@Gregory1776 wrote:
@IsambardPrince wrote:
@OrangeRange wrote:Okay, so for me the changes aren't all that bad. I was expecting a monthly Resy credit but semi-annual is usable given my travel frequency. If it works like the Delta credit where you just have to pay with the card at a restaurant on Resy but not use the platform, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle for me. I prefer that to a monthly credit which definitely would have had me considering canceling.
Regarding the other credits, keeping Grubhub/Cheesecake Factory/Uber is clutch for me as well. Dunkin credit will work for me as I usually get a coffee/cheap breakfast sandwhich prior to heading into work on some days, or hop out to the Dunkin next to my building for a quick mid-day coffee and some fresh air if I'm WFH. As a pour over/espresso lover with my own coffee station at home, I also value convenience over quality sometimes and just want my coffee fix.
I'll easily take advantage of that $84 annually without having to remember to use it.
Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are an absolute last resort if I'm out of town and don't have access to my MoccaMaster.
Flipping a switch and making a fresh pot of coffee are not rocket science and spending $6-8 a day on a cup of coffee is a nonsensical proposition, especially when it's so bad at other places.
The last two times I had to get Dunkin' or Starbucks in a crunch, they handed it to me cold and disgusting, and charged me for an entire can of coffee grounds for one cup of coffee.
This going out for coffee every morning thing actually is a disease, and when people say "make coffee at home", for some of us it's a "der doy" but it really needs to be said to some people.
I mean, it certainly is your money and do with it what you will, but I would ask why you "need" $8 coffee made to low standards by disgruntled fast food teenagers every day on a credit card in your life.
moccomaster - i dont know what that is but ill be looking into it. I'm easily spending $100 a month on coffee.. it is insane. Have to change something. I usually dont like making coffee at home as ive not "Learned" how to make it properly / the way i like it.
Where can i get one of those machines / why would i want one?
You just missed a huge sale on them at Amazon for Prime Day.
Beware that it's a European machine so "cups" of coffee are 4 ounces, not 6. And the measuring spoon it comes with is a bit...robust for my tastes.
I usually use 1 US Tbsp of coffee per 1 Euro coffee cup. I find that making 5 Euro cups fills my tumbler without wasting any.
Bill Nye recommended them. They're not very complex. They're very user-serviceable if something breaks. Most parts are obtainable.
What's good about it? Accurate and consistently correct brew speed and temperature, and they all have a "funnel" that forces new coffee to the bottom to make the entire pot about the same strength.
If you're not going to go for a MoccaMaster, the Oxo 8 Cup or some of the Zojirushis get good reviews. I have a Zojirushi rice cooker.
My spouse will literally kill me if I come home with one more thing that makes coffee. I already have a Melitta pour over, an electric percolator, a camping percolator, the MoccaMaster, a french press, and a Aeropress.
What I like about the MoccaMaster is that they just did everything so well. Most of the best coffee makers use Melitta cone filters, and I've tried them all and you should really only use Melitta or Brew Rite number 4s in these things, and there's an origami style fold before putting it in the brew basket so it stands on the fold. Most people don't do this. Fold the bottom flap over on the seam, fold the side seam the other direction, place in the basket, fill with the correct amount of grounds for the water in the reservoir, flip the switch.
There's absolutely nothing complicated about any of these units. There's no computer, there's no clock, but they're so fast that the brew cycle is done before most cheaper models have gotten started. If you use the dezcal (do NOT mix this stuff up in the stainless steel carafe!) to descale the machine about every time you go through a couple packs of filters, the heating element and therefore brew speed should never clog and become slower.
Bill Nye is of course the "science guy". His other go-to is a chemex, which I don't have. I like things that you just flip a switch.
The thing you'll notice about the MoccaMaster is that it should improve any coffee you put in it. I'm not terribly picky about coffee brand or roast or anything. I even use Maxwell House sometimes. To me, what ruins a cup of coffee generally comes down to a brewer that was made too cheaply, in China (hello Walmart) brewing at the wrong time and temperature. I've had systems from Walmart that came close to boiling the coffee or underextracted it because they peaked at 186 F or so halfway into the brew cycle. The MoccaMaster gets up to 200-202 F pretty quickly and stays there. And I think what also doesn't help are coffee makers that use burners instead of a vacuum flask to hold at the brew temperature (preheating with a hot water rinse first helps keep it warm longer). The burners do what they say they do. They burn your coffee, and run up your electric bill. And I think Bunn-style (as opposed to Melitta-style) filters are crap and as an American I say the Americans are wrong for standardizing on this. The Melitta filter increases the total dissolved solids (TDS) count in a batch of finished coffee, and I like the flavor profile that it brings out.
In the 1970s, coffee prices shot through the roof due to some bad crop freezes, and the Mr. Coffee models of the era had a brew basket with a "coffee saver" feature, which tried to make the most out of your coffee grounds. It would essentially fold up the Bunn filter so that the coffee went through all the grounds instead of the water landing randomly (which is what Bunn filters tend to do) and leave some of the grounds unspent. The Melitta filters actually solve this incomplete extration problem. In time, the Mr. Coffee Bunn Hack was removed never to be seen again. Some of the Bunn-style filter machines do have a "shower head" system which makes this problem a lot less severe. Provided they can get the water hot enough and quickly enough into the brew cycle to avoid bitter, astringent coffee, some rival the Melitta-style systems, but it took many years for anyone to work on the Bunn-style's biggest flaw. (Having sections of the coffee in the filter dry after a brew cycle, or having one spot where very clearly most of the water went, when the machine finishes shows this uneven distribution of water in the brewers that have it.)
An easy way to save some money on a MoccaMaster is to look for it on Prime Day, or just get in there and see if there's any in "Amazon Resale", which is where they sell ones that someone returned. If you get one "Like New" they usually knock about $60-80 off and it's probably never been out of the box. Most Walmart machines are cheap because they don't work right and then they die in a year or two, sometimes leaking all over your kitchen counter. I'm going into year three with the MoccaMaster.
To deep clean the stainless steel carafe, just pour a little bit of automatic dishwasher gel in it and pour boiling water in and screw the lid (the travel one, not the brew-through lid) and leave it sit all night, then pour the coffee gunk out and hand wash the residual.
You definitely want to take care of this thing because they cost a lot, but it'll take care of you.
Decent coffee in the morning is a standard and repeatable process, but it's not one that teenagers working in a fast food joint care about, so they tend to make it wrong, use Bunn filters (grr), and leave it out to get scorched or cold while they're flipping through their cell phone and can't just put another pot on when that one is 3 hours cold.
Which is why I'm amazed that Dunkin' Donuts on a $300+ a year AmEx is even a thing.
What the... take this Cawfee Tawk over to Smorgasboard!
Those are VERY large off-topic walls of gibberish about a disgusting liquid whose smell gives me massive headaches. 🤢🤕
Biz - 
Authorized User - 
Debit Cards - 
@redpat wrote:Lol, some serious OCD coffee issues....
Now back to the topic at hand. I know many hate Amex coupon book but at least for some this card can be AF neutral or on the plus side, the same can be said for Plat card holders.
Many here like USB AR but that is a net AF is $75 net while some have the Amex coupon book do better than that and some can now do the same regarding CSR w/ their coupon book, while having a flexible reward ecosystem.
DW and myself are 5Bucks coffee drinkers and if Amex gold offered a $15 monthly credit I would get the card again, seeing we both spend a little over a $1,000 each annually, yes we have a drinking problem (coffee neat).
So if some goes to DD for coffee or anything else they are plus $9.00 so it works for them.
AmEx does seem to have a growing tendency to add very locational-specific things to their coupon books. Such as Equinox credits, and now DD credits. If you live in NYC or Boston, great. If you live in the rural Midwest, not so much.
@Anonymous wrote:
@unsungivy wrote:AmEx does seem to have a growing tendency to add very locational-specific things to their coupon books. Such as Equinox credits, and now DD credits. If you live in NYC or Boston, great. If you live in the rural Midwest, not so much.
I would hope that their market research is better, but you can certainly imagine, when deciding who to do deals with, the team looking out of the big-city offices thinking "I know, Dunkin! They are everywhere, there's 10 within 2 miles of here!"
Not in Seattle, there's not!
Just got my white gold card.
meh. Not really my style.
I guess I will try the rose gold next.
I feel like I gained 5 lbs just reading about the credits that come with this card. Even so, I'd take any of them over the Adobe and Indeed credits we get on the Biz Plat.
