Screeling wrote:
It smells great, but tastes horrible straight.
I have the same problem. Until I bought some...
Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla coffee. Buy 'em in small bags, you don't want to have ground coffee sitting around more than a week or two (unless ya vacuum seal it or something). Don't bother grinding your own unless you can afford an expensive burr grinder that will grind very evenly and not overheat from friction. Also, a lot of the coffee in grocery stores probably sits on the shelf for who knows how long, so if you're really concerned go to a local coffee specialty store and have them grind you up a nice light roast or house/breakfast coffee. They can probably also give you pointers but they'll probably recommend you buy some expensive machine that ya don't really need.
If you have a regular cheapass coffee maker, here's what to do:
Clean out your coffee pot with a round or two of vinegar, then a few hotwater flushes and make a pot or two of coffee to dump down the drain (you can skip that if you do more than 1 hot water flush...but for my own piece of mind I ran coffee through it cause I could still smell vinegar).
When you make a pot of coffee, only put about half a pot of water in. At the very least, use cold water from your tap....filtered works better, or spring/distilled/RO water if you wanna bother. Fill up the grounds so that they're mounding up in the middle. The water drips down from the center so you want most of the coffee to mound up in the center.
See, what happens is a few different things in the coffee get extracted depending on the temperature of the water and how long the hot water is in contact with the coffee. Basically, the flavor is extracted first, then bitterness. That's why I use half a pot of water. This way, it seems like I get all flavor and none of the bitter burnt taste that I used to.
Before I did all this, my coffee came out extremely bitter and almost burned tasting and I stopped drinking coffee for a few months. Even tried an Aeropress (a single serving extention of the French Press...well, not exactly, but similar concept.) Don't bother with all of that--try these things in your normal cheapo $20 coffee pot first and then if that doesn't help you, try out an Aeropress or a French Press or some cold brewing method.
Screeling wrote:
What should I start drinking and with what added in that will give me the caffeine, not spike my blood-sugar, not load me down with sodium, and not substantially raise my fat intake?
Tea just isn't cutting it anymore.
I hate drinking my coffee black.
I use coffee-mate powder creamer and the only good flavor is French Vanilla...Italian Creme is pretty good, though--tried a bunch of their different chocolate flavors and they suck, which is weird because I love mocha. I'd like to try the Cinnamon Vanilla....the Hazelnut and Almond are pretty good if that's your thing...but I think overall the French Vanilla is the best flavor to mix with the coffee. Now, I love Tiramisu, but the Tiramisu flavored creamer sucks because part of what makes Tiramisu so good is the layers and different textures and that is completely lost with the creamer. The coffeemate creamers already have sugar in them, too, so take that into account.
As far as spiking your blood-sugar and all of that, you're on your own...but unless you're a diabetic or something, I can tell ya that a proper diet will help you maintain your blood sugar level even after a nice cup of coffee. Lots of lean protein and fruits/veggies/etc. I treat coffee as more of a dessert drink, and I can't stand drinking it black....then again, I'm not drinking 2 pots a day or anything, more like 2 pots a week, on occasion, etc. I suppose you can put creamer in to taste and then slowly ween yourself off of it, if you're really worried about all that sugar and cream.
Oh and contrary to popular belief a normal 1 serving of coffee has more caffeine than 1 serving of espresso, also due to the extraction time.
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