The Off Topic Topic

[Admiral Yi]

My deck burned itself down a bit.

It was duly noted in the Everyday Adventures thread. 

[PDH]

I guess nobody reads the Everyday Adventures thread.

Beaten to the punch

[Razgovory]

Can a used fire extinguisher be recharged, or does one just toss them?

If so, where would I go?

I'd check with the local fire station.

[Iormlund]

Yeah, I would not play with a pressurized vessel unless I knew exactly what I was doing.

[derspiess]

What do you put in your coffee?

Cream and Stevia

I find that sugar (or fake sugar) is the great coffee equalizer. Brings down great coffee, brings up bad coffee.

Hmm. Tomorrow I'll leave off the stevia and see if that makes a difference.

IMHO sugar or sweetener absolutely ruin coffee. As Grey Confucius Fox said it can help bad coffee but if you want to taste the actual coffee, you need to drink it black.

#troof

[Josquius]

The one time I tried to order coffee it was hot milk instead. Which was a relief.

England must be one of the worst places for coffee lovers.

The only time I've ever sent coffee back to the kitchen was in England. The "espresso" had the colour and opacity of ale, I was genuinely under the impression someone made a terrible mistake, but no. The manager came out, exasperated, explaining they just press the button that says espresso and this comes out. Pointing out that the regular coffee someone else was having and even the tea looked more like espresso only added to the confusion.

I get the opposite impression. Coffee is taking over. There are countless cafes offering a variety of coffees, some places specifically selling different beans and all sorts of god knows what.
It's tea which is suffering for the onslaught.
Coffee is expensive. Those fancy machines and organic beans picked by Wakandan children don't come cheap.
And they cannot bring themselves to see it as wise business to offer tea for substantially cheaper. Even if they do just give you hot water and a basic tea bag

[Sheilbh]

I get the opposite impression. Coffee is taking over. There are countless cafes offering a variety of coffees, some places specifically selling different beans and all sorts of god knows what.
It's tea which is suffering for the onslaught.
Coffee is expensive. Those fancy machines and organic beans picked by Wakandan children don't come cheap.
And they cannot bring themselves to see it as wise business to offer tea for substantially cheaper. Even if they do just give you hot water and a basic tea bag

Yes. There are still places that are bad but good coffee is very common now, tea is, as you say, a bit more basic.

But our good coffee has been driven by Antipodeans () who have a very different style of coffee to most Europeans. From working in a good coffee place it's fiarly hit and miss in its popularity with elderly Brits and some Europeans. It is also less good at black coffees - like filter or anything bigger than a long black which is something where I think other Northern Europeans are the best.

I worked with Italians and Spanish people and one of the Spaniards actually went to open a London/Aussie/Kiwi style coffee shop back in Spain. There were Italians who really liked the coffee but said it would never take off in Italy and it sounds like for similar reasons as you mention about tea here. People have a very strong idea of what coffee should be and there's no way in hell they're paying over a certain price for it

[Maladict]

The one time I tried to order coffee it was hot milk instead. Which was a relief.

England must be one of the worst places for coffee lovers.

The only time I've ever sent coffee back to the kitchen was in England. The "espresso" had the colour and opacity of ale, I was genuinely under the impression someone made a terrible mistake, but no. The manager came out, exasperated, explaining they just press the button that says espresso and this comes out. Pointing out that the regular coffee someone else was having and even the tea looked more like espresso only added to the confusion.

I get the opposite impression. Coffee is taking over. There are countless cafes offering a variety of coffees, some places specifically selling different beans and all sorts of god knows what.
It's tea which is suffering for the onslaught.
Coffee is expensive. Those fancy machines and organic beans picked by Wakandan children don't come cheap.
And they cannot bring themselves to see it as wise business to offer tea for substantially cheaper. Even if they do just give you hot water and a basic tea bag

This happened in 2009, it must be said. 

[Sheilbh]

This happened in 2009, it must be said. 

Also it's like food in the UK. It's still very easy to get really crap stuff even if the general direction of travel is good and there are loads and loads of really good places.

With coffee specifically we start from a very low base. I always have a soft spot for Starbucks because until they arrived in 1997, outside of places with Italian cafes (London, Glasgow etc), your options in a cafe were white or black and it was just two teaspoons of Nescafe as standard.

[The Larch]

I get the opposite impression. Coffee is taking over. There are countless cafes offering a variety of coffees, some places specifically selling different beans and all sorts of god knows what.
It's tea which is suffering for the onslaught.
Coffee is expensive. Those fancy machines and organic beans picked by Wakandan children don't come cheap.
And they cannot bring themselves to see it as wise business to offer tea for substantially cheaper. Even if they do just give you hot water and a basic tea bag

Yes. There are still places that are bad but good coffee is very common now, tea is, as you say, a bit more basic.

But our good coffee has been driven by Antipodeans () who have a very different style of coffee to most Europeans. From working in a good coffee place it's fiarly hit and miss in its popularity with elderly Brits and some Europeans. It is also less good at black coffees - like filter or anything bigger than a long black which is something where I think other Northern Europeans are the best.

I worked with Italians and Spanish people and one of the Spaniards actually went to open a London/Aussie/Kiwi style coffee shop back in Spain. There were Italians who really liked the coffee but said it would never take off in Italy and it sounds like for similar reasons as you mention about tea here. People have a very strong idea of what coffee should be and there's no way in hell they're paying over a certain price for it

What's a London/Aussie/Kiwi style coffee shop? 

And yeah, Italians are really particular about their coffee. I believe Starbucks has only opened its first location there last year or so. Same reason why Pizza Hut and Domino's have never been able to establish themselves over there.

[Tamas]

To be clear when I speak of coffee I mean espresso. I see no need to add half a bucket of water to it and sip the diluted taste endlessly, then perhaps adding heaps of sugar to make it bearable.

[Josquius]

Anyone ever seen Geography Now's youtube videos?
Every episode they basically talk about a country of the world. They're going in alphabetical order. They've just reached....Serbia.
Boy are those comments sections a hoot. It seems every single person in the country is a conspiracy theory loving nationalist. Apparently America/NATO invaded Kosovo because it wanted a military base there.
Just...forget about Greece and Hungary as NATO members in the region...and Bulgaria and Romania being soon to join... and other countries in the area actively lobbying for membership.

[The Larch]

Anyone ever seen Geography Now's youtube videos?
Every episode they basically talk about a country of the world. They're going in alphabetical order. They've just reached....Serbia.
Boy are those comments sections a hoot. It seems every single person in the country is a conspiracy theory loving nationalist. Apparently America/NATO invaded Kosovo because it wanted a military base there.
Just...forget about Greece and Hungary as NATO members in the region...and Bulgaria and Romania being soon to join... and other countries in the area actively lobbying for membership.

You only discover Balkantards now? 

I do follow Geography Now, and am quite familiar with Serbia. It'll be a "fun" episode for sure. The guy always tries to sugarcoat everything and be as uncontroversial as possible, so let's see how he fares there.

[Sheilbh]

What's a London/Aussie/Kiwi style coffee shop? 

And yeah, Italians are really particular about their coffee. I believe Starbucks has only opened its first location there last year or so. Same reason why Pizza Hut and Domino's have never been able to establish themselves over there.

Yeah - it's actually similar in Australia and New Zealand. I think Starbucks went big there because they're just like America and just lost a shedload of money because there's too much good coffee competition. I think they've now closed about 80% of their branches. They had a shedload of Greek and Italian migrants in the post-war era who I think launched their coffee culture and then they've just been playing with it for years and now they've moved here and transferred it to us.

I think that's the biggest difference with Italy is they tend to be quite creative about what a coffee should taste like because they don't have the tradition behind them. It's a bit like American craft beers v, say, Belgium or Germany. Both are wonderful and have their place in the world - but in London at the minute our cafes are far more influenced by the Aussies and Kiwis (because they worked in them for decades and then started opening their own).

Basically it's all espresso based though. They like variety in beans - so you won't get the classic Illy or whatever - and will normally go for a light roast, small batch all of that stuff (at a higher price). So the taste of an espresso varies a lot from shop to shop. They also tend to be super precise about like the size of the shot/grind etc. Making coffee, they always do ristretto as the standard espresso - often people complain it's too bitter as an espresso, but that's deliberate. Similarly they really hate overheating the milk (which is qutie common in Italy) but that leads to people complaining their coffee isn't hot enough which I never understand but....

[Sheilbh]

Anyone ever seen Geography Now's youtube videos?
Every episode they basically talk about a country of the world. They're going in alphabetical order. They've just reached....Serbia.
Boy are those comments sections a hoot. It seems every single person in the country is a conspiracy theory loving nationalist. Apparently America/NATO invaded Kosovo because it wanted a military base there.
Just...forget about Greece and Hungary as NATO members in the region...and Bulgaria and Romania being soon to join... and other countries in the area actively lobbying for membership.

I saw someone recently post a thread about a leading Serbian historian/conspiracy theorist. And it was kind of hilarious - basically he posited that Serbia was the origin of all major Indo-European civilisations (except Albanians).