[kmm]

I thought coffee for people who don't like coffee was instant coffee? The linked Clever Dripper seems like it's comparatively a bit more effort and waste.

Apart from the advantage of instant preparation, to my undiscerning palate instant coffee has got all the qualities and taste of coffee I enjoy, and not being a coffee-connoisseur, I can't be disappointed by its apparent blandness or one-dimensionality.

[karaterobot]

In general, I think having an unrefined palate is one of life's great gifts. I admit there are areas of food where I'm a snob, but that just means I can't enjoy examples of that food which I consider sub-par, which is more of a curse than a blessing.

And, for all the areas where I have no particular expertise or discerning taste, I can just enjoy the cheapest and most easily available version of that thing. It's awesome!

Take chocolate for example: at this point in my life, every piece of chocolate I eat is a treat, and when I'm with someone who just can't eat cheap chocolate (Hersheys) my reaction is "sucks to be you, nom nom nom". If I went down a rabbit hole where I could only enjoy a subset of all chocolate, I'd consider that a worse situation than being able to enjoy all chocolate.

I think people believe there is something like a magnitude of enjoyment, and when you are an expert eating something you consider perfect, you enjoy it more. I think that's probably dead wrong, and nothing has empirically disproven that for me. Certainly in the long run you'll enjoy fewer things than people with no (supposed) taste.

[MostlyStable]

I have an (apparent) super power where, even in domains where I appreciate and prefer high quality versions, I am still perfectly fine with the crappy versions.

I do all the up-thread recommended coffee steps (good, fresh beans from a small local roaster, grind myself, etc.) and I love it. But in a pinch, I will drink crappy gas station coffee. It's not great, but it's...fine.

Similarly, I love high quality beer, but Coors light has it's place and is perfectly fine for what it is.

I have apparently managed to raise my ceiling for what I like, without needing to raise my floor for what I can tolerate.

[petesergeant]

Amen. Love and can appreciate great coffee, pizza, wine, whisky, etc etc, but I've never really had pizza or coffee I couldn't stomach, and even the worst whisky and wine get better once you've started consuming it...

[DennisP]

As someone who does like coffee, I can't imagine that the best coffee for people who don't like coffee is much worse coffee. Seems like really good coffee would be a much better option to try first.

Everybody tastes things differently because we each have a different subset of scent receptors, but for me, it's not that instant is bland or one-dimensional, but that it actively tastes bad.

[toast0]

I dunno. Coffee flavored beverages are objectively bad coffee, but can be appealing to coffee dislikers. I used to hate coffee and love coffee ice cream.

Now I drink coffee with a lot of cream (but no sweetener), which is kind of the same idea. My pallete has matured enough for me to prefer not to have k-cups, but not much further than that.

[DennisP]

I don't mind coffee-flavored beverages. I'm not someone with a really refined palate. I can't tell you the flavor notes in coffee and I'm hopeless with wine.

But I still really like good, black fresh-ground coffee, don't like a lot of restaurant coffees without adding cream, and can't stand instant.

[ordu]

I cannot say for everyone who doesn't like coffee, but I can say for myself. I hate coffee, but instant coffee is ok for me. Maybe it is bland or one-dimensional, but it is much better than bitter+sour.

[DennisP]

Bitter+sour sounds like bad coffee to me, too.

[maxwellg]

One-dimensionality isn't the issue - the issue is that most drip coffee makers and most cheap to-go coffee is terribly, terribly burnt. The coffee would taste so much better if it was brewed fresh at a lower temperature, but instead you end up with a pot of near-boiling water sitting on a heating element for hours.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

> You'll get diabetes. Have a coffee. But I never liked it. Bitter and sour at the same time. On top of that, it's served scalding hot

What this guy actually wants is cold brew. Served iced or cold, much muted bitterness/sourness and smoother, more coffee-forward flavors

The thing that's also nice about cold brew is that it's one of the most approachable ways to make a really good coffee. I have a $18 cold brew pitcher I bought on Amazon that is essentially just a filter that sits in water. Makes cold brew of equivalent or better quality than the coffeeshop down the street.

About the only two limitations of cold brew are that it takes 12 hours to make and that you need to water it down because it's essentially a needle straight into your caffeine vein. But heck, even with the 12 hour limitation, some crazy people managed to invent some device recently that is somehow able to make cold brew in like 5 minutes. I don't even water my cold brew down anymore, I just make it with half decaf beans and half regular beans and it's perfect.

[alabastervlog]

Cold brew is how I save bad (or even stale) beans.

Good beans make better cold brew, but bad beans make much better cold brew than they do hot coffee.

[SoftTalker]

Yeah instant coffee is fine. Not great, but not any worse than any drip brewed supermarket coffee.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

It depends on the instant coffee brand. Some are much worse, primarily due to the acidity content being much higher. The ones that are designed to reduce the amount of acidity are about on par with the normal drip stuff.