for me.
I am not a great coffee lover. Decaf instant is fine for me.
I cannot understand all this faff.
>> And its not exactly chic to drink your coffee perched on a tiny stool between
>> the JLP pickup desk and the Baskets only checkout!
>>
:-) I will advice the customers
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Likewise henry k
One 150g refill pack of Kenco Instant Decaff at home lasts me about two years. I prefer tea and tap water, but each to their own. Obviously these coffee shops and chains fulfil a need as they always have customers
A local pub, the Harts Head in Giggleswick, after a change of ownership and complete refurb, now has a coffee machine taking up one entire end of the bar. Gone are the three bar stools! On Sunday evening I was there for 2.5 hours, enjoyed 5 pints with friends, and they used the machine to make fewer coffees than I had pints. Waste of valuable bar space.
Last edited by: legacylad on Mon 21 Jan 19 at 11:50
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>> >> And its not exactly chic to drink your coffee perched on a tiny stool
>> between
>> >> the JLP pickup desk and the Baskets only checkout!
>> >>
>> :-) I will advice the customers
My Advice? Dont, they are an angsty bunch at the best of times. Probably agonising over which perspex box to stuff their green token in.
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>> My Advice? Dont, they are an angsty bunch at the best of times. Probably agonising
>> over which perspex box to stuff their green token in.
>>
Oh, I always agonise. I can't be doing with supporting picnics for five year olds at disadvantaged donkey farms, so always have to read everything. By the time I've done that and double cheeked the receipt before leaving, that's the morning gone.
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>> Well at least I did but now I am no longer able to visit due
>> to changed home circumstances.
Henry, The hospital Chaplin once said to me. "When you are the pilot, you need to step out of the cockpit every now and then, to maintain your concentration to keep the plane and passengers in the air"
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>> Henry, The hospital Chaplin once said to me. "When you are the pilot, you need
>> to step out of the cockpit every now and then, to maintain your concentration to
>> keep the plane and passengers in the air"
>>
I really like that quote. I will put it on the wall to re- enforce my to do list.
I am tying to organise support as all friends etc have hammered that message.
It is a steep learning curve and considerable disruption for me but my son and daughter have helped me source immediate requirements and kit.
It is not really possible for them to give me much support here at home and we have no other family to call on ( cos all I have is distant cousins )
I am now investigating friends or paid for " adult sitters" and any other sources of support.
I have had a very mixed week with the NHS starting with 11 hours in A & E plus an hour getting to a ward. An absolute shambles. Common sense was non existent
and at the end told them to put their instant discharge plan where to sun don't shine for two days.
My son knows in great details how the NHS works or does not work and said "Get out of there asap and we will sort it"
Ho Hum .... must go.
Thanks all
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What's been happening HK. I've been preoccupied, sorry.
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>> What's been happening HK. I've been preoccupied, sorry.
>>
Thanks for your concern.
SWMBO has dementia but started the year reasonably mobile in the house.
She slipped and fell at the bottom of the stairs. Superficially bruises and pain only.
Mobility very very limited to a Zimmer , memory much worse + incontinence.
So beds downstairs, visiting carers ( NHS package ) I am sole carer and at present am unable to leave the house unmanned. So a sudden big change in my role.
I have obtained alarms and am investigating all options for the future.
My immediate need is a further alarm re any attempt by her to exit her chair.
My instructions rarely register and I am fearful of a serious fall.
So solutions seem simple but not so.
e.g when I am not present, how to avoid any attempt to use the stairs.
The usual stair gates are no use. My solution, sections of an opened up playpen with a gate blocks off all access to even the bottom step.
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I’m sorry to hear that Sir. It makes our current predicament pale by comparison.
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>> Henry, presumably you've claimed Attendance Allowance (unless you're ineligible because of NHS contribution to care package)?
>>
Many thanks. I will investigate. I am new to tracking down any sort of allowances, contributions
or support agencies.
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Henry,
I have nothing to offer in the way of help but FWIW you have my sympathies and my very best wishes for what I know is a truly awful situation. My Father has the same challenges with my Mother.
If there is ever anything I can do....
I hope it goes as well as it can and that it doesn't become too much for you.
Mark
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>> >> Henry, presumably you've claimed Attendance Allowance (unless you're ineligible because of NHS contribution to
>> care package)?
>> >>
>> Many thanks. I will investigate. I am new to tracking down any sort of allowances,
>> contributions
>> or support agencies.
I discovered the key words to use in any discussion with the NHS and Social services is "Vulnerable Adult" Get your wife so labelled and assistance comes pawing at your door. You need all her issues & needs diagnosed and documented in a vulnerable adult care plan. If she is so statemented, if anything happens to her, heads roll, so everyone is keen to get everything in place,
There is a team who visit, and recommend and can supply lots of useful tools, aids, modifications, furniture etc, some stuff that you would never dream about and say "jeez thats brilliant"
And you need regular respite care, not for your wife as such but for you. Centres you can take her to and leave her for a few hours in care, while you take a break, or a visit from a care assistant . A pint down the pub, coffee, a walk along the river, stuff like that, stuff that fulfils the "pilot" criteria. Its all there, it does exist, getting it activated is the issue.
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I'm part way through a book called Staying Alive by Dr Phil Hammond which explains very clearly how to get the best from the NHS.
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/1848664516/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1548258382&sr=8-1&keywords=staying+alive+phil+hammond , second hand versions are fairly cheap.
I must admit I bought it thinking it might be slightly comedic, as included in his vast range of talents are appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe, but in actual fact it is purely about giving advice and pointers on how to ensure you get the best from the NHS.
Probably compulsory reading for many of us here...
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Smokie
I Have now invested in said book. Thank you
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Mark Thanks.
Zero. I will take that approach.
She is a risk to herself. My very simple instructions do not register at all.
I am concerned that she will fall again during one her unapproved unsupervised walkabouts and really cause damage.
I can at least with my PIR alarm be alerted to a leg out of bed at night and view the scene on the baby monitor.
In the daytime I cannot, tempted as I am, tie her in her chair :-)
No physio for at least three weeks when I guess stairs training is planned. Meanwhile her best to date is just a few steps sans Zimmer.
The "pilot" certainly need his pint. A review with one of our senior GPs tomorrow will hopefully make some progress rather than a repeat prescription.
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Coffee Makers - sooty123
