Your version of a perfect cup of...

How do you make your perfect cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?

I don't care for tea at all, but coffee and hot coco are different.

I like my coffee either hot or cold with enough cream in it to make it that nice light brown...People know that I am not to be messed with or spoken to until I have had a few sips of my coffee... Sometimes I do enjoy a good hot or cold moca.

I take steaming hot water and mix it with the hot chocolate mix, add either cream or milk to cool it ever so slightly, and then add some whip cream on top. Marshmallows are ok, but they get sticky whereas whip cream melts in nicely.

My perfect earl grey, reserved for really bad mornings (not today) or gathering my thoughts:
1 soup bowl or cereal bowl;
2 rounded teaspoons of loose earl grey tea (as good quality as you can afford - the cheapest seldom has enough bergamot).
Add boiling water, then cover the bowl with whichever saucer or plate will fit the top and trap the steam.
Wait 10 minutes, then add milk.
Drink slowly, inhaling the steam as you do so, or you'll get a mouthful of tealeaves.

For extra bad days, add a warm pain au chocolat, for dunking.

So you just let the tea float freely? Sometimes I get my huge mug out for my coffee if I have had a ruff week or are super tired.

I am not a coffee lover but sometimes I drink a dessert coffee. Keurig flavored coffee, add 2 heaping teaspoons of coffeemate vanilla creamer and 1 1/2 teaspoons of bakers sugar. If it still tastes like coffee and adding more creamer doesn't change it, I give it to my husband or dump it and choose another flavor. Green mountain hazelnut is usually very mild.

Tea is my favorite drink! I like it iced better than hot but when I make it I never boil the water, that damages the leaves. With a good loose leaf you can dry it out and use it for a other cup of tea, but not if the flavor has been boiled out of it. I like mighty leaf or palais de tea if I want a hot cup with honey. Lipton of course for every day tea. It can get bitter quickly so even with Lipton I never boil water. I add sugar, ice cubes and enjoy.

I have visions of the perfect cup of cocoa but have yet to find a mix I like. I know heating milk, whipping cream, adding a good bar of chocolate, stirring until melted and smooth, then add sugar to sweeten is a great cup of cocoa but is time consuming (vanilla extract can be added too). I have tried dutch processed, ghiradelli, startbucks, basically anything new at the store but they all taste blah. For now I just keep cocoa with marshmallows in my fantasies.

Loose tea leaves please. Ban the bags. They so hold the flavour.
It's loose tea leaves - English Breakfast blend will do just fine any time of day - scooped into a warmed pot which has one of those inbuilt tea leaf strainer features. The water must be still actually boiling in the kettle as you pour it. Leave for a minute, then lift and jiggle the strainer feature and leave for another two minutes, longer if it's large-cut leaves.

Pour a drop of milk into the mugs or tea cups. Pour the tea in respectful silence. Enjoy the rich colour and the rising steam. Converse a while, and then ... oo that first sip ...

MysticalSwan said:

So you just let the tea float freely? <snip>

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Once the cold milk's added, the leaves mostly swish around at the bottom of the bowl, unless you move it too quickly. Just this once, inhaling the fragrance and having to slow down matters.

I put my tea in a little open-weave bag to hold the leaves and flower buds. I add the water to it to "almost boiling" - a little cooler for white teas so the leaves don't scald. sweetener or milk will depend on the tea.

Hot cocoa - cocoa powder, a little sugar, milk, vanilla (sometimes)
and if it's for the boys, I'll add a whipped cream top with either sprinkles or a biscuit.. or both

Over the last several years I experimented with my coffee making. First, it was a French press, which is good but occasionally left some grounds in the cup. Not good. Next came a Chemex pot, which was also excellent. In both cases, though, the one variable that was hard to control was the temperature of the water. Enter the Technivorm Moccamaster. It heats the water to the perfect temperature (190 F, as I recall) in just a few minutes (less than 5 for a full pot to brew). I use 30 grams of ground coffee - these days it's the simple 8 O'Clock brand - per 16 ounces of water and the result is blissfully fragrant and tasty coffee.

Edited to correct my math. Apparently one shouldn't post complicated assembly instructions before the first cup of coffee.

I'm caffeine free so it's herbal all the way.

My favourite is a rooibos and vanilla blend, teabag left in mug then mug filled up several times a day. Such a heathen.

I drink a lot of herbal chai teas as well, but looseleaf with a strainer, and I mix my own blends depending on how I feel. There's a teapot at work with strainer included which I use for that.

Hot chocolate is only ever dark chocolate shavings melted with warmed oat milk. I know each cup is probably taking a month off my life but god, they are good.

In my opinion... Chocolate should never be second best quality.

What brands of chocolate do you like best?

Tea for me. .
too many to choose from, depending on my mood. a good Chia in the early morning. A nice cup of "sweet nothings" in the evening.

KissyTitties said:

What brands of chocolate do you like best?

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As a good cheap go to one, Hersey's dark chocolate. But really anything. Not a huge fan of chocolate with artificial fruity stuff, but covered fruit are good. I never say no to chocolate and pnut butter!

Penzey's Spices makes a nice drinking chocolate

a good cup of hot chocolate:
take your favorite chocolate candy bar, melt it add milk, stir.... yummy

MysticalSwan said:

How do you make your perfect cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?

I don't care for tea at all, but coffee and hot coco are different.

I like my coffee either hot or cold with enough cream in it to make it that nice light brown...People know that I am not to be messed with or spoken to until I have had a few sips of my coffee... Sometimes I do enjoy a good hot or cold moca.

I take steaming hot water and mix it with the hot chocolate mix, add either cream or milk to cool it ever so slightly, and then add some whip cream on top. Marshmallows are ok, but they get sticky whereas whip cream melts in nicely.

Click to expand...

Coffee is my favorite; it has been since I was knee high to a grasshopper. My papa always drank his coffee creamy and sweet like surup. Except when he spiked it with Crown Royal. I can remember sitting on his lap drinking coffee as a kid, at all hours of the day or night.
I prefer a dark roasted coffee. Brewed strong. With enough sweetener to mask the bitterness a little. And enough cream to lighten it to a dark tan color.

For hot chocolate

I use a dark chocolate mix, with scolding hot milk. To cool it off, add Baileys.

Not one favorite of anything -- I go for variety.

The coffee I make at home is fine-ground whatever (but only 1/3 caffeinated) brewed in a little Krups espresso machine with varying amounts of water depending on what else I may add: non-dairy milk, cocoa, alcohol, etc. Sometimes sweetened, sometimes not, and sometimes flavored coffee. I make it as full decaf sometimes; I call it depresso.

Coffee I make while traveling is medium-ground whatever (same caffeine ratios) in a small French press. That Krups isn't really portable. Oh yeah, never instant coffee.

Brewed tea may be black or green or white or blended or flavored, bagged or loose, jbut NEVER powdered / instant. It may be chai or cha, herbal or decaf or straight, salted (if Genmai-Cha) or sweetened, maybe with jelly and/or milk added. It may be cheap or costly. I find ordinary 'perfect' tea boring.

My hot chocolate is baking cocoa, sweetener (sugar or honey but usually non-sugar) and hot water. I may add vanilla and/or orange extract, or chili con limón, or cinnamon, maybe non-dairy milk, and/or alcohol: rum, brandy, tequila, etc.

I make a hot ginger 'tea' with powdered ginger sweetened as above. I may add vanilla and/or lemon extract and/or non-dairy milk. This brew does NOT work with alcohol.

I may add flavor extracts or spices to almost any of the sweeter drinks. Orange, lemon, vanilla, yes, or hazelnut, anise, mint, allspice, whatever. Nut milks or whipped cream are good as emulsifiers, smoothing the brew a bit.

Those are my current brews. Selah!

I love Earl Gray and Lady Gray, also Chai, herbals and flavoured teas. The only tea I like with milk is Chai. All others I can't stand having milk in them.

My coffees, I prefer light or medium roasts, flavoured or unflavoured, with milk and a touch of sugar or stevia.


And hot chocolate. mmmm. I just don't like them too sweet.

Another great mix is hot chocolate with coffee (half and half) along with a dash of cinnamon. and milk. yummy!

I have a Breville tea maker, and I use unflavored loose black tea that I purchase online.

And I usually like to drink it iced. I know. Sacrilege. I drink a lot of it in the morning.

Been drinking a lot of tea with honey to help sooth my sore throat.

What are everyone's opinions on which type of alcohol goes in which drink?

Tea - white with one.
Coffee - strong, white, sugar.
Hot chocolate - don't really drink the stuff.

(sugar if necessary, none if i'm pretending to be healthy)
I'm really not overly fussy.
Warm drinks tend to be a work thing for me. If I'm getting 5 minutes to sit and have a cuppa, it's something of a luxury - so long as it's warm and wet I'll drink it.

Coffee - medium roast, hot and black
Tea- usually English Breakfast or Chai. Loose leaf. In the teapot then pour boiling water over. Steeped or about 4 mintues and then add to a cup with milk and a dash of sugar.

This might sound weird, but I kinda wish I had some french vanilla ice cream to put in my coffee...