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Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:25 pm
by lobstaboy
Coffee fan-boy websites are full of stories about famous people and their enthusiasm for coffee.
One has it that Beethoven insisted that his house-keeper made his coffee with exactly 60 beans. That sounds like a lot.
But it's not! I tried 60 beans of Taylor's Rich Italian ground fine for an espresso and it was thin and anemic. Just one cup.
Do we like stronger coffee these days, or is this story really telling us that Beethoven was a skinflint?

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:40 pm
by Paul_Sengupta

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:45 pm
by Flyin'Dutch'
I don't know how it was in Austria but in Germany coffee has always been very expensive probably why he only wanted to use 60.

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Sun Apr 28, 2019 7:31 pm
by Chris Martyr
lobstaboy wrote: is this story really telling us that Beethoven was a skinflint?


Only when he got to his 5th.

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Sun Apr 28, 2019 10:23 pm
by Trent772
Shame he never finished his 10th...... :thumleft:

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Tue Apr 30, 2019 7:54 am
by stevelup
Paul_Sengupta wrote:Apparently the average is 56.


I reckon that's way out (well, certainly is for me). I grind 20g for a 30ml dose. You can't extract anything useful from 7g.

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Tue Apr 30, 2019 9:37 am
by JoeC
We may be looking at this from a 21st century perspective.

18/19th Century portion sizes were tiny compared to ours. Coffee cups, wine glasses, plates and cutlery are child-sized compared to our huge modern buckets of high street swill. I'm guessing that the relative low cost and easy availability of the product these days makes our usage, per portion, increase too.

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:39 pm
by Bill McCarthy
Whilst waiting for transport to take us from our hotel back to the boat in Lisbon, we all had a VERY strong coffee with a tot of rum added and it fitted into a cup not much bigger than an egg cup. It would set you up for the day.

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Tue Apr 30, 2019 1:22 pm
by Paul_Sengupta
Known in Italian as a coffee "corretto". To correct you, probably the morning after.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_corretto

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Tue Apr 30, 2019 4:26 pm
by skydriller
"cafe corretto grappa".... :drunken:

Re: Beethoven's coffee

PostPosted:Tue Apr 30, 2019 4:38 pm
by Josh
The greatest abomination known to coffee is the red eye found in the states. Double espresso topped up with that god-awful brew pot stuff the Americans insist passes for coffee. Guaranteed to double your heart rate and leave you without sleep for at least 24 hours :shock: :pale: :bounce: