IT Pros and Coffee

Sorry. I spent a total of 7 years in Biloxi (B.C. - before casinos) and never could get used to the taste of chicory in my coffee. Community does make an excellent Colombian without the chicory, but you can only get it ground and I prefer whole bean. Fortunately, through a work connection, I have access to Millstone's best bulk beans at $3.99/pound.

While I do have a favorite brand, I am just as likely to purchase my coffee on the road, so I generally take either the Colombian, or if I'm really tired, the dark roast. Fortunately, many of the chain stores and truck stops at freeway exits now provide a choice of at least Colombian, dark roast, or why bother, I mean decaf.

I don't really go for flavors in my coffee, with the exception of Bailey's Irish Cream (hic!).

Actually, for a while in the early 90s, I was really worried about my future chances of getting good coffee, as illustrated by this story, which took place in a Starbucks in [large northeastern city] in 1994.

I walked in, thinking to have a cappucino and cigarette (at a sidewalk table, of course!) while waiting for my wife to finish shopping. When I ordered, the young lady behind the counter asked what flavor I would like. My response was "Coffee." She turned, scanned the row of flavor decanters behind her for several seconds, turned back around, and said "I don't think we have that!"

As I understand it, the accepted cup size for coffee is 6 fluid ounces (making a "12-cup" pot 72 fluid ounces). Most commercial coffee mugs come in at 10 fluid ounces, explaining why we only get a little over 7 "cups" of coffee out of a "12-cup" pot.

I once worked with a fellow who consumed 4 48-ounce mugs of coffee a day; when he took a "coffee break" it was to fill the mug!

I used to be a coffee-holic even spending hundreds of dollars on an expresso machine, but I have not brewed a cup in a while... Why you ask? Well, let me tell you... I am now hooked on "energy drinks". Two brands: Monster Lo-Carb and Rockstar Diet. I am ashamed to admit that I buy them by the case. I drink one for a while and then switch to the other. My rather flimsy justification at this point goes along the lines of: "This is the year 2000 version of Jolt."

on a sunday morning as I am doing status reports for the team I manage......sipping a homemade chocolate macciato..
we have a local coffee roaster so I am anti "brand name". I prefer what our local barista calls a viennese blend. rich roast, low acidity, wonderful aroma and fresh roasted on tuesday's and thursdays. Ethiopian or sumatran beans are our favs. Starbucks has updated their machines and all make watery brews....that was my last straw. plus it is hard to buy stuff that has been in bags for 3+ months, vacuum sealed or not. there is nothing like a fresh roasted bean.....

white castle has a tolerable regular blend found in the office coffee pots. but it is only tolerable with 2 tblspns of gheradeli chocolate. (I can't spell)

I have found a new love in Tea. The only problem is that it didn;t have enought caffeine. So I typically have a cup of Earl Grey but use Water Joe for my water. (www.waterjoe.com) This really pumps up the caffeine and gives me a different flavor than coffee. I've also thought about a Starbucks Breakfast Blend made with Water Joe but didn't know if I'd be able to sleep.

Too much aspartame is very BAAADD for one's liver and kidneys, TRUST ME ON THIS. (The docs thought I had MS until I stopped drinking 2 liters of diet Mountain Dew a day!) At a sleek size 2 petite in an otherwise all male department, straight up caffeine tabs and a gallon of water a day worked out much better than any vile coffe, tea, or artificial sweetener. Even after I quit the coporate office to begin my own IT company and expand my family, I couldn't live without my calorie-free engergizer tabs. Now there's supposed to be a new prescription medication called Provigil that is supposed to increase alertness, concentration, and induce a feeling of euphoria without the cardiac activation of other stimulants. Wouldn't that be IT Geek Nirvana? Fully awake and extraordinarily productive happy IT Geeks at work! If management ever found out about Provigi's potential, it would be mandatory for obtaining and maintaining employment!

There would be no IT without coffee and tea. Caffeine makes the system function. As long as the coffee is better than Folger's, strong and warm-- it works. The tea can be green, black, hot or iced as long as it provides a good jolt to the system. If someone is looking for a brand then they have to much time on their hands and not enouch IT work to do.

yeah - and even with crap ads like that it still outsells your poncy brand :)

I don't know about in America, here is Australia Starbucks coffee is the worst. Lavazza blends and Jamaican Blue's are nice, though Jamaican Blue's are rare here.

For the best coffee, go to
http://www.riffelscoffee.com/

I think he meant 2 to 3 POTS...

And don't forget the JOLT cola. It's 'specially good to have it (the cola) stored in the ventilation system for the computer systems of navy ships. Since the room itself is required to be 60 degrees or less, it keeps them 'fresh'. :)

Starbuks coffe has become the trendsetting form of coffee. Like the computer geeks of the past when back in the early 90's you were a true geek if you could say you had your own domain and web space. Now, anyone with half an IQ can create a website. it is these lackluster people that think in order to be accepted into the coffee wolrd, they have to drink coffee from an extremely over-priced and equally under-tasting coffee shop.

I get bored easily. So, I get my caffeine in many ways.

I usually start the day off with a cup of fresh graound coffee at home. Then, once I get to work, it is Starbucks Breakfast blend,(provided for free at work). Around lunch, I have a monster Lo-Carb, and then around 3:00 I have a nalgene full of Green Tea.

After that, I am done with my caffeine for the day.

I would say that it is not the brand of coffee that marks a true geek but the way in which it is made. I once saw a coffee conveyor belt made out of mechanno and nowadays I would suggest that the entry level would be a networked Phillips Sensio

Had to jump in here. The only way to drink Guinness is from a tap, and from an imperial pint glass(any respectable Irish pub will have them, at least here in MA)

That being unavailable, then draft in the bottles and cans is the second best, and from an Imperial pint glass at home. Most good pubs will give you one if you ask to buy one. While I think Guinness Stout is a superior stout, I'd never drink it now.

Are we talking about a real Imperial mile or one of those wussey American miles? LOL

Haven't you seen all of those wussy Stephen Fry ads? I'd rather have the chimps!

I usually start my day with a cup of Java...usually a mild blend...typically the house blend of the day. From that point on, I switch over to hot tea. An English Breakfast Tea (black tea) is my tea leaf of choice. However, I prefer it with milk and sugar. Who doesn't need a little sugar buzz mixed in with their caffeine? Many of my IT buddies would love being hooked up intravenously to their caffeine! We all seem to gather at the local Starbucks whenever we can grab a quick 5 mins to make the trip over! No wonder we're all so dang perky! :-)

My favorite is 7-11 regular house blend, followed by plain old Folgers Classic Roast. I love expresso, prefer the Starbucks Express or Italian roast, but for the past several years I have discovered that I can't drink more than one or two expressos without stomache upset, and so I reserve express for special occasions, like days that end in "y".

I have discovered that as I age the caffiene hits me harder, so I tend to avoid coffee, tes, soda and the like after 2 or three in the after noon. I used to have a nice cuppa before bed, but now days it is chammomile or pepperment. Oh well, getting old sucks, but not as bad as the alternative.

I'm ITC Professional and and drink quite a bit of coffee. The best Coffee brand is Quarta Caff?: a Sud Italian (Puglia) brand that i found it even in Paris. IMHO IMHO IMHO

Not a huge coffee drinker, but when I do drink a pot, it must be Kona coffee. Specifically Baba's Beans from the Koa Coffee Plantation. The private reserve is awesome! Check out the website at www.koacoffee.com I have it flown in right from Hawaii via Fedex. It is the best I have had.

While I LOVE coffee, particularly Kona blends. I also drink quite a bit of Darjeeling and Gunpowder green tea. And no I'm not european I just like tea. (can you tell that I catch some grief from the folks around the office for drinking hot tea in iced tea country?)

I thought beer tasted like dishwater until I discovered Guiness on tap at age 19 (legal age was 18 once upon a time). Now I drink all kinds of good stuff like Alfred's Porter and Dark Night.
http://www.barleyjohns.com/
I suppose if I had the time and inclination I could learn to drink coffee as well but what's the point when Grand Kemun and Guiness are around?
"I feel like a Guiness. I wish you were one." High brow humor indeed.

A fellow worker and I are considered the coffee snobs around
here!

My work offers free coffee, but it is so bad that I can only drink
one cup before my stomach is upset.

So, we started to bring in our own, and grind beans just before
making a pot, Yum :-)

Glad to know that I am not alone with my coffee obsession at
work :-)

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Coffee is coffee. 4 sugars, 4 cream and it all tastes the same. Gives us that morning buzz that we all need to think. That's all that matters.

Mountain Dew has even more. I was told by a dentist that if you drink at least a glass of water after drinking pop, you will dilute or eliminate the citric acid and your teeth won't rot nearly as quickly.

I use heavy infusions of skim vanilla latte's... usually with extra shots thrown in. During the holidays I get the holiday drinks.. the peppermint mocha kills, as does the eggnog latte. Dang! Now that I've typed this I want to run out and get one!

That's a proper Man's Mile. 6,000 feet and none of them under twelve inches! The miles that Sir Francis Drake used to defeat the Armada.

5,280 feet? That is a WOMAN'S mile.

or so HOB tells me.....

(I don't drink tea.....!)

:D

GG

I never liked coffee much either (although I am Brazilian, the taste and aftertaste have never appealed to me)...
I also enjoy hot chocolate but don't have that many opportunities to drink it during the day (usually too busy to fix a cup of chocolate)...
So I guess water is my game afterall. Easy to get, quenches my thirst, and is also good for my body!

I work for a small software company is our motto is "Quality Fueled By Caffeine". I must say the coffee is excellent, Tea varity is plentiful, and Hot cholocate flows like water around here. This past week I've been trying to get myself off of the Juice a.k.a caffeine. Twitch twitch, itch scratch, zzzzzzzzzz.

Coffee-don't get me started.

I prefer medium roast to high roast. Not least is because the roasting process drives some of the caffiene out of the bean. Second, beans go stale, and ground coffee goes stale even faster. It keeps OK for a few weeks in a cool dark place, but once ground, use it when you grind or chuck it away.

I get all my coffee from The Algerian Coffee Company, on Old Compton Street in Soho. I usually buy in person, but over xmas could not make it u to town, so opted for mail order. Their Columbian Meddalin (spelling) and the Peruvian Organic beans are to die for.

We've been through their entire list pretty much, and these two are my favourites.

Then you need to consider grinding and making the coffee. I use a cheap blade grinder (can't afford a burr grinder) and make my coffee in a French Press. I know some will be sad, but I like a milk with my coffee.

All this typing has made me thirsy, time for another pot...

I don't drink coffee at all. I don't like it, and more than that I am very anti-cool. Everyone here in "the O.C." drinks coffee and hangs out at Starbucks and bookstores because "its cool" and to project some pseudo intellectual image. Anything I can do to limit my association to these people I do. I usually just drink water or Gatoraid or something...

A few of your US peers know what you mean. I learned how to brew a proper cup of tea from a short essay/rant on the subject in Douglas Adams' "The Salmon of Doubt". After sampling different brands and blends I've settled on Twinings' Darjeeling with a splash of milk as my drink of choice. My only frustration is that local markets carry that particular blend very infrequently. I'm considering resorting to ordering their catering sized bags on line to keep my habit reliably fed.

I've long been a fan of very strong, high octane brews, particularly esspresso. The best I've found in this area (San Francisco/Northern California) is made at Peets Coffee and Tea. While they are based in Berkeley, California, they have stores all up and down the west coast, and apparently as far east as Chicago and Boston.

They also do mail order, so check out http://www.peets.com for more details. Full Disclosure: I do not own stock in Peets nor do I make any money off of recommending their product. I've just "invested" so much money in the business over the years by being a customer, that I think they deserve your consideration if you really love great coffee.

Seattle's Best Coffee, two scoops per cup, is just about right for a good night of database design.

I pay homage to a freinds daughter who works at a coffee house. (Not Starbucks!) I bought my own cappucino machine, and she brings me bottles of the syrups necessary to make whatever I like. My favorite is the "milky way cappucino". One part white chocolate syrup, one part milk chocolate syrup, and two parts caramel syrup added to a double expresso. Top with heavy whipped cream and drizzle with more syrup... followed by an hour on my BowFlex Revolution....

Good question. At home I like the Black Satin blend of coffee I get at Winco Foods. Winco is a discount supermarket based in the northwest. The coffee is under $10 a pound and you grind it yourself. Grocery Outlet has a good French roast. As for snobbery, I may have once been snobbish. I do prefer a local brand or roaster, and find that Starbucks latte put me to sleep. Have not tried Jamaican Blue. Can recommend Sulawesi (I think it's from Indonesia). I seem to prefer beans that are dark roasted and oily. I actually believe coffee increases mental acuity and induces more accurate work!

I love the taste of the stuff, but can't imagine drinkign it to stay awake. I'm that way with all of the pops/sodas. They have too much sugar for me!!

I love that stuuf as a blend or straight up Kona when possible. It is the gold standard of coffe beans IMHO!Tried Jamacan Blue, and it just didn't live up to the hype for me!!

Starbucks is overpriced, quite often brewed too strong and overhyped, but you have to give it some credit for making mainstream america realize that there is more than just pre-ground Folger's in the can!

Community Coffee Dark Roast. The ONLY way to fly.

I love my coffee and the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee takes the cake.....mmmmhhh I can smell the sweet aroma.

Since us coffee lovers drink so much of it as long as it's quality is all that matters. Hard to drink a lot of the free stuff in the office lunch room and not have it rot your gut out :P Like going with a local roaster instead of a national chain....

Who cares as long as it as least warm. What ever is in the nearest pot

Tullys is a good place to start

Do I.T. Professionals in Khazakastan (sp) drink fermented mare's milk and tea at work?

I presume they are using solar-powered laptops with a Wi-Fi/Satellite hybrid network while they roam the steppes in their 1 and 2 hp wagons.

A 20oz bottle of regular soda has the equivalent of 1/3 cup or more of sugar depending on the brand. However, Diet is my poison, so, Zero calories, and no suger.

The best coffee I ever had was when I worked in a service bureau back in the late 60's and early 70's. It was Huggins Mocha Java. We had a huge coffee brewer and this stuff was available 24x7. If you sprinkle about 1/4 teaspoon of salt over the grounds before you brew the coffee, it cuts the acid and makes the coffee taste much better.

Most other places I worked just bought plain ole Folgers which I've always liked. The coffee where I work now just plain sucks. I still manage to have 2 cups a day... then I switch to this fabulous green tea one of my coworkers brings in (his wife sells it). Other than that, I drink lots of water (often hot) because it always tastes good and is good for health.

But hot chocolate is good when you make it with coffee

MY DOCTOR SAYS THAT EVEN BLACK COFFE IS STILL ACIDIC. i GUESS i WILL HAVE TO DO THE LITMUS TEST AND SEE WHO IS RIGHT. BUT i STILL LOVE THE gANO COFFE MADE WITH Rieshi mushrooms with a long history of many healthy properties.

My favorite one is Alto Grande Expresso puertorican coffee. One big cup make me up and hyper for hours, besides his flavor is exquisite.

And coffee is, in fact, slightly acidic but less so than beer or fruit juices. The darker the roast, the less the acidity. Generally it's quoted at around 5 to 5.5 which is about the acidity of fizzy water. Stick some litmus in it anyway and judge it for yourself. I drink tea at around pH 6 but that's because I like tea.

I still wouldn't listen to vegans for nutritional advice, though, and now I wouldn't listen to me, either. :p

We are avid home roasters. Buy the beans green and cookem til they're right. Working on a huge bag of Columbian Peaberries right now. The only way to go.

My company only supplies PG tips in my office. I find this rather dissapointing and supply my own earl grey. As for coffee, only really at the weekend (geekend?) or when on the road. My favorite brand is illy closely followed by lavazza. I would like some hot chocolate now or maybe even moccha.

I just drink Tim Hortons coffee and cappuccino. But most of my fellow students drink coffee as well. However, I don't think it's the IT industry alone... coffee is everywhere ehehe!