Coffee: halfway to dessert. Heavy on the sugar, with either a generous sploosh of creamer or a LOT of milk. I buy pretty strong coffee though so it's still got a strong coffee flavor, I just don't like getting punched in the face with bitterness. (Also I had a huge gut flora die-off as a kid and I need to ingest some dairy every day to prevent completely losing my ability to digest it, but I've lost my taste for it, so sticking it in my coffee is my compromise. The coffee I drink now I can drink black if I take it slow, I just prefer not to because where would I get my milk intake then?) I've only had eel once, grilled, so can't weigh in on that.
To everyone who makes a nice cuppa joe/tea/other hot drink and forgets it til it's room temp and still drinks it: What The Fuck To clarify: I am absolutely not talking about iced versions of things, nor besmearching people who let things cool a bit, I'm talking like. Coffee you found hours old and still slammed down no problem??? How
Executive dysfunction mostly. I’m forgetful enough that I often leave the coffee for quite a while, then I’ll be completely unable to replace it or heat it up again. It’s cold coffee or nothing. It doesn’t taste any worse when it’s room temperature, and it’s way better than scalding.
Ah! Interesting to know! I honestly can taste a difference, and it makes me gag, but I'm thinking now maybe it's psychological?
Taste is minor compared to the need to Import Caffeine Into My Goddamn Body. Also I'm allowed one cup of coffee a day so if I forget half of one I can't just make another cup and microwaving it makes it taste weirder than drinking it as is.
It does taste a little different, just not worse in my opinion. Food waste is definitely a part of it too. And getting caffeine into body, preferably with less sugar than soda. I also think the microwave makes it taste weird somehow.
Hm... Now that I'm thinking about it in depth, it might also for me have to do with the city water? It's pretty gross and people occasionally get sick from it, which makes room temp stuff taste drastically different imo
I drink the lukewarm coffee or tea because it's still caffeine and I can't bear wasting it. So I just take the cup and pound it back as fast as I can. Just grin and bear it because the option otherwise is throw it out. They do definitely have a different taste profile warm, lukewarm, or cold. I am not really sure why that is so but they do.
On this note I learned that I don't actually hate how sake tastes. I just need it to be warmed and I'm generally pretty fine with the taste. You need to get it warmed to the right temperature though. Not warm enough and it still tastes funky. (to properly warm it you stick it into another container, like the little decanter thingy, and you then immerse that into boiling water for 2-3 minutes. take it out and it's ready to serve.)
oh yeah 100% I don't use my town's water for anything unless it's been through a filter first, water up here's grody choc I prefer to make with milk anyway, but I don't even drink tea or coffee so it's less relevant in this case
I'll down any drinks gone cold, because microwaved hot drinks are vile. I prefer very hot drinks, because iron gullet, but also exdys. .... Occasionally I will stick it in the fridge to chill, though, and then have cold/iced drink.
I'll drink hours old black coffee, but if it has cream and sugar in it, I can't down it like that. Black coffee tends to remain taste neutral in my experience though.
Okay, I have to partially take back the assertion that the microwave makes yuck, because I remembered the beverage button. There is a beverage button on our microwave, and it is the microwave setting of the gods. It heats cold or room temperature beverages to the perfect temperature, where it gives you the sensation that it's hotter than it is? It's hot-beverage satisfying, but it's absolutely not gonna hurt your tongue at all. It's exactly the magic temperature that you might like your hot drink to reach before you drink it. Maybe it's because the microwave cycle takes an unusually long time, lower power level for longer, and thus tends to warm the container as well as the drink. Whatever the reason, my brain finds it very difficult to believe that a beverage could possibly have reached that specific temperature by warming up rather than by cooling down. And again maybe because of the lower power setting, it doesn't taste weird like microwaved drinks usually do. I think I've been assured that there is no reason a microwave ought to make a beverage taste any different upon heating, and maybe it's all in my head, but I can't shake the certainty that it does unless it's the beverage button. I probably wouldn't use it on tea. It's fine with coffee, but I still don't usually use it because it takes too long and too many extra steps for execdys. I do use it to make hot chocolate, cider, and warm milk with honey as a placebo-calm comfort drink.
I've definitely moved to using lower power settings on the microwave, bc it heats up food more evenly and saves me from the splattering outside/solid cold middle that full power gets you. although I'll zap warm-ish tea for 15 or 20 secs on full just to perk it up a bit. if I've forgotten a half cup for a while I will just drink it cold instead of wasting it (unless it's a full day-length old, bc I don't really trust milk beverages by that point)
