Why Winey Coffee Doesn't Move Me Anymore
from Everyday Beans Podcast - Mostly About Coffee and Other Stuff Hosted by Oaks, the coffee guy
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I sit with a cup of Kenyan double-washed pea berry coffee and confront a question I have been turning over for weeks: is this coffee not landing, or have I simply changed? I walk through everything I did to make it work. I roasted it light, medium, and dark. Fast roasts, slow roasts, careful attention to development and sugar expression. I brewed it on a flat bed brewer, adjusted temperature, slowed down the drawdown. Nothing clicked the way I expected. What I kept coming back to was this: the coffee presented exactly the same as it did years ago. The tomato-y strawberry up front, a little chocolate through the middle, that grapefruit-like finish on the back end. The same profile. The same story. And therein lies the problem. Familiar is not the same as good. I also question whether the double-washed processing was an R&D advancement or compensation for a quality issue in the preparation. I do not know the answer, and I sit with that honestly. By listening to this episode, you will understand how palate evolution is a real and often quiet process, and why asking yourself why a coffee is not working matters just as much as dialing in your brew variables. I get into what the word "winey" actually means when you stop using it as shorthand, why coffee as agriculture means we cannot always hold it to the standard of our memory, and what my next step is to finally answer whether it is the coffee or me. If you have ever had a coffee that used to move you and now just sits there, this one is for you. Support the show Go deeper than the episode, in the newsletter: https://itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com
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What this episode covers
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I sit with a cup of Kenyan double-washed pea berry coffee and confront a question I have been turning over for weeks: is this coffee not landing, or have I simply changed? I walk through everything I did to make it work. I roasted it light, medium, and dark. Fast roasts, slow roasts, careful attention to development and sugar expression. I brewed it on a flat bed brewer, adjusted temperature, slowed down the drawdown. Nothing clicked the way I expected. What ...
Chapters
- 0:22 Why I Even Picked Up This Pea Berry
- 1:11 Hoarding the Allure: What Kenyan Meant to Me
- 1:53 Roasting Every Way I Know
- 2:59 Dark Roast Surprised Me
- 3:21 Is It Me or the Coffee?
- 4:06 Perhaps I've Moved On
- 5:14 Why Is This Not Working?
- 6:10 When Quality Might Be the Issue
- 7:13 The Winey Taste and What It Really Means
- 8:05 Going Beyond "It's Good"
- 8:45 Second-Guessing My Palate
- 9:21 Getting Better, Getting Further Away
- 10:55 It's Familiar. Barely Special.
- 12:01 Coffee Is Agriculture
- 13:20 Roast Notes on This Cup
- 13:56 Questions for You
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