An Average Cup of Joe: French Press Can't Work Miracles with Stale Coffee

Having had a nap for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, I
found myself unable to sleep as the night wore on. For awhile I occupied myself by talking with friends on the telephone and watching television with the sound off and the stereo playing in the background. This is an arrangement that seems most satisfactory to me, and is a practice that I am continually perfecting. Most of the time I will also make sure that I have a cup of tea close at hand. But as the night advanced I decided to change tactics and prepare some coffee, with the help of the French Press that has been covered in detail in this blog the last few months.

Having run out of anything close to fresh coffee, I finally opened a can of Nabob coffee that I purchased a couple of months ago from the grocery store. This coffee was of course completely stale as it had been not only roasted, but ground as well, having released a goodly amount of carbon dioxide and undergoing oxidation. Once roasted, coffee will not last much more than a couple of weeks before it begins to get stale as the coffee is robbed of its natural oils, essentially drying out.
  
How do you know you are drinking stale coffee? According to www.rudybaggs.com, bitterness is the most common characteristic of stale coffee. This is why so many purveyors of coffee served by the cup will opt for weaker coffee rather than strong, while others will offer a variety of other coffee-based beverages in addition to a simple cup of coffee.   

Still, I was not without hope. I was curious as to how the French Press would fare with stale coffee. Could it somehow make the coffee a worthy drinking experience? 

It turned out that the result was only fair. The coffee was undeniably bitter, and needed liberal amounts of milk and sugar to make it palatable. This was no great loss: I usually drink my coffee this way. Nevertheless, I find myself missing freshly-roasted and ground coffee. 

Yes, it may soon be time to make the trip down to Port Credit and pay a visit to Destination Cafe again. The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned...