r/comics • u/DaveKellett SHELDON • 4d ago

OC Remember that drink I invented yesterday? (oc)

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

COME for the acrid taste, but STAY for the lack of caffeine!

14.2k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

749 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/SnooSuggestions9294 4d ago

Believe it or not ppl do like the taste of coffee

121

u/Apprehensive_Hat_444 4d ago

Believe it or not, there are different qualities of coffee, and better coffee has a better taste lol

I used to think I hated coffee, beer, wine, steak, etc. Turns out my parents were just cheap. I like all those things, just not the cheapest available versions.

44

u/Aeseld 4d ago

Wine is probably the most interesting example since cost and taste have only a tenuous connection. You can almost always find something cheap or mid-range that you enjoy.

Frankly all beer tastes bad to me though.

Coffee tastes fine if you cut the bitterness. Prep can help, I use cinnamon and a bit of salt. 

As for steak... Preparation and good cuts. Good prep can make up for a poor cut. 

8

u/DrunkenAsparagus 4d ago

There's still a quality floor that I think most people will notice. I went to a wine tasting once where you drank a couple selections from several categories, and then after everyone ranked them, they told us the relative prices. 

I consistently chose the second cheapest option. That stuff was maybe a bit sweet, but not actively terrible. I think with most consumer goods, it's best to find your minimum quality threshold.

4

u/Artemis96 4d ago

Yea the lowest quality wines are legit undrinkable for me. Talking in Italian prices: <10€, I'd rather drink water. 10-20€ you can find some good stuff. 20-35€ very good wines. >35€ I can hardly tell a difference, and I personally cannot justify the price.

Some of my friends have a more experienced taste and will sometimes go into the 50-60€ range

1

u/Aeseld 4d ago

Keep in mind that the higher price points have a significant psychological influence. You have to justify what you're spending. 

But blind taste tests with someliers consistently showed that they could not accurately determine the price points of wine in a blind taste test. So...

Your friends might be duping themselves. 

11

u/DefinitelyNotMasterS 4d ago

you also get used to the bitterness and then it just tastes normal

12

u/MrWeirdoFace 4d ago

One could say the same about life in general.

5

u/Plasmelon 4d ago

It’s also about the type of coffee, the elevation it’s grown at, and the roast.

The higher elevation the better the flavor, and the lighter the roast, the less bitter. 

The lower the elevation and darker the roast, the more earthy it tastes.

6

u/grendus 4d ago edited 4d ago

Children are also super sensitive to bitter tastes, while adults lose a lot of their bitter tastebuds. I expect that quite a few people who think they hate coffee first tried it as a child.

In nature, bitter flavors signify that a food is toxic, so this makes sense. When children are young and don't know what is safe to eat yet, they're extremely sensitive to foods that "taste" poisonous (most poisonous things don't want to be eaten, after all) and drawn towards foods that taste safe (sweet foods are most plant's way of saying "eat me... and then poop my seeds out somewhere else"). And coffee is intended to be toxic, caffeine is a powerful insecticide that does the same thing to humans that it does to the bugs it's intended to kill. We're just a few million times their size, so instead of causing our heart to explode... it just kind of makes us a bit more alert.

Once we reach adulthood and both know what is and isn't safe to eat and achieve our full poison resistance (humans are incredibly poison resistant), we're more capable of eating them. And this serves a secondary purpose for humans as a highly social species, because adults also lose some of our sweet taste buds. So when we're children, we gravitate towards sweet foods that are safe, and as adults we gravitate towards bitter foods that are safe for us to eat now while reserving the sweet foods for the children in the tribe.

1

u/Apprehensive_Hat_444 4d ago

My pet theory is that as we age, we develop our taste on a spectrum that fits our evolutionary needs.

We start with sugar because as kids, we have basically no reserves and we just burn though energy like a furnace. Then, salt, because we start needing to replenish our electrolytes after intense exercise. Then finally bitterness, because it's not naturally enjoyable, but it's often associated with complexity, and to some extent, a social experience (alcohol, coffee, etc have a strong social component, and we often start them because of social pressure).

It's 0.00% scientific, so maybe the """evolutionary""" part is ridiculous, but it's still something that seems to be rather universal. Could be explained by other stuff, this is just something I thought of one day lol

3

u/Plasmelon 4d ago

I worked in a fancy wine bar and found once you go higher than a certain price point (around $150 a bottle), wine will actually taste worse to the average person because it’s more acquired tastes.

We had one French one for $260 a bottle that was like a super tannic pinot noir. It tasted like electric leather with a hint of grape.

1

u/mofojr 4d ago

Salt in coffee? I'll have to try that

1

u/Aeseld 4d ago

Possible to overdo, but like a lot of things, a little salt goes a long way towards making the flavor better.

...still remember the first time I had broccoli with salt at my grandmothers. XD

Trick I learned from a diabetic. It's a useful additive to a lot of things in moderation.

1

u/gravygizzard 4d ago

Yeah like I can accept people don't like things, but I don't respect their opinion if their dislike of a food is based on one or a handful of experiences. Like people have this bad habit of thinking their opinion is as valid as someone with more experience in the subject. Food is a good and low stakes lense into this phenomenon.

You see people dig their heels in to stubbornly say they have their opinion and you shouldn't convince them otherwise. Their perspective is easy to understand and comprehend from the viewpoint of the expert (I'm this case someone whose actually had good coffee) but the other person literally cannot comprehend the experts opinion for lack of experience. So instead of saying "I don't like coffee but people say to try better coffee and they seem to know what they're talking about" they say "I don't like coffee, it tastes like shit and you must only like it for caffeine"

To that I can only conclude you're an ignorant jackass with a less valid opinion than mine

1

u/Apprehensive_Hat_444 4d ago

There's a stark difference between the cheapest wine (my parents' chosen poison) and "cheap" wine in general lol

I don't mind if I find a <10$ wine that's good. I don't want to spend more lol But I find these are hit or miss whereas went single time I buy a 20-30$ bottle, I enjoy it without fail. And since I drink barely one a month, "splurging" on a 20$ bottle isn't an issue.

For beer, the place I live has a very prolific brewing industry. It's akin to Belgium, but at a smaller scale and in a different flavour profile, but there are hundreds of breweries within a few hundred kilometres, and a lot of good beers. Never liked commercial beers, but many craft beers float my goat.

As for coffee, I'm specifically referring to third wave, so lightly roasted, carefully chosen beans, and rigorous brewing methods (specific water temp, grind size, brewing time, etc.) I didn't include it in the list, but tea is the same in that regards. Specific kettle, provenance, loose leaves, brewing temp + time, etc.

For steak you're entirely right, and I would say that basically everything I just said so far is basically applicable in the same way lol Not all steaks are created equal and prep does a lot of legwork. Replace "steaks" with wines, coffees, teas, beers, etc, and it's a similar idea.

I'm a huge coffee/beer/tea/wine nerd, but I'm not a snob lol If you like whatever, GOOD FOR YOU, it's cheaper and easier.

1

u/Aeseld 4d ago

Oh, there's some variance with wine. Trader Joe's "two buck chuck" is actually quite palatable. Beer... The best I can say is I enjoy drinking some more than others. They don't taste "good" but they're more palatable. Price is somewhat independent of quality though, similar to wine. I've had expensive beer and wine that I could not finish. This has included the rather extensive microbrewery network near me... Most are owned by the bigger companies, but they're markedly better than the mainstream brands. Just not... Good. The best I'll say is that they're less bad. This includes imports of high quality beers. 

The sole exception I can think of is Chimay Grande Reserve... I kind of enjoy it. More than any other beer. But I prefer cheap cinnamon whiskey to that, so... 

Coffee and tea, I mention prep for a reason. I actually find could brewed spiced coffee to be the best option for me personally. Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, salt... I don't usually add cream because it's not needed. 

Tea... Ask my sister more than me. I mostly drink herbal, but she has one loose leaf oolong she likes. But prepares rather brutally. Boil water, forget she started the kettle, come back, see if it's hot enough, turn it back on for a bit, pour in oversized mugs, let sit for an unreasonable length of time, then add ice cubes to make it more drinkable quickly. 

Steak, trim as needed, season appropriately, don't overcook it. It's almost all prep, and good prep can save a cheap steak. (Just don't treat a roast like a steak. XD)

Either way, the root I agree with. Enjoy what you like. Ignore the rest. 

10

u/ProfessionalAd6530 4d ago

I wound up giving my son the cheapest versions when he was growing up because he threw most of his dinner away and ate chicken nuggets after dinner.

I wasn't going to force him into an eating disorder, but I'm not wasting a nice steak on that.

1

u/my_duncans 4d ago

You let him throw dinner away lol

1

u/TimelessParadox 4d ago

This is exactly it! I never enjoyed coffee, regardless of how it was dressed up, until I started buying good locally roasted beans. You can get this stuff at Costco. I rarely find anything that tastes better, and never at this price.

8oz water + 3 scoops freshly ground + a dash of salt = Absolute heaven. Doesn't need sugar or milk.