Thanks to some encouragement from a coworker who is a big coffee enthusiast, I recently bought a French press and some ground coffee beans. I have to say, I think it ruined a lot of coffee for me now.
I used to be the type of person to look for the cheapest source of coffee. I didn’t care too much about the taste or brand; a cup from McDonalds was good enough for me. A little odd, since I’m also not the type of person to drink coffee just for the caffeine. But anyways.
My preferred coffee is either a mocha or with a little sugar and milk/cream. I prefer soy milk, since I’m lactose intolerant. So for my first cup, I poured some chocolate soy milk in to make a mocha. The resulting drink was shocking. I was genuinely impressed by how different it tasted compared to dollar coffee bought outside. My drink was a lot richer, savoury even. There was no sour or burnt taste. And there was no creamy taste, which I honestly don’t like that much. The sweetness level was just perfect.
I’m probably not great at discerning good cups of coffee, but my insensitive taste buds enjoyed that cup.
The homemade coffee is way better money-wise too. I bought my French press for $10 and 1.36 kg of beans for $20. The soy milk costs $4.5 per 1.8 litres. Water is virtually free. In the long term, the French press won’t cost anything. Assuming I use 10 grams of ground beans per cup (15¢) and 100 mL of soy milk (which is probably overestimating, 25¢), that’s less than half the price of a small McDonalds cup when it goes on sale for $1. When it’s not on sale, that small cup is closer to $2. The only downside is that I have to be at home to have it. And that I have to clean the French press after making a cup, but I think the taste improvement is well worth it.
This might be the start of a coffee rabbit hole. If not, I’ve at least ruined myself when it comes to drinking from McDonalds.