The adjective I'm having trouble here with is 'terrible'. Like, fair enough you can indeed taste a difference between different sorts of coffee. I can do that myself! But I don't understand why a fairly high quality, arabica bean instant coffee should be figuratively likened to drinking a cup of hot cat vomit spiked with arsenic and that bitter tasting liquid people spread on their nails to try and train themselves to stop biting them. The difference simply isn't that great. I refuse to believe that anyone who likes coffee, as opposed to say some syrup-infused mofrapocachino grandeverticale massimo patheticfallacio could find drinking slightly less complexly flavoured, slightly thinner coffee to be a physically unpleasant experience.
As I said, to each his own.
Which implicates that, regardless whether or not you have trouble with it, it is actually ok for me to say that, at work, if I have the choice between instant coffee and nothing, I prefer nothing butthankyouverymuchforoffering.
Iīm not so sure if that would also hold true for the first cuppa after waking up, but itīs been decades since I tried.
Plus I don't think it's ridiculous to suggest there are class/sttus things bound up in how you take coffee.
In my case, that would be ridiculous. In the morning I am not capable of performing any classy stunts or elitist rituals.
If When I want my espresso in the morning, I have to be capable of completing a fairly straightforward ritual, one that anyone who is only partly awake can complete with some preparation and practice.
Here's how it works:
1. Wake up, stumble downstairs without breaking anything vital.
2. On my way to the loo, REMEMBER to switch The Machine on, so that it can warm up while I take a leak.
3. Once my bladder is relaxed, take a cup, put it in the designated spot on The Machine, press a button.
4. There is some noise of beans being ground, and water being pressed through ground beans at 15 bar. This will last about 15 seconds.
5. Sit down, close eyes, drink Nectar Of The Gods resulting from steps 4 and 5.
There is nothing elitist or esoteric about that, is there?
The only thing I need to do to make this work is to make sure that, before I hit the sack on the preceding evening, thereīs coffee beans and water in The Machine, and the receptable for processed coffee ground has been emptied.
I cannot handle very much just after waking up, but I can handle that.
Mind you, this coffee is any bit as good as whatever I could get in a good CoD-type operation.
I will immediately agree that, perceptively, Your Mileage Might Vary, but trust me on this: based on objectifiable criteria, this beverage is several magnitudes tastier than any instant coffee I have ever come across. And yes, I am familiar with M&S, Sainsbury and Tesco.
It also doesnīt have anything to do with class or status.
Granted, one has to be able to afford some version of The Machine. What with me being fairly well-off (sorry), I can afford buying one. New. Which is what I did NOT do. I got my current Machine secondhand a year ago. For a price any student can afford by simply refraining to go out on a drinking binge for a month. Mine was less than 70 quid. If it lasts another two years, Iīm happy.
What with The Machine only wanting beans and water, it is also the cheapest solution when it comes to running costs. If you donīt care about the beverage quality, youīll find that ANY coffee bean variety commercially available will still give you better quality coffee than you could possibly get from instant coffee. Spending a little bit more than that on beans (but not twice as much) will give you something that anyone, being half-awake in the morning, would perceive as The Nectar Of The Gods.
And actually spending twice as much on beans will give you something that will equal The Nectar Of The Gods for your after-dinner-coffee as well.