A delightful Reddit thread from a former foreign student who studied in America and misses diner coffee.

… I used to study abroad in the states and I miss those coffees from american diner. I know it’s shitty to some people and I’m no connoisseur and I just enjoy what I enjoy. Does anyone know how to make them? I have little to no coffee-making knowledge.

The answers do not disappoint:

… 92% of diner coffee is about the thick walled mug that has been washed 12,000 times in the last 6 years.

The coffee taste and smell is ingrained the cup. It’s like 75yr old cast iron cookware.

Serious answers:

… Use a basic drip coffee maker and a medium roast, pre-ground coffee like Folgers or Maxwell House. Measure 1 to 2 tablespoons of coffee grounds per 6 ounces of water, depending on your strength preference. Place a paper filter in the coffee maker’s basket, add the coffee grounds, and fill the water reservoir with filtered water. Brew the coffee and serve it in a thick-walled ceramic mug, which is very common in these diners

You forgot “let age 1-2 hours in the carafe on the burner before serving.” It’s really the key, even when I do high end coffee in a high end drip brewer it tastes like diner coffee after an hour or so.

It gets that extra burnt kind of flavor that is the hallmark of diner coffee. The old bunn o matic. It takes me back to hunting trips with my grandfather and stopping at the rural diner out in bumble and having diner coffee and bacon and eggs or pancakes the crack of ass in the morning. Lol. Good times.