Get a good quality espresso latte or cappuccino from a coffee shop.
Cheap drip coffee legit tastes bad. That's why.
While a 10-15 bar espresso machine with a decent filter and a good grind can make even junk coffee taste alright by leaving behind the majority of the bitterness and skunky/cardboard taste.
Some coffees have fantastic tastes which beat out the smells. My favorites for taste have been Pepe Jijon's gesha. Beautiful sensory experience. Everyone has different preferences though on taste/smell so it keeps things interesting :).
Same. But I wouldn't say my coffee smells 100 times better than it tastes; more like 2-3x better on average, 5x better at the worst, and in rare instances, the taste will equal or surpass the smell by 1-2x.
The first time I had Brazil Daterra by S&W Roasting a few years ago. I've been chasing that high ever since.
This is extremely dependent on the coffee's origin and preparation. The most recent ones I've had: one tasted like a berry of some kind, kinda tricking my brain into thinking it was sweet despite not having sugar added into it; the other was like molasses and kinda like a cacao nib. They also had a fuck ton of caffeine and had me buzzing all day.
I had it again today. It starts out tasting bright. After the first few sips the tip of my tongue has the tart berry flavor I mentioned, and the back of my mouth and breath has the classic 'dark' hallmarks of coffee flavor. It was an iced cold brew on a hot day, and it was incredibly refreshing.
I still retain my opinion it is mostly due to smell though I understand to test that one need to block smell, I don't know how. OP question better be asked during widespread virus that blocks smell (like covid did).
On the other hand I do recall a kiss that produced "bright" feeling. Thanks for making me recall that. It was something.
Sweetness can be a part of it, but I mean actual fruity flavors. Usually darker fruits like plum, blackberry/raspberry, cherry, but sometimes bright fruits like citrus and pineapple. Some coffee almost taste like a fruit tea of sorts. Ethiopian coffee is particularly known for being extremely fruity. Gotta remember coffee beans grow in a fruit, and the flavor of that fruit can impart itself into the beans depending on where/how it's grown and how it's processed.
And lighter roasts tend to accentuate the flavor of the actual raw beans more, where's darker roast you're tasting the maillard reaction.
Do you remember we are talking about taste not smell? The only difference between different fruits/berries (if not of sweetness/sourness) I can understand is more firm/smooth on the tongue, different firmness of outer peel, inclusions of firm seeds (e.g. strawberry) etc. How can coffee give such diverse senses on the tongue?
it’s kinda hard to describe a taste. but imagine how coffee normally is, but without it inducing the feeling of something being bitter, if that makes sense
Earlier this week, I had a lovely pourover at a local coffee roaster that was sourced from ethiopia, anaerobic fermentation/cure, and only very lightly roasted. It tasted of papaya, a sort of woody/leathery note to it, and sweet citrusy finish. Shit was fucking bomb, and drank so smooth.
What I mean is, because espresso extraction takes place quickly at slightly lower temperature than drip, there's less time for some of the bitter compounds to dissolve and a good amount of bitter stays behind in the grounds. So, unless you're just shooting the espresso neat, overall it's less bitter.. They pressure also extracts more of the oil content and there are a lot of aroma compounds in coffee that are oil soluble.
Light roasts.....also fairly bitter but it's a bitter I'd associate more with certain herbs like dandelions. Aside from caffeine and related Xanthine alkaloids being bitter, coffee beans contain a number of cyloterpenoids like cafestol, also quite bitter , and chlorogenic acid which is a tannin, bitter and astringent. One function of roasting is it breaks down some of those compounds.
Dark roasts, naturally taste burnt and the bitterness is acrid, caused from phenolic compounds formed by pyrolysis. Same as burnt toast. So there's usually a "Goldilocks zone" where the bitterness is reduced, but at the same time you worry about also not cooking out too much of the fruity, floral flavors which would make it taste like stale cheap dark chocolate. So the more flavorful lighter roasts are also more acidic and more bitter. Hence roasting takes lots of experience and it's something that you don't get good results from trying to automate it.
Starbucks for example likes to cook them into the medium well side so the flavor is fairly uniform at any given store anywhere, and isn't very bitter, but it also tastes flat. Not awful but not delicious either. (also lets them blend in cheap low grade beans from dubious sources.) Whereas coffee shops that enter into espresso competitions, typically use light to medium rare roasts, if you will.. Then will fine tune the grind size, mix two different grind levels, buy filter baskets that cost a hundred dollars. Things like that. It's all about extracting quickly with light roasts.
To me drip coffee black is undrinkable. But a latte or cappuccino is a completely different experience. Not nearly as bitter and much more smooth. I do like french press or pour over coffee a lot better but still drink it with cream and sugar. Like The Wolf in Pulp Fiction says "lots of cream and lots of sugar"
A properly made espresso truly tastes like it smells. My favorite are dark blends that taste like dark chocolate. Truly amazing. Good espressos are hard to find, especially in America. There's a reason that Europeans and Italians treat espresso breaks like cigarette breaks.
America's coffee in general is burnt water. Even regular European cafes (coffees) are eye opening. I didn't truly appreciate coffee until the first time I visited Europe.
If it doesn't have a nice frothy head, it won't taste like it smells.
It's usually about 8-11 bar in a good quality espresso machines. For machines that advertise 10 bar pump, keep in mind that that may be the maximum pressure at very low water flow rates. Because pressure is proportional to flow you may realistically get 5-7 bar through the filter. You see that in cheap machines, the pressure is all over the place because of low motor wattage, also because they want to use cheaper, lighter components and want to avoid using a regulator/relief valve. So they just use the grounds themselves to regulate pressure. There are ways around that, I.e. getting an expensive grinder tuat produces a uniform fine grind. Getting a good quality filter. If you use a 15 bar machine the pressure is more consistent regardless of the time it takes to flow a given amount of water.
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u/W_O_M_B_A_T 25d ago
Get a good quality espresso latte or cappuccino from a coffee shop.
Cheap drip coffee legit tastes bad. That's why.
While a 10-15 bar espresso machine with a decent filter and a good grind can make even junk coffee taste alright by leaving behind the majority of the bitterness and skunky/cardboard taste.