Coffee vigilantism - taking matters into your own hands

[defspace]

My office provides free coffee. It's awful. (I know, I know, gift horse and all that)

After a month or two, I started bringing in my Aeropress and a jar of ground beans. Coworkers initially laughed at the weird guy making his own coffee... until they had a cup.

Fast forward a year or so and a few of us cubicle drones have put this together:
coffeestation.jpg

I donated the grinder after I got a new one at home, some other folks pitched in with the filter pitcher and kettle. We initially started with store-bought beans. For the last two months I've been roasting at home and delivering fresh beans about twice a week. For the non-roasters, it costs about $7.50/mo for unlimited, freshly-roasted, pour-over coffee. Not too shabby, eh?

Other coworkers laugh at the "coffee snobs" until they have a cup.

What about you guys? If I know VSalon, you guys don't leave things up to chance.

[Octave]

During grad school my department (Neuropharmacology, you'd think they'd know better...) was buying 10lb bags of preground coffee from costco when I arrived. About a year into my PhD I started roasting coffee, and in order to feed my own habit and improve my work situation, I convinced everyone to pitch in and shift their coffee source to chez moi. I donated my old grinder to the department and put up a white board to list the current roast. At one point I was roasting about 3lb per week, which meant I could work with a variety of beans and roasts for my own pleasure while making sure the work coffee didn't suck.

But they still refused to use anything other than a Mr. Coffee drip module to brew..

[dashDustin]

my coworkers think Sumatra out of the Keurig is the shit. They say the frech press is too strong. So....I just make it for myself when I get to that point. Typically, however, I just make a couple shots of espresso in the morning, and a couple at noon.

[zetroc]

We have an Ariston superauto at the office (Saeco guts) built into the cabinets in the break room. It does a great job, even with Costco's Kirkland branded beans which are our staple, and if you stuff really good beans into it you can get a really nice espresso. But it's easy mode. There's no art to it.

One guy here does french press at his desk and a few others stick with Starbucks, but probably 90% of us drink what's provided.

[rwsaunders]

Our office has two of the industrial Bunn coffee makers (regular and decaf of course) that were most likely designed in 1940 and the natives rave over the dark roasted SBUX packets that they brew. There was almost a mutiny a year or so ago when we suggested getting a better machine and looking back, it would probably be a waste to do so, as most of our folks dump pounds of sugar and gallons of creamer in everything that they drink. No knock against SBUX, but the smell and the taste of that particular coffee is downright mean, and I use those words loosely in my description.

Fortunately we are located right in the heart of downtown Seattle, so I just stroll to my fave shops when I'm in town, of which there are literally dozens within a 5-10 minute walk from our office. Two of our folks also find the office coffee to be repugnant as well, so it gives us a good excuse to get some air, stretch the legs and solve the world's problems, while drinking good cofffee to boot.

[Mark Walberg]

......... the industrial Bunn coffee makers (regular and decaf of course) that were most likely designed in 1940 ............

Back when I first move to Texas, a bit north of Dallas (before the Starbucks invasion), I passed a shop with a neon sign advertising "Gourmet Coffee". I stopped immediately, starved for good coffee, having never seen any in Texas. Sure enough, there was the Bunn with caf and decaf.

Speaking of Starbucks, I finally read Moby Dick. What a fascinating book, with a lot more to it than I ever imagined.

[murphy]

My office provides free coffee. It's awful. (I know, I know, gift horse and all that)

After a month or two, I started bringing in my Aeropress and a jar of ground beans. Coworkers initially laughed at the weird guy making his own coffee... until they had a cup.

Fast forward a year or so and a few of us cubicle drones have put this together:

I donated the grinder after I got a new one at home, some other folks pitched in with the filter pitcher and kettle. We initially started with store-bought beans. For the last two months I've been roasting at home and delivering fresh beans about twice a week. For the non-roasters, it costs about $7.50/mo for unlimited, freshly-roasted, pour-over coffee. Not too shabby, eh?

Other coworkers laugh at the "coffee snobs" until they have a cup.

What about you guys? If I know VSalon, you guys don't leave things up to chance.

Hilariously, my old team had almost the exact same setup. One of the software architects did a lot of roasting so we would drop some money his way, but we all supplied various pieces of hardware (used my old grinder and drip maker for a while). I would always be the first one in the office so I would make the first pot.