Author Topic: Frugal Tip: Black Tea vs Coffee -- we save around $600 per year this way.  (Read 8879 times)

nereo

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No objection to coffee enthusiasts making quality home espresso if they choose the cost is worth it to them.

I just have seen plenty of examples of the spendy-pants consumer types who "treat themself" to a fancy espresso machine and then never bother learning how to pull a decent shot, because they're always drowning the espresso in so much milk and sugar that it doesn't even matter how it tastes. Certainly they're saving money compared to buying all those vanilla lattes at Starbucks... but they could get similar results putting their steamed milk and sugary syrups in regular filter coffee.

…maybe…?
When I’ve gone through the per serving cost of pour over vs espressos, the espresso quickly wins out, because each serving uses less coffee - which, as this there’s makes clear, is a large component of the drink, particularly for higher quality beans.  Yes, the durable equipment cost is larger, but a decent machine lasts for a decade+.
If people want to dump flavored syrups and milk in theirs… ok? Not my cup of coffee but they’re not likely to come out ahead with pour overs.

jnw

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No objection to coffee enthusiasts making quality home espresso if they choose the cost is worth it to them.

I just have seen plenty of examples of the spendy-pants consumer types who "treat themself" to a fancy espresso machine and then never bother learning how to pull a decent shot, because they're always drowning the espresso in so much milk and sugar that it doesn't even matter how it tastes. Certainly they're saving money compared to buying all those vanilla lattes at Starbucks... but they could get similar results putting their steamed milk and sugary syrups in regular filter coffee.

Cream and sweetener is so yummy in coffee though :)   I like taking heavy cream and whipping it with some zero carb sweetener, mixing half in french press coffee and leave the other half on top of the mug.  So delish!  :)

GuitarStv

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Espresso is not coffee, and should never be served with sugar and cream.

nereo

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

GuitarStv

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!

nereo

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!
...and yet on the english/tourist menus in Quebec, they literally call crepes "thin pancakes".
:-P

GuitarStv

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!
...and yet on the english/tourist menus in Quebec, they literally call crepes "thin pancakes".
:-P



Look . . . a man in a dress shirt, wearing a hat is towing a boat with his car while driving near a puddle!

jnw

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"Say I love crepes!" (Talledega Nights)

nereo

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Look . . . a man in a dress shirt, wearing a hat is towing a boat with his car while driving near a puddle!
He's clearly headed to a board meeting...

GuitarStv

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Look . . . a man in a dress shirt, wearing a hat is towing a boat with his car while driving near a puddle!
He's clearly headed to a board meeting...

:P

billygoatjohnson

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I do drink tea but it's definitely not the same as coffee. The analogy I would give it is tea is like jerking off, coffee is like having the real thing. Both have the same end result, but the experience is quiet different.

jnw

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I do drink tea but it's definitely not the same as coffee. The analogy I would give it is tea is like jerking off, coffee is like having the real thing. Both have the same end result, but the experience is quiet different.

Yeah everyone's different. We like tea better now :)  Tastes really good, less caffeine, easier on stomach and 16 times cheaper than coffee.

jnw

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Btw we are making our own liquid stevia now with Bulk Supplements Stevia Powder Extract.   35 grams of it with 8 fl oz of hot filtered water.  Dissolve and then store it in brown glass bottle in the fridge. Then from that bottle we top off the brown glass dropper bottle when needed.

It's under $30 per year for liquid stevia this way compared to around $280.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2023, 09:02:54 AM by JenniferW »

billygoatjohnson

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I do drink tea but it's definitely not the same as coffee. The analogy I would give it is tea is like jerking off, coffee is like having the real thing. Both have the same end result, but the experience is quiet different.

Yeah everyone's different. We like tea better now :)  Tastes really good, less caffeine, easier on stomach and 16 times cheaper than coffee.

If you are all about savings a buck maybe powdered caffeine for even cheaper and supplement it into water if you are trying to get best bang for the buck... Didn't look or do the math.

I can't believe you drank instant coffee, and the cheap stuff even, I won't even drink that if it's offered for free when out hiking/camping for days on end and desperate for coffee. And I'm not a picky coffee drinker!

I will say tea is way easier on the stomach, that is true. However it's much worse on staining teeth than coffee. I recently stumbled upon Green tea with lemon and ginseng at Aldi. It's actually pretty good but not as cheap as bulk generic stuff.

Just did the math for myself drinking coffee. I can drink GOOD coffee for $87 a year.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2023, 05:24:45 PM by billygoatjohnson »

billygoatjohnson

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I can't believe you drank instant coffee, and the cheap stuff even, I won't even drink that if it's offered for free when out hiking/camping for days on end and desperate for coffee. And I'm not a picky coffee drinker! Maybe that's why you needed so much creamer and sugar to hide the instant coffee taste.

I will say tea is way easier on the stomach, that is true. However it's much worse on staining teeth than coffee. I recently stumbled upon Green tea with lemon and ginseng at Aldi. It's actually pretty good but not as cheap as bulk generic stuff.

Just did the math for myself drinking coffee. I can drink GOOD coffee for $87 a year.

JupiterGreen

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Btw we are making our own liquid stevia now with Bulk Supplements Stevia Powder Extract.   35 grams of it with 8 fl oz of hot filtered water.  Dissolve and then store it in brown glass bottle in the fridge. Then from that bottle we top off the brown glass dropper bottle when needed.

It's under $30 per year for liquid stevia this way compared to around $280.

Interesting. How long does it stay good for?

jnw

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Now making zero calorie stevia sweetened cold brewed black tea for under 50 cents per gallon.

I've never done this before and learned it's best to just simply put black tea bags in filtered water overnight in the fridge.  I went with a 24 hour brew.   Well it turned out PERFECT with ZERO bitterness it was a amazing!  I added in the liquid stevia which make from bulk stevia extract powder -- I mentioned this in a previous post in this thread.

Discarded the tea bags and added the stevia to taste.  Amazingly good.

Add in a tiny splash of Great Value bottled lemon juice and you have an incredible Arnold Palmer tea.  Drinking an "Arnold Palmer" ice tea I made from scratch right now in fact, as I type.

So 50 cents per gallon compared to the cheap tea at Walmart which costs $3.48 per gallon.  1/7th the cost and this I guarantee you tastes much better.   You can make the tea into any type of tea you want ... Arnold Palmer: add lemon juice.  How about a cranberry tea?  Add a splash of 100% raw cranberry juice.   I imagine it'd taste good with any concentrated juice.

phildonnia

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If, like me, you absolutely must have coffee, here's the cost breakdown:

$14.00 for 3 pounds of coffee at Costco.  That's 70 quarter-cups, which each makes a quart of coffee.  Drink two cups, and the other two cups go in the fridge to be nuked the next day.  That comes out to $36.50 per year, or $0.10 per day. 

My Contigo cup was $2.99 at Goodwill, the electric kettle was $6.00 at Falling Prices, and a french press was free from Freecycle.  Let's amortize those over ten years, and call it nothing.

Bonus: None of those pods in the landfill are mine.


« Last Edit: April 19, 2023, 10:39:35 AM by phildonnia »

FINate

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Self confessed coffee snob here. As I write this I'm sitting down to a fantastic Ethiopian coffee that I roasted a couple of days ago. Floral aroma, bright citrus flavors to start, with a rooios tea like finish and a slight lingering sweetness.

When we first retired I was on an optimization kick getting all our expenses down as much as possible. So we started buying the Costco Columbian Supremo, which now sells for $8/lb. As far as coffee goes it's fine, but nothing remarkable. I've since decided life's too short to drink mediocre coffee. A properly roasted and brewed single-origin coffee is just so delicious and wonderful, to me it's worth the extra cost.

Besides the cost, I've had difficulty finding coffee that's roasted correctly, hasn't sat on a shelf for weeks, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.* So I decided to start roasting my own coffee again.  I bought a low-tech hand-held roaster (no electronics or moving parts) that I use with a camp stove I already had. This setup has produced some of the best coffee I've ever had. As an added bonus, I also really enjoy the roasting process and doing it exactly the way I want.

What about cost? I tend to buy green coffee beans in the $8.50/lb range, which seems to be the sweet spot for very high quality w/o being overly expensive. Green coffee loses about 13% of it's weight during roasting, so I'm paying a little under $10 per lb of roasted coffee ($8.50/0.87 = $9.77), which means I'm paying $0.27 per cup of coffee, plus around 2.5 cents per filter, so $0.30 per cup of coffee. Whereas the mediocre coffee was costing me $0.22/cup. I'll gladly pay an additional 8 cents per cup for amazing coffee.

*Comparable quality coffee from third-wave roasters is running around $20-$25 per 12 oz...that's upwards of $33/lb!!!
« Last Edit: April 19, 2023, 03:22:43 PM by FINate »

Villanelle

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Self confessed coffee snob here. As I write this I'm sitting down to a fantastic Ethiopian coffee that I roasted a couple of days ago. Floral aroma, bright citrus flavors to start, with a rooios tea like finish and a slight lingering sweetness.

When we first retired I was on an optimization kick getting all our expenses down as much as possible. So we started buying the Costco Columbian Supremo, which now sells for $8/lb. As far as coffee goes it's fine, but nothing remarkable. I've since decided life's too short to drink mediocre coffee. A properly roasted and brewed single-origin coffee is just so delicious and wonderful, to me it's worth the extra cost.

Besides the cost, I've had difficulty finding coffee that's roasted correctly, hasn't sat on a shelf for weeks, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.* So I decided to start roasting my own coffee again.  I bought a low-tech hand-held roaster (no electronics or moving parts) that I use with a camp stove I already had. This setup has produced some of the best coffee I've ever had. As an added bonus, I also really enjoy the roasting process and doing it exactly the way I want.

What about cost? I tend to buy green coffee beans in the $8.50/lb range, which seems to be the sweet spot for very high quality w/o being overly expensive. Green coffee loses about 13% of it's weight during roasting, so I'm paying a little under $10 per lb of roasted coffee ($8.50/0.87 = $9.77), which means I'm paying $0.27 per cup of coffee, plus around 2.5 cents per filter, so $0.30 per cup of coffee. Whereas the mediocre coffee was costing me $0.22/cup. I'll gladly pay an additional 8 cents per cup for amazing coffee.

*Comparable quality coffee from third-wave roasters is running around $20-$25 per 12 oz...that's upwards of $33/lb!!!

This is more or less how I feel about tea.  I don't drink it every day.  And I've never bothered with the math.  But I want at least good tea, if not great tea, when I do drink a cup.  An amazing single estate tea is, well... amazing, but that's also hard to source and some single estate teas can be duds.  So I settle for more mass produced teas but that are still the flavor profile I like and certainly better than Lipton.  For what is still a basically inconsequential amount compared to our budget, it's worth it for the pleasure of a nice cup of tea. I'm not going to spend $5 a cup for it, but for less than a dollar, and probably <$5 per month?  I'm good with paying more for nice tea that I really enjoy. "Optimizing" is about getting the most utility of of your money, and it's not optimized if I don't actually enjoy it.

MoneyTree

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I've had an interesting journey with coffee. At one point I found myself addicted to fancy pour-overs. I would have several cups a day, throughout the day, but preparation often took up to 10 minutes, with portioning, grinding, boiling water, pre-rinsing, blooming, then meticulously pouring while the coffee percolated.

When my first child was born, and I was regularly awake several times a night, either feeding the baby or washing bottles, I relied on coffee to get me through, but when there is a screaming baby in the house, you do not have time for fancy coffee preparation.

Grudgingly, i switched to *gasp* instant coffee. It tasted terrible, but I did not care because i was able to get caffeine into my system quickly.

Eventually, my taste buds adapted to where I actually do not mind the taste of instant coffee anymore. It is way cheaper and faster, and it does not feel like I am depriving myself or sacrificing in any way. I keep hot water in a thermos which keeps it hot all day, and I can have coffee with essentially no prep time.

I do not want to go back to my fancy coffee habits.

TheGrimSqueaker

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I like the idea of the Starbucks mocha frappuccino (spelling?) more than I like the reality. On the very rare occasions I get one, usually on vacation far from home, I'm usually disappointed because it's too sweet. Because the Venomous Spaz Beast is invariably tethered in her harness and crash basket next to me in the car, I get the whipped cream separate and feed it to her. If she's not hungry, she licks at it a few times, then stops, because apparently she prefers homemade.

Villanelle

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I like the idea of the Starbucks mocha frappuccino (spelling?) more than I like the reality. On the very rare occasions I get one, usually on vacation far from home, I'm usually disappointed because it's too sweet. Because the Venomous Spaz Beast is invariably tethered in her harness and crash basket next to me in the car, I get the whipped cream separate and feed it to her. If she's not hungry, she licks at it a few times, then stops, because apparently she prefers homemade.


Not being a coffee drinker, I'm far from a Starbucks aficionado, but I know that with most of their drinks, you can get fewer pumps of syrup to make them less sweet.  Just ask how many pumps of syrup it comes with and request onr (or 2) less.  As long as your frappuccino is flavored with syrup, they should be able to do that. 


Scandium

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I know this won't apply to many here, because I know people won't want to give up coffee -- I was the same.

But I recently learned that you can get 100 bags of black tea from Walmart for $2.12 -- Great Value Brand.  That's 2 cents per 12 oz mug of tea.

For coffee we were buying the cheapest instant coffee we could find: Great Value instant coffee.  Right now I see it for $4.92 for 12 oz.  According to the package it contains 70 teaspoons of coffee.  We put 2 level teaspoons of coffee in each 12 oz mug.   $4.92 / 35 two teaspoon servings is 14 cents per mug.

I'm not a tea snob, but I've tried a few different ones and I can't imagine $2 tea from walmart tastes very good! Same with walmart instant coffee; yeah it probably tastes like ass, giving it up seem like the best option..

You're not wrong, black tea is cheaper than coffee, almost regardless. I buy whole beans on sale and drink it black (but only certain brands, because some are nasty). But even then a bag of Twinings is cheaper (and yes I think it's better than store brand). Nescafe instant is decent ($9), store brand I gross. Is it better to spend $X on a crappy product you don't enjoy, or 5X on something you do enjoy? To a point I think so..

Also surprised about the creamer costs! You could just drink it black and half your cost ;)

Edit: oh and I also only have one (good) cup of coffee in the morning, then tea in the afternoon. Potentially healthier, and almost halved my spending from when I used to drink 2+ cups a day.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2023, 12:35:57 PM by Scandium »

FINate

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No objection to coffee enthusiasts making quality home espresso if they choose the cost is worth it to them.

I just have seen plenty of examples of the spendy-pants consumer types who "treat themself" to a fancy espresso machine and then never bother learning how to pull a decent shot, because they're always drowning the espresso in so much milk and sugar that it doesn't even matter how it tastes. Certainly they're saving money compared to buying all those vanilla lattes at Starbucks... but they could get similar results putting their steamed milk and sugary syrups in regular filter coffee.

Or, just get a $40 stove top espresso maker (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Original-Bialetti-Moka-Express-Stovetop/dp/B0000CF3Q6)

Similarly, you can spend thousands of dollars on a coffee roaster, but my $75 manual stove top roaster produces results that are on par with the best professionally roasted coffees.

jnw

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I know this won't apply to many here, because I know people won't want to give up coffee -- I was the same.

But I recently learned that you can get 100 bags of black tea from Walmart for $2.12 -- Great Value Brand.  That's 2 cents per 12 oz mug of tea.

For coffee we were buying the cheapest instant coffee we could find: Great Value instant coffee.  Right now I see it for $4.92 for 12 oz.  According to the package it contains 70 teaspoons of coffee.  We put 2 level teaspoons of coffee in each 12 oz mug.   $4.92 / 35 two teaspoon servings is 14 cents per mug.

I'm not a tea snob, but I've tried a few different ones and I can't imagine $2 tea from walmart tastes very good! Same with walmart instant coffee; yeah it probably tastes like ass, giving it up seem like the best option..

You're not wrong, black tea is cheaper than coffee, almost regardless. I buy whole beans on sale and drink it black (but only certain brands, because some are nasty). But even then a bag of Twinings is cheaper (and yes I think it's better than store brand). Nescafe instant is decent ($9), store brand I gross. Is it better to spend $X on a crappy product you don't enjoy, or 5X on something you do enjoy? To a point I think so..

Also surprised about the creamer costs! You could just drink it black and half your cost ;)

I’ve had twinnings, this gv tea actually tastes better.   Even pg tips tastes better than twinings.

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+1 for the bialetti moka pot. Love that thing!!

TomTX

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!
A hot dog on a bun is a sandwich.
A burrito is a sandwich.

[Shots Fired!]

GuitarStv

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!
A hot dog on a bun is a sandwich.
A burrito is a sandwich.

[Shots Fired!]

That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.

TomTX

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!
A hot dog on a bun is a sandwich.
A burrito is a sandwich.

[Shots Fired!]

That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.
I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!

oneday

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Espresso is not coffee....

Hmm... I disagree.  It's literally water and coffee.  The extraction process is very different from pour-over or french-press, but it's still very much a form of "coffee".

I'm agnostic about whether one drinks it with sugar and/or cream. To each their own.

That's like saying a pancake is a crepe.  I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!
A hot dog on a bun is a sandwich.
A burrito is a sandwich.

[Shots Fired!]

That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.
I REJECT YOUR HYPOTHESIS SIR!

A hot dog is a taco.
A burrito is a calzone.
It says so on the internet, so it must be true: The Cube Rule

GuitarStv

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I identify as sandwich structural purist, ingredient neutral.

nereo

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I identify as sandwich structural purist, ingredient neutral.

I can’t help but wonder how to apply this rubric to the time-honored forum question: what constitutes a bed?

On one end of the spectrum we have “Big Hotel” insisting a bed includes a frame, mattress, sheets and pillows. On the other is GuitarStv, with no frame, no mattress, and what I sometimes envision as a pile of leaves in the corner.

GuitarStv

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Leaves are always full of bugs.  You need some nice clean hay to bed down in.

jnw

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Update: Still loving the tea and don't miss the coffee whatsoever :)

AccidentialMustache

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That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.

I'll bite.

As a mustachian, I'm sure you don't throw out the ends of the bread. The ends are cut on only one side (post-baking, you could make an argument they were separated from other dough pre-baking I guess). If you have a 1-end and 1-slice bounding the meat/cheese/condiment/whatever-filling, is the object still a sandwich? If not, what is it?

GuitarStv

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That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.

I'll bite.

As a mustachian, I'm sure you don't throw out the ends of the bread. The ends are cut on only one side (post-baking, you could make an argument they were separated from other dough pre-baking I guess). If you have a 1-end and 1-slice bounding the meat/cheese/condiment/whatever-filling, is the object still a sandwich? If not, what is it?

Thought I was clear on this point.  It is an abomination.  Still a (barely) edible abomination, but certainly not a proper sandwich.

AccidentialMustache

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Back to tea; get a pot to make tea in. We regularly will use a single bag or one heaped iced-tea-spoon of tea to make tea (using the directed time on the package), and get 32+ oz of tea for our trouble. The pot doesn't have to be fancy -- a 32oz glass pyrex measure will do, although ours is fancier (and we have a cozy for it, so our future cups are still warm).

If you want to save on stevia -- grow your own. Pick leaves from the growing plant and brew with your tea. You can also pick the whole thing and dry near the end of season and use the leaves there.

jnw

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If you want to save on stevia -- grow your own. Pick leaves from the growing plant and brew with your tea. You can also pick the whole thing and dry near the end of season and use the leaves there.

One 1kg bag of stevia powder makes 29 eight ounce bottles (huge bottles) of liquid stevia, for $45.  That would take acres of stevia to make and days of harvesting.   Each eight ounce bottle of liquid stevia, the cheapest I could find on Amazon, are around $16 per bottle.  29 x 16 = $464.  $45 vs $464, or one tenth the cost to make it yourself.

EDIT: Recipe for 8 oz of liquid stevia: 35g of stevia powder extract and 8 oz of water boiling water.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2023, 12:00:10 PM by jnw »

nereo

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That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.

I'll bite.

As a mustachian, I'm sure you don't throw out the ends of the bread. The ends are cut on only one side (post-baking, you could make an argument they were separated from other dough pre-baking I guess). If you have a 1-end and 1-slice bounding the meat/cheese/condiment/whatever-filling, is the object still a sandwich? If not, what is it?

Thought I was clear on this point.  It is an abomination.  Still a (barely) edible abomination, but certainly not a proper sandwich.

I’ll choose a sandwich (or whatever you insist on calling it) made from two ends from a truly great, fresh loaf of bread than a “proper” sandwich made from two middle slices of a mediocre mass produced loaf.

GuitarStv

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That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.

I'll bite.

As a mustachian, I'm sure you don't throw out the ends of the bread. The ends are cut on only one side (post-baking, you could make an argument they were separated from other dough pre-baking I guess). If you have a 1-end and 1-slice bounding the meat/cheese/condiment/whatever-filling, is the object still a sandwich? If not, what is it?

Thought I was clear on this point.  It is an abomination.  Still a (barely) edible abomination, but certainly not a proper sandwich.

I’ll choose a sandwich (or whatever you insist on calling it) made from two ends from a truly great, fresh loaf of bread than a “proper” sandwich made from two middle slices of a mediocre mass produced loaf.

You've gotta compare apples to apples.  You would prefer two slices of fresh bread from the middle to two heels for a sandwich, right?

nereo

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That way lies anarchy.

A sandwich can only be made between two pieces of bread.  Each piece of bread must be cut on both sides.  Buns of any sort, wraps, and abominations made with end pieces of a loaf of bread cannot rightly be called a sandwich.

I'll bite.

As a mustachian, I'm sure you don't throw out the ends of the bread. The ends are cut on only one side (post-baking, you could make an argument they were separated from other dough pre-baking I guess). If you have a 1-end and 1-slice bounding the meat/cheese/condiment/whatever-filling, is the object still a sandwich? If not, what is it?

Thought I was clear on this point.  It is an abomination.  Still a (barely) edible abomination, but certainly not a proper sandwich.

I’ll choose a sandwich (or whatever you insist on calling it) made from two ends from a truly great, fresh loaf of bread than a “proper” sandwich made from two middle slices of a mediocre mass produced loaf.

You've gotta compare apples to apples.  You would prefer two slices of fresh bread from the middle to two heels for a sandwich, right?
Sure, but I’d consider both to be sandwiches.

I also like bagel sandwiches.


TomTX

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I also like bagel sandwiches.
Per serving:
Halve two slices of bacon and fry in a large pan or griddle. Set aside bacon, retain bacon grease in pan/griddle.
Scramble 1-2 eggs on one side of the pan/griddle and fry two bagel halves on the other side until GBD*.
Assemble: Bagel half, one slice cheese, eggs, bacon, bagel half.

Optional: Second cheese slice, onion slice and/or lettuce leaf.

Enjoy!

*Golden Brown & Delicious!

RetiredAt63

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Just read this thread.

During The Ice Storm of 1998 I found out why the British warm the teapot first.  When you are making tea in a 12oC basement, if you don't warm the teapot first your boiling water for the tea cools off too quickly.

David's Tea carries the in-mug SS strainer.

A few years ago my doctor told me to give up coffee entirely, for the sake of my stomach lining.  So it's been tea ever since for the nice warm caffeine morning drink.  And herbal teas for the nice warm no caffeine drink (plus you can buy not too terrible decaffeinated tea, in bags).

Different teas need different water temperatures (and usually the label gives the value).  I used to boil a measured amount of water in the microwave, now I use my electric kettle that can be set to the temperature I want, and it gives me the choice of oC or oF.

I had a cup of coffee a while ago - oops, I don't even like coffee anymore.  Teas and herbal teas come in such variety there is lots of choice.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2023, 10:45:15 AM by RetiredAt63 »

AccidentialMustache

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If you want to save on stevia -- grow your own. Pick leaves from the growing plant and brew with your tea. You can also pick the whole thing and dry near the end of season and use the leaves there.

One 1kg bag of stevia powder makes 29 eight ounce bottles (huge bottles) of liquid stevia, for $45.  That would take acres of stevia to make and days of harvesting.   Each eight ounce bottle of liquid stevia, the cheapest I could find on Amazon, are around $16 per bottle.  29 x 16 = $464.  $45 vs $464, or one tenth the cost to make it yourself.

EDIT: Recipe for 8 oz of liquid stevia: 35g of stevia powder extract and 8 oz of water boiling water.

I'm not running a starbucks out of my house, are you?

Per pot, we'll use around 4 leaves. DW planted about 3 plants in a 12" pot outside and they lasted us a couple months at least. We'll usually go through 3-4 pots of tea a day. 16 leaves sounds like a lot, but they are in pairs and every say, half inch, so that's really only 4 inches of plant per day. That's not that much. A couple dozen plants would probably be more than we'd use in a year. Harvesting isn't hard. Hack them off, tie up like kitchen herbs, pick dried leaves and stuff in a mason jar. None of this "is it ripe?" shenanigans or multiple picks per year as the peas or beans set a second crop.

jnw

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I'm not running a starbucks out of my house, are you?

Per pot, we'll use around 4 leaves. DW planted about 3 plants in a 12" pot outside and they lasted us a couple months at least. We'll usually go through 3-4 pots of tea a day. 16 leaves sounds like a lot, but they are in pairs and every say, half inch, so that's really only 4 inches of plant per day. That's not that much. A couple dozen plants would probably be more than we'd use in a year. Harvesting isn't hard. Hack them off, tie up like kitchen herbs, pick dried leaves and stuff in a mason jar. None of this "is it ripe?" shenanigans or multiple picks per year as the peas or beans set a second crop.


Cool. But 2.2 lbs of powder extract is a LOT of leaves no? I can't imagine how many plants were needed to produce that bag of powder.  The bag is 100% stevia extract. No we aren't running a Starbucks, a $45 2.2 lb bag will last us 2 years.

Did you buy the plants or start from seed? I had a hard time starting some from seed a few years back.   How much did the seeds or plants cost you?  What planting zone do you live in?  It gets very hot and very cold where I am, zone 7a.  I never got to experience how well they grow here because I couldn't get the seed started.

Again making it ourselves compared to buying the least expensive liquid stevia, saves us hundreds of dollars each year, at 1/10th the cost.  We don't have to acquire the seed (nor buy plants which I have a gardening policy against), try and get it started somehow, hoping it survives here okay, watering it every day, doing any sort of pest control, harvesting, any processing etc.  I've seen people on youtube sharing their process for extracting the stevia from the leaves; seemed time consuming. We use the liquid stevia here for a lot more than just tea; we use it for instantly sweetening cold beverages, homemade ice cream, homemade chocolate, baked goods -- all of which the leaves wouldn't be appropriate. We don't eat sugar and carbs here and this liquid stevia is our go to sugar substitute for everything we eat which is sweet. 

Anyways, respectfully, I only responded because you said "if you want to save on stevia -- grow your own".  I disagree, I think it is many times more expensive than this bag of powder.  Also consumes more time.

And I apologize for the exaggeration when I said "acres".. but I just can't imagine how many plants would be needed for a 2.2 lb bag of stevia powder extract; just the thought of it depresses me lol.  I grow my own basil here and I remembered how long it took just to cut all the leaves off a 4' x 4' bed of basil, before processing it into pesto and freezing.

EDIT: How large does a single stevia plant grow to be? -- i.e. if given plenty of room to grow in a raised bed? (The basil plants can get quite large in a season.)
« Last Edit: May 27, 2023, 06:38:57 AM by jnw »

AccidentialMustache

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I wouldn't assume it is a lot of leaves, because I would bet most of your sweetener isn't actually the pure glycosides. If nothing else, at 200-300x as sweet as sugar, you'd need to be measuring the pure compounds with lab instruments to not have grossly over-sweetened results.

Our process for extracting it is trivial -- brew the leaves along with our tea. We don't use it for much anything else, but tea is the thread topic, despite the rogue bread cube rule discussion. Yes, that's not globally applicable to all home use cases and I can respect not wanting to attempt industrial chemistry at home.

Missy B

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I have tried to get my boyfriend to drink tea, both for convenience and to save money.
But he refuses. When I offer, I can see him making a Mr. Yuck face in his head. (He is too polite to make it to me for real).

This is despite his British heritage on both sides. It is a sin and shame to see him spurn his cultural heritage so. But when I mention this, he just makes a Mr. Yuck face in his head and says no thank you.


EliteZags

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