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I'll admit I'm a total coffee snob. At home I brew the good stuff (NEVER from a can, plastic or otherwise) and most of the time I grind it myself. I use a drip machine and bottled water. I order a good deal of coffee from Zabar's in New York or buy it at Trader Joe's which has a GREAT coffee dept.

i only drink coffee on weekends these days, partially because i'm lazy on weekday mornings, but also because i'm trying to keep my caffeine intake low. and i'm no coffee snob - dunkin' donuts grinds are our choice.

@BirdDoggie - try buying a bag of beans from a local coffee shop and asking them to do a coarse grind for you. I used to grind my own on a little blade grinder ... but then gave up at the mess I made every morning. It seemed like I ended up wasting coffee too. Plus, a blade grinder won't give an even grind the way a Burr grinder will, though I doubt I'll have the $$ for one of those ...ever. Any shop should be happy to grind beans however you like - just ask!

i've broken a french press or 2 myself.....the stainless one sounds like a good idea....but i think the glass looks so much cooler....i never go to a coffee shop....coz i'm always disappointed....i can always make better at home....i love a good columbian coffee....sometimes i order some green coffee beans online and roast 'em my self.....my everyday coffee maker is just a 4 cup mr. coffee.....as the coffee drips i can get ready for work...lol...i hate getting up early for work

I had a french press, but broke it a while back. It shattered when I was washing it.
I only drink a cup of coffee on the way to work, so I got a Senseo, and make my own pods for it, using whatever coffee I felt like it. Currently, I have beans from Oren's, Graffeo, and Peet's, which I grind once a week with a cheap blade grinder (I would like a Burr grinder, but I only drink a cup a day).

The best way to make coffee at home is with a Toddy and my favorite way to drink it is iced.

Wow - you all are so fancy! :) I know French press is supposed to be better, but I don't like it as much as plain old drip. I have a really nice morning blend from Sahadi's market that I'm brewing right now, but my favorites are Gorilla coffee's light roast and Ethiopian harrar from Oren's. I have one cup a day, hot, with a little bit of milk in it.

I was raised on Blue Mountain coffee - my mother's favorite. When she would run out of that, we had pure Kona coffee (super easy to find because I grew up in Hawaii).

Despite being raised on that, I hate hot coffee. If I haaave to drink it, I drink it with half coffee, half organic milk, and lots of turbinado. If condensed milk is available, I use that instead of milk and turbinado.

When I do drink coffee, I prefer iced coffee. I never order coffee at restaurants unless we're at a Vietnamese restaurant , then it is french roast with condensed milk and a glass of ice.

My husband likes B O L D coffee and wants to get a French press, but our current coffee maker works just fine. It grinds the beans (the cat hates this phase), then shoots the grounds into the filter. The water in the reservoir goes through a water filter. Voila, brewed coffee. Nothing but pure Kona coffee beans at home.

Between rommates, boyfriends, and rickety shelves, I have lost more coffee press carafes than I care to count.

I order what I feel like at coffee shops. When I'm out for pho or thai or dimsum I usually finish with an iced coffee bc I know it's gonna be good. At home I keep it simpler--hot coffee during cooler weather and iced coffee during the summer. Occassionally I'll make Thai or Vietnamese iced coffees.

Time to go have a late iced coffee pick me up.

@lemons.......i've found that the cheaper burr grunders wont grind the beans fine enough....i won't pay 200-300 dollars for a burr grinder so i just use my trusty little blade grinder

I've become a huge fan of cold-brewed coffee. I just put the grinds in, top with coffee and strain the next day. Then I put the brew in the fridge and take out what I want. It's supposed to be double strength so that it can be diluted with ice cubes but I'd probably make ice cubes with the coffee if I were going to put cubes in. I like it any temperature -- cold, room temp or hot as it heats wonderfully without any bitterness. I reduced my brewing activities to once a week this way.

But it all started because my daughter broke my French press.

I do like Vietnamese coffee but can't drink it because I can only get it in the afternoon and if I do I'm up all night but they won't do decaf. Other than that, I haven't been in a coffee shop for months but I had evolved over the years from the Mocha to dry cappuccino to americano straight up.

My coffee snobbery is inherited. My mom had a home grinder since at least 1980 if not before with several jars of labeled beans. Coming from a small town where percolators and canned grind was the rule we were... well, the freaks.

For hot coffee, I make it one cup at a time using cone filters and a little porcelain filter holder, and I drink it with a splash of milk. For iced coffee, I grind a 12-oz. can of very dark-roasted beans coarsely and soak it for around 18 hours in the fridge in 8 cups of water, then double-filter it into a jar. Mix 1/3 of this stuff, 2/3 water and cubes, and I've got perfect iced coffee - smooth enough that I don't need/want milk. I buy all my coffee at Trader Joe's because it's excellent and relatively inexpensive.

i love an espresso after dinner, but it doesn't love me back!

during the day, in the summer, i love an iced coffee. in the winter, i mostly drink hot tea, but i'm a sucker for a good latte.

i use a french press and like to drop a couple of cardamom pods in for an exotic flavor. to be honest, cafe bustelo suits me fine.

I'm liking the sound of cold-brewed coffee. Does a coarse grind work best for this? Thank for the idea!!!

@Elizabeth Actually, unless you use so much chocolate syrup that the sugar content is unreasonable and you choose a high-fat milk option like half'nhalf or whole milk, mochas aren't that unhealthy. Coffee+skim+a little hershey's=good. What you have to watch out for is when you order a mocha (or iced mocha) and the barista pulls out a mysterious jug of light brown liquid and simply pours it over ice for you. My favorite local coffee shop has two mochas, a real one (as described first) and a phony one that is full of cream and caramel and, well, death :P

Also, I brewed my first batch of cold-brewed coffee. Heaven.

@joyyy -- Sorry I didn't see that there'd been more activity on this till now. I'm glad you were able to get a cold-brew going and enjoy it. I notice that producestories does one too. Sounds like she does hers a bit differently than I do. I grind as I would for a drip which might be too fine and probably slows me down in the filtering department but it works out and the flavor is good. I do about double what I would for a drip machine though. Half caf/half decaf so I can drink more because for me it's about the drink. Then I put the grinds in and top with cold tap water (because we have good tap but otherwise it might be worth it to do filtered or bottled) in a container with a screw top which holds maybe a bit more than the pot on my drip machine (which claims 12 of those crazy coffee maker sized cups). I do two of these each time and might do more if I had more containers. I do stir the grinds after putting a bit of water in to be sure they get wet all through then add the rest. The grounds float so an hour or so before I go to drain I knock them down so they'll settle on the bottom as this helps avert the need to drain as much but they won't do this in the beginning. After adding the water I put on a shelf and let sit at least overnight and have as much as 24 hours. Then I strain through a fine sieve into other containers and then through a coffee filter nestled in the sieve (as it rests nicely on the container rims) either back into the cleaned original containers or smaller ones with lids. Sometimes the coffee filter gets essentially plugged by the silt so I just wash it out and continue. The filtered coffee goes in the fridge and I take out what I want each day over the next week. The New York Times did a couple articles on it with two different recipes. Supposedly it can be diluted with water but I don't dilute it. It can be frozen too. What I like is it heats well and without the bitter than hot-brewed gets. It's so smooth and nearly chocolate-y. After the first time I didn't worry about getting another press and I put my drip machine away up on a top shelve.

My husband makes me a latte every am with Illy medium ground espresso coffee. It's our favorite coffee. When I'm in the mood for regular coffee, I grind my own coffee beans as needed and usually buy the coffee from a local coffee store.