Is it ‘bad form’ to warm up half a glass jug of cold coffee?
I’ve discovered that some of my neighbours do this, in a saucepan. It doesn’t taste any worse than some freshly brewed concoction 
Is this one of France’s best kept secrets?
I think we should be told (those of us who don’t know). 
A neighbour makes a jug of coffee in the machine… then reheats, as you say…throughout the day… measuring enough cups (as necessary) into the saucepan. We watch patiently until it gets to just the right temperature… mustn’t let it boil or it would be ruined apparently… 
my mother-in-law always does it, it means there’s always coffee on the farm for people calling in. I had a cup today when I called round, but it tastes like mud! Much prefer a freshly made espresso : I have two machines in the shop and another at home, it’s sooo much nicer than filter coffee imho 
My family has done this all my life. I don’t think it’s a particularly french or british cultural phenomenon, just a mark of people who are keen on value for money (otherwise known as cheapskates). And you absolutely mustn’t let it boil.
I also now do it with tea…and will pop my mug in the microwave (not as bad as it sounds since I drink it black).
As long as it doesn’t boil, no problem - because café bouillu, café foutu.
I am always warming up cups of coffee or tea which go from thermonuclear and undrinkable to stone-cold and undrinkable with apparently no intermediate state…
Thanks for the helpful inputs, all!
My neighbour often comes to watch TV chez moi, as I have Canal+ sport.
I once offered him a cup of tea and he froze and changed colour like a chameleon to match the upholstery. With a little reassurance he unfroze and whispered “café est le boisson de notre région”.
He does drink my coffee, with a ginger snap, but rather nervously, or so it seems to me.
I think I may invest in a patent espresso gadget. Can anyone recommend a good medium-priced one? I’m not too keen on filter coffee and only drink it usually to be sociable.
I quite partial to a mug of instant, now Lidl’s own-brand café soluble intensité 8, an imported English habit from working 0700 early shifts, and 12 hour nights.
I have two of them, but they won’t sit securely on the ancient gas hob and jitter and splutter and glower inscrutably while making a mediocre brew. I think it’s a gadget you have to grow up with, and learn to tame it, or break its will like a wild horse, or something.
The first time I used it I made the mistake of putting it down off the hob on a beautiful antique pine kitchen table…I knew we would never ever be on friendly terms after that.
These things never come with instructions for use, and it was acquired pre-internet in Habitat (say no more…
), just hubris.
If you have one of those, and it wobbles, then you also need one of these
Fill it with water up to the valve, add ground coffee into holder bit don’t overfill, put on stove at reasonably high heat, as soon as it starts to make a bubbly noise turn it off. Leave until noise stops. Drink.
(Oh, and the thingy will probably cost no more than a couple of euros in your local quincaillerie)
We use a filter machine but I tend to switch off the hot plate and warm a cup in the microwave which seems largely indistinguishable from the original.
Leaving coffee sitting on the grounds, however, is a bad idea - it will become bitter quite quickly - so if you use a cafetière and there is any left over decant it into something to keep for rewarming.
Switch off when first made, then microwave as required.
I know someone who always offers “freshly made” or “warmed up” but is able to make a perfect imitation of the sound of a coffee machine!
Like this maybe? 
instant coffee isn’t coffee, it’s dried mud! 
Careful now, we have hippopotamuses in the family…
… which, with water added, turns into “that brown drink” bearing no resembance to or connection with coffee.
When I was given one of those percolaters, as per Véronique’s pic I was amused to see a card strung from the knob extolled the thing as ‘come il Partenone, come una Rolls Royce, il supremo … per fare il caffè’
I was pleased about the reference to a Royce, but it being Italian, why not The Colloseum and a Ferrari?
I have a theory about everything, in case you hadn’t noticed…
So I think the Italians are romantics, and there is a special romance about foreign travel, foreign parts…it’s a canny or corny advertising pitch. To appeal to the Italian market.
As it’s cold, why not go the whole hog - decant it into a suitable container and put it in the fridge. The right coffee/tea, chilled, makes a cool drink every bit as yummy as the hot version.
‘The right tea’ might be a tricky proposition [in France], leaving aside tisanes, which don’t count, in my view. A top pick is ‘The Afternoon Tea’ from Whittard. Not to be confused with their ‘Afternoon Earl Grey’.
I first came across this wonderful scented tea, which does resemble Earl Grey but is Whittard’s own concoction, when Whittard was still a proper tea and coffee merchant with just one premises, opposite Pelham Crescent in Knightsbridge … thus the original name ‘The Pelham Mixture’ which, I was told, “we send to all the embassies”. Back to The Parthanon and Rolls Royces…
The only ‘thoroughbred’ French person I know who likes tea as a preferred beverage only drinks…
I bring Barry’s tea from Ireland - nectar of the gods. We Irish are even more fussy about our tea than the English 
Ok I’m putting my tin hat on now …
No need, Colette. I think the English are giving up on tea. It’s decades since I saw a teapot in use. And a tea strainer? 
Never heard of it! Cup and saucer?? Do me a favour!
The swap-over to branded coffee in paper cups is almost complete, I reckon. Tea is for the very, very old. And beer, too.
