I really wish I liked coffee. I've tried time after time to get hooked on coffee but couldn't manage to stomach it - even loaded with cream and sugar. It smells great, has ample caffeine, can be bought cheap, all the makings of a perfect drink.

I used to hate coffee most of the time but gulped it down since it kept me awake.

And then I visited Barcelona. The coffee I had in the small cafes in the town was the most awesome, fresh and tasty beverage I have ever had. Interestingly, Barcelona's airport had the same stale, tasteless coffee that Starbucks sells!

Hey, hello from Barcelona. Well it's curious here in Barcelona I always used to drink "cortados" or "tallats", an espresso with a little bit of milk. Until I visited Roma, where I tasted the best coffee!

I think you should visit the Italian capital ;)

And yes, Barcelona's airport food/coffee is awful.

Albania has some great coffee too. I think it is the Mediterranean thing, when people are more calmed down, go out with friends every day, sit down for a coffee, talk and enjoy life.

Coffee to go, or in a paper cup is a very foreign concept. Impossible to find actually.

When I visited Instabul, I was really suprised that people didn't drink coffee at all, but mostly tea after meals.

Figure it out. The people that introduced coffee to europe, don't really drink it. So, the phase "Turkish coffee", is pretty inacurate. Should probably be called "Ottoman coffee".

You are doing it wrong, you are not supposed to cover the taste of coffee with crap like sugar and cream.

It's like trying to fall in love with a girl by putting more clothes on her, our biology works in exactly the opposite way.

A good double espresso sugarless and cream-less is the way to go.

I don't like (neither drink) coffee either. It's a problem specifically in business meetings: "do you want some coffee?", "no, please bring me some water instead" (?). That's a bad start.

Two cups of Vietnamese coffee (cafe sua la) each morning hit the mark! Brewing details at http://www.ineedcoffee.com/04/vietnamese/

I may like iced Vietnamese coffee (Ca phe sua da) even more on sultry summer days. Just pour the above into ice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca_phe_sữa_đ...

While I've used other coffees, Cafe du Monde has almost a monopoly among Vietnamese restaurants. Cafe du Monde is a blend of coffee and chicory easily identified by it's bright orange container: http://www.cafedumonde.com/coffee.html

By the way, similar things apply to tea.

The stuff you buy in grocery stores is dust from leaves. It's a stretch to even call it tea.

Buying in bulk over the Internet and making it with a French press is much, much cheaper and amazingly better.

I already said this below, but check out Adagio.com if you haven't already. They have a plastic tea brewing device somewhat similar to a french press but easier to clean.

Mmm, just now I'm enjoying a wonderful Nespresso espresso. It's an easy and clean way to have good (by Spanish standard, which are pretty similar to Italians...) coffee at the office. It's more expensive than buying the coffee beans but a lot cheaper than a coffee shop (about 0'30EUR per coffee), the biggest drawback is that you become bonded to a single vendor :(

A trip to Italy sounds great... but until then, how do the coffee shops in North Beach stack up for espresso? I've heard that this was the spot on the west coast to get good coffee (long before good coffee was much of a concept in most of the US). Anyone know a spot that gets it right?

Hi, you should look into air-roasted coffee. Most coffee is drum- or surface-roasted, resulting in the typical sour, stomach-gnarling liquid that most pass for 'coffee.'

Air-roasted coffee exhibits more body, complexity, aroma and isn't nearly as hard on one's stomach.

Nespresso is great. At $0.50 per pod, it's pricey, but for such painless cleanup and consistently good shots, worth the price. Hands down the best teas I've had come from Upton Tea (uptontea.com).

<tease>

Coder/Hacker needs coffee to code

Coder/Hacker needs weed to code (yesterday post? coder high?)

Coder/Hacker needs MacBook to code

Coder/Hacker needs Hacker-Music to code

Coder/Hacker needs Coffee Shop to code

Coder/Hacker needs super-genius teammate to code

Spoiled?

</tease>

Very interesting. I'm more of a tea drinker, and highly recommend Adagio.com for that.

Hacker - a machine that transforms caffeine to lines of code