What's the worst coffee worldwide?

[Trenchfriend]

Maybe a nice topic.

I got meanwhile some experience with different coffees, although I'm not more a daily coffee drinker.
And I got still the opinion, that instant coffee is not that worse as many people say in the last 30 years!

BUT, the absolutely worse coffee for me is still the classic german dripper coffee!
Equally what machine or what filter bag you use, it's still the same ugly brown brackish water with too much dissolved caffeine. Maybe there are worse and better filter bags, that you can get the taste a little better. But what does it change? In the end, this crap tastes always more or less of the filter paper. And too much dissolved bitters, too.
And the result from this machines usually causes the most people an upset stomach. But if you want much caffeine, fine!

Not so bad, but still not tasting that well is my Mokka from the classic 1 cup Alu Bialetti. I tried all I can, but the metal taste ist still there, equally how thick the "coffee patina" inside is!

Def. better is the Mokka from the stainless steel Mokka pot, although it got any kind of powder coating inside. But the Mokka has NOT the metal taste as the Bialetti has! So the result tastes well to me.

But now instant coffee!:
I got the experience since 2010 and I can say, on the german market, the usual cheaper massmarket instant coffee got worse since 2012.

BUT, the available Bio-instant coffees in the supermarkets are really good! It's a big difference to the non-Bio stuff. The Bio stuff still tastes like coffee, while the non-Bio stuff doesn't.
I tried different brands and they were all good up to really good! But there are some with a strong impact to your body.

Further, I tried Espressi from usual cheaper machines in other homes. That stuff is ok, but more or less boring. Nothing, I would buy an extra machine for.
I mean, Espresso is just high-pressure fast-food coffee, so what's all the fuss about??

So let's see, what future will bring. But actually, the Mokka from the stainless steel Mokka pot seems to become my favorite. But always with usual ground coffee, NOT Espresso powder!
Strong impact to your belly, routing the s..t out of you, when drinking in the morning? Sure, but with very less or maybe no caffeine.

But I still like soft instant Café HAG, too.

 

[Trenchfriend]

And not to forget Coffee turkish (mug-brewed)!

Even that tastes so much better than classic dripper coffee!

 

[Herresbach]

Never liked coffee, I'm a tea and diet coke guys so I can't help you on this topic.
But since you mentioned having had a lot of bad coffee I think I never had a (really) bad cup of tea...
Aren't there as big quality differences with tea than with coffee?

 

[LizzieMaine]

That kind that tastes like burnt pencils. Oh wait, that's all coffee.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
It’s been so long since I’ve had burnt pencils that I can’t say with any certainty how any coffee compares.

My mother had me addicted to the stuff in utero, although I didn’t resume the habit until a few years into breathing on my own.

Coffee was and is ever-present in my world. The percolator gave way in the 1970s to what we now call the auto-drip machine (think Mr. Coffee, Joe DiMaggio) with occasional forays into the more ritualistic and laborious pour-over drip (think Melitta, Joe Birkenstock) to the espresso machines, which are worth every single one of that mountain of pennies I’ve paid for them over the past couple-three decades.

Good coffee tastes good cold. Lesser coffees are generally okay hot and fresh. There’s something to be said for percolator coffee, provided it’s not more than an hour or so old. A pot (percolator) was pretty much always “on” at my childhood home and the homes of most of my relatives. Pouring out what remained of the old coffee and making a fresh pot was a daily ritual.

 

[Frunobulax]

I've worked with several folks who mainline coffee all day, though I'm more a Morning Joe type. But one fellow use to go into the break room at the end of the day and fill his mug with whatever was left - caf, decaf, whatever - and go home. Some of it had been sitting there for hours. It had to be awful, but Steve went for it every day.

The best cup of coffee I ever had was at a smorgasbord in Hagerstown, IN, called Welliver's. One of the staff told me it was some sort of imported coffee from Europe and (if I remember correctly) came in a liquid concentrate. The coffee was wonderful, but Welliver's closed years ago. It has since been replaced by a new smorgasbord called Willie & Reds, which seems to offer a similar experience, but I dont't know if the coffee is still available.

 

[tonyb]

An old gal I once knew, who shuffled off 20-some years ago a few days shy of her 80th birthday, made what amounted to her own instant coffee. It was a cold-brew method, the particulars of which I never really learned, but as I recall it involved steeping a substantial amount of finely ground coffee in cold water for a few days and then straining the solids out of the dark liquid. She used maybe a tablespoon of the resulting concentrate (kept in the fridge) to six or eight ounces of boiling water.

It was pretty darned good.

 

[belfastboy]

Worst coffee ever: Perry's Motor Lodge in Kanab Utah. Rented a cabin, it included a breakfast in the lodge. Terrible coffee, watered down bitterness. I did not know it was possible to make such a terrible cuppa. Next morning I trekked down the street to an espresso bar that had a huge line up.....I assumed all refugees from the Perry's breakfast bar. It was a treat to observe as the owner/barista was from NewYork and brought his attitude with him to little ol' Kanab Utah. It was great fun to watch him insult customers over their dallying over the order.....caf/half caf/oatmilk/extra froth......etc. It took a while but at least I delivered a good cup of coffee back to my wife in the cabin.

 

[Turnip]

Worst coffee ever served to me has been on a Delta Airlines flight to Atlanta.

 

[Zombie_61]

Starbucks.

 

[Frunobulax]

Worst coffee ever: Perry's Motor Lodge in Kanab Utah. Rented a cabin, it included a breakfast in the lodge. Terrible coffee, watered down bitterness. I did not know it was possible to make such a terrible cuppa. Next morning I trekked down the street to an espresso bar that had a huge line up.....I assumed all refugees from the Perry's breakfast bar. It was a treat to observe as the owner/barista was from NewYork and brought his attitude with him to little ol' Kanab Utah. It was great fun to watch him insult customers over their dallying over the order.....caf/half caf/oatmilk/extra froth......etc. It took a while but at least I delivered a good cup of coffee back to my wife in the cabin.

Well, the weirdest cup of coffee I never finished was also on a Delta flight. During a flight home from vacation with my wife, for some reason we were diverted to Cincinnati. So...they put us on a plane for Dayton. You read that right, I flew from Cincy to Dayton. Maybe 60 miles or so. The FA gave me a cup of coffee, then collected it on her way back up the aisle because we were landing. I think I got two sips.

 

[tonyb]

Worst coffee ever: Perry's Motor Lodge in Kanab Utah. Rented a cabin, it included a breakfast in the lodge. Terrible coffee, watered down bitterness. I did not know it was possible to make such a terrible cuppa. Next morning I trekked down the street to an espresso bar that had a huge line up.....I assumed all refugees from the Perry's breakfast bar. It was a treat to observe as the owner/barista was from NewYork and brought his attitude with him to little ol' Kanab Utah. It was great fun to watch him insult customers over their dallying over the order.....caf/half caf/oatmilk/extra froth......etc. It took a while but at least I delivered a good cup of coffee back to my wife in the cabin.

My dear old ma started a mobile espresso business way back before she retired, going on 30 years ago. She sold at state fairs and rodeos and gem shows and carnivals, etc. Her eldest grandchild now owns the business.

She limited her offerings to what was on the menu — no bespoke coffee concoctions from her. “It takes too long and you can’t satisfy ’em anyway,” she said.

 

[Hercule]

Starbucks.

Hear, hear! (though I would have put it more emphatically in all caps.) Actually I'm very surprised it took nine posts before it was mentioned.

Best coffee: Whatever was served on a Copa airlines flight to Colombia in April of 1996. To this day I get misty eyed whenever I think about it.

 

[tonyb]

The drip coffee at Starbucks — the Pike Place Blend or whatever they call it — is, to my taste, worse than the stuff from 7-Eleven that’s been sitting on the warmer for a couple hours.

But the espresso ain’t bad — perhaps a bit over-roasted, but it stays on this side of burnt. Their systems are now so automated that the product is as consistent as McDonald’s hamburgers. On road trips I often swing into a Starbucks to get three shots over ice in a big-’ol cup they give some Italian name I refuse to say (I just point to the largest cold cup). It ain’t bad. And the restrooms at Starbucks — one holers — accommodate a wheelchair user and his or her attendant, in privacy. You don’t know how much that matters until you have a need for it.

 

[belfastboy]

The drip coffee at Starbucks — the Pike Place Blend or whatever they call it — is, to my taste, worse than the stuff from 7-Eleven that’s been sitting on the warmer for a couple hours.

But the espresso ain’t bad — perhaps a bit over-roasted, but it stays on this side of burnt. Their systems are now so automated that the product is as consistent as McDonald’s hamburgers. On road trips I often swing into a Starbucks to get three shots over ice in a big-’ol cup they give some Italian name I refuse to say (I just point to the largest cold cup). It ain’t bad. And the restrooms at Starbucks — one holers — accommodate a wheelchair user and his or her attendant, in privacy. You don’t know how much that matters until you have a need for it.

Say what you will about Starbucks....I stay away from them as I am cheap!.....in my city they have had the effect of improving the coffee on offer from about everybody. Used to be to get a decent cuppa you had to go to the Italian section of town but since Starbucks arrived it introduced coffee culture to the city. Now in order to survive most places offer a decent cup....yep even McDonalds. So for that reason I salute them....even if I don't frequent them unless I am looking for a place to hold a meeting (Pre Covid) and you could hang out for an hour or more and not get hustled out the door.

 

[tonyb]

Trash-talking Starbucks is a popular pastime among some of my hipper friends and associates in Seattle, where Starbucks got its start and where it is still headquartered, in what used to be the “main” Sears store.

Starbucks certainly didn’t invent coffeehouse culture, but they brought it to the masses. Used to be that you could get espresso at wannabe bohemian coffeehouses near college campuses and hardly anywhere else. And then came Starbucks. And, as belfastboy observed, they forced the other coffee sellers to up their game.

Once a person develops a taste for espresso it’s hard to go without it. Starbucks trained the public to accept that a coffee to-go should set a person back a couple-three or four bucks. At those prices, it’s easy to justify the purchase of a home espresso machine, which have themselves come a long way from where they were, like, 30 or 40 years ago. If you drink as much espresso as the lovely missus and I do, the purchase is amortized in a matter of months. Weeks, maybe.

 

[Zombie_61]

The drip coffee at Starbucks — the Pike Place Blend or whatever they call it — is, to my taste, worse than the stuff from 7-Eleven that’s been sitting on the warmer for a couple hours.

But the espresso ain’t bad...

Several years ago while on vacation my wife and I struck up a conversation with a gent who claimed to be a former employee of Starbucks. He told us that the reason so many people get "hooked" on Starbucks' coffee is/was because all of their coffees are espresso based, and therefore naturally have a higher caffeine content than their competitors' coffees. I have no idea how true this is, but considering the number of Starbucks locations within a few miles of our house I don't doubt it.

 

[belfastboy]

Trash-talking Starbucks is a popular pastime among some of my hipper friends and associates in Seattle, where Starbucks got its start and where it is still headquartered, in what used to be the “main” Sears store.

Starbucks certainly didn’t invent coffeehouse culture, but they brought it to the masses. Used to be that you could get espresso at wannabe bohemian coffeehouses near college campuses and hardly anywhere else. And then came Starbucks. And, as belfastboy observed, they forced the other coffee sellers to up their game.

Once a person develops a taste for espresso it’s hard to go without it. Starbucks trained the public to accept that a coffee to-go should set a person back a couple-three or four bucks. At those prices, it’s easy to justify the purchase of a home espresso machine, which have themselves come a long way from where they were, like, 30 or 40 years ago. If you drink as much espresso as the lovely missus and I do, the purchase is amortized in a matter of months. Weeks, maybe.

I try to limit myself to one good cup of coffee in the morning and that is it for the day. Coffee/caffeine is as close to an addiction as, thankfully, I get. I have gone through various coffee making iterations over the years and have settled on two....French press 5 days a week and then on Sundays and Mondays we use our Nespresso machine. Love the machine, it is so simple and fast. Sunday as a treat and Mondays as I don't seem to get out of bed in time to use the press. Nespresso is expensive and the pods are difficult to recycle so we mix it up.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Bad coffee? I learned my coffee drinking in the U.S. Army. After that, it all seems good.

 

[tonyb]

Several years ago while on vacation my wife and I struck up a conversation with a gent who claimed to be a former employee of Starbucks. He told us that the reason so many people get "hooked" on Starbucks' coffee is/was because all of their coffees are espresso based, and therefore naturally have a higher caffeine content than their competitors' coffees. I have no idea how true this is, but considering the number of Starbucks locations within a few miles of our house I don't doubt it.

Starbucks uses only arabica coffee, which most aficionados find superior in flavor to robusta. Arabica is, however, much lower in caffeine than robusta.

Robusta is what you find in most of the canned coffee at the supermarket. (Almost all the more expensive whole-bean coffee in the supermarket is arabica.)

This is not to say that the Starbucks product isn’t addictive. All coffee (excepting decaf) is. I might get a headache if I don’t get some coffee in me within a couple hours of awakening. But the cheap stuff out of the can gives a better fix than a higher priced arabica.

I’ve read that some Italian espresso bars now use some robusta coffees. And some use a blend. I’d try it in my own espresso machine, if I could find whole bean robusta to grind myself. (Grind is critical when making espresso. The relatively coarse grind of canned robusta just wouldn’t work in my, and most every other, espresso machine.)

I don’t discount the possibility that because the ratio of ground coffee to water is higher in espresso that ounce by ounce espresso may have a higher caffeine content than the same ground arabica used to make drip coffee. The grind would have an effect as well — the finer the grind, the more of everything that coffee bean had to offer is extracted in the brewing process (whichever brewing process) and the higher the caffeine dose. But different brewing processes use different grinds. There is such a thing as too fine a grind.