I have a dispenser style Brita filter (link) that I keep in my fridge. I noticed a few weeks back it was dispensing water slower and at a slight angle, and figured maybe the plastic bits had gotten worn down and it might need replaced soon.

Today, I noticed it was even slower, so I emptied it and held it up to try to look at the nozzle. Couldn’t really see anything, but I did notice the nozzle appeared to be removable so I did that to get a closer look…

Looked like maybe there was some biofilm or mold or something at the nozzle tip. Cleaned it with soap and water and a straw brush, but honestly I’m horribly grossed out.

I’ve been drinking most of my daily water dispensed by it. I haven’t been sick or anything over the past month so like, presumably I’ll be OK but…ew.

I’ve been exploring coffee and came across this interesting news about “co-fermented coffee”

https://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/discussion-undocumented-infusion-in-green-roasted-coffee-t102005-230.html#p1079794

So in a nutshell, the claim is that you can take green coffee beans and ferment them with some other food item such as spices or fruit, and this process will in turn affect the flavour of the coffee after you roast it and brew it.

Full disclosure, I’ve never heard of co-fermented coffee before. To the best of my knowledge I have never had it before.

The controversy appears to be that perhaps on some or even all cases, the co-fermentation is being augmented or even faked by the addition of glycol and artificial flavours. The suspicion is that typical flavours that are being claimed shouldn’t be stable at the temperatures used in roasting coffee. They also shouldn’t be identifiably the same flavours as the fruit that go in, yet you have lychee co-ferments that apparently taste like lychee, mango co-ferments that taste like mango, and so on.

I’m curious how this all came about. I assume initially co-fermentation was a purely natural process. It sounds like a super obvious thing to attempt. Now we apparently see widespread evidence of chemical additives. Maybe it is in response to instability of the process? Did it ever work as claimed, and did these tests possibly only target the most egregious flavour profiles which therefore found the artificial flavours while not testing the milder and natural variants? I’m sure there are many questions since this seems like an early stage of examination.

So my question is, tilderinos, what’s your take? Is this just gatekeeping, is this fraud on the consumer, do we need certification ala sparkling wine vs champagne for processes, is this possibly just a good and useful evolution of coffee processing?

There's a lot of stories of people getting off caffeine and documenting the changes and benefits they experienced. But I'm wondering if anyone has gotten on caffeine as an adult and could share what benefits, if any, they gained. For reference, I've never consumed much caffeine and have been debating doing so. In terms of actual work and school, I've never found the need. But, I'm generally a bit lethargic/slow paced by nature (have trouble getting up in the morning, inefficient with my time especially when I don't have much going on) and maybe a light jolt and ritual in the morning would be worthwhile.

Sadly, I think I need to reduce my coffee intake. I only ever had a cup a day, but I've always been in to light roasts... roasted within walking distance of my house*... super fancy shit. Anyway, I'm trying to nail down some health things, so coffee has to go for a time.

I am now a tea person. I don't really like it, but I need something like that in the morning. I've started with Lapsang Souchong. This is pretty much the only tea I've ever had. I don't have any dairy in my diet, either, which seems to be a big part of tea-life.

Any top tips for getting into tea? I was just mocked for weighing tea... I guess that isn't as important in this scene.

* not joking about this :)

edit: thanks everybody! the first round of teas are:

• Lapsang Souchong
• Hojicha
• Irish Breakfast
• Margaret's Hope

so far so good!

A little background:
I’m an Irish man who lived in Scotland for a long time and developed a penchant for good Scottish whisky.

I’ve since moved back to Ireland and am on a quest to find good Irish whiskey.

I’ve been looking for double distilled, single pot (or single malt) and have found a couple of nice ones, though this is somewhat counter to the Irish market which favours triple distilled and has (imo) a narrower taste profile, especially when compared to scotch.

Currently drinking: Shortcross rye and barley

Its really pleasant and quite different to the traditional Jameson/bush. There’s a bit of depth to it, some spice from the rye and a lovely classic malty finish.

Any other whisky enjoyers out there ?

My partner and I like to have a drink while we cook/ after work, and we've usually switch between some wine or more recently nice cocktails. I'd like to up my cocktail game when I'm hosting though.

What simple cocktails would you guys suggest?

So far my favourite cocktails are Negroni, White Russian, Old fashioned, and for after dinner a friend of mine made that Im not too sure about that's a 50 50 mix of whisky and amaretto with a cherry that's surprisingly good.

I’m wondering what people choose to drink with a Mac and cheese meal? This has long been a conundrum for me. Probably for 20 years I have finished making the mac only to stop for a minute and think “should I have milk? Water? Soda/pop? Something else?”

Seriously, I have this question almost every time. Doesn’t matter if it’s homemade mac or kraft box. For the last 8 years it hasn’t really come up because I just didn’t buy mac and cheese (box “dinner”), but now I have a kid coming into the age where they want it occasionally so it’s back on the menu.

Am I being weird about this?

Are there other foods that people have a hard time pairing with a drink?