I can tell you exactly why I don’t like this

Hey,

I can describe a coffee I love in about three sentences. 

That Colombian I keep talking about? Cooled into something that tasted like it kept changing its mind. Sweet up front, then this almost candied finish. Done.

But the coffee I don’t like? I can write you a paragraph. Maybe two. 

And I’ve been thinking about why that is.

I bought a white honey Ethiopian heirloom recently. White honey just means it’s a processing method where they leave a little bit of the fruit on the bean during drying, less than yellow honey, less than red honey. Subtle stuff. Heirloom is the catch-all term for those native Ethiopian varieties that don’t fit neatly into the cataloged variety list. 

On paper, this coffee should’ve been a layup for me. It’s been a while since I’ve had a really good Ethiopian. I was excited.

First brew. Meh.

Second brew. Still meh.

Third brew, fourth brew, different brewer, different grinder, different ratio. Meh, meh, meh, meh.

It wasn’t bad. That’s the thing. I want to be clear about that. It wasn’t a bad coffee. It was just… not talking to me. One-note. Meyer lemon up front, and then nothing. The aftertaste would just die off. Touch the palate, gone.

And I got frustrated. Real frustrated.

So I did what I always do. Brought out the kitchen sink.

Tried it on the AeroPress. That actually helped. Tried it on the ZP6 with my V60. Got a little more clarity. Played with the ratio, 1:18 (which is about 2 tablespoons of grounds per mug if you don’t weigh things), then 1:15 for something more concentrated. Played with water. Played with temperature.

And here’s the part I want to actually talk about.

The drawdown on this coffee was slow. Slow as hell. Probably high elevation, dense bean, the usual story. And normally my instinct when something runs slow is to back off, go coarser, get the brew in under three minutes.

But this coffee made me do the opposite. I went finer. Let it run past three minutes. Stopped being scared of a slow brew. 

And that’s a lesson I’m taking with me forever. 

Not because the coffee suddenly became magic. It didn’t. It was still meh. But the meh-ness forced me to question a habit I didn’t even know I had. I was avoiding slow drawdowns because someone, somewhere, sometime, told me three minutes was the ceiling. And I’d just internalized it.

A coffee that worked would never have made me confront that. 

Here’s where it gets interesting for me. 

I sat with this coffee for weeks. And after all that brewing and all that frustration, I noticed something. I could tell you, in detail, exactly why this coffee doesn’t work for me. 

It’s one-note. Meyer lemon and nothing else. 

The finish is fleeting. The flavor hits, then disappears. I want a coffee that lingers, that has a story past the first sip. 

It doesn’t change as it cools. To me, that’s one of the joys of a good cup. You watch it open up. The hot version and the room-temperature version should feel like two different conversations. This one was the same conversation start to finish. Just… lemon. Then more lemon. Then a slightly more pronounced lemon.

And I started thinking. When was the last time I could articulate a coffee I loved with that much specificity?

Not as often as I’d like to admit.

Because when something works, you just sit there in it. You drink the cup. You smile. You go on with your day. You don’t pick it apart. You don’t ask why.

But the meh coffee? The meh coffee makes you ask why over and over until you actually have an answer. 

That’s how a palate gets built. Not from the home runs. From the at-bats where you struck out and had to figure out why. 

Here’s the other thing I noticed, and this one snuck up on me.

Past me would have been obsessed with this coffee.

When I first got into specialty coffee, this exact cup, bright, lemony, acidic, in your face, was the whole point. That was specialty coffee to me. I wanted to taste fruit. I wanted that pop.

A Meyer lemon Ethiopian heirloom would have been the holy grail.

Now? It bores me.

And I want to be careful here, because I’m not saying I’ve graduated to better taste. That’s not the move. I’m saying my palate has changed, and I didn’t notice it changing in real time. I noticed it because of this coffee. Because the coffee that should’ve hit didn’t hit, and that gap, between what I thought I’d like and what I actually liked, was the data.

Now I want sweetness that develops. I want something that surprises me as it cools. I want layers, not a single flavor on repeat.

That’s a real shift. And the only reason I caught it is because the meh coffee held up a mirror. 

Specialty coffee has a gushing problem. I’m guilty of it too.

Everyone wants to talk about the magic cups. The ones that taste like blueberries and jasmine and stone fruit. We pull out the flavor wheel. We compare notes. We post about it.

But almost nobody can tell you, with the same level of specificity, why a coffee didn’t work for them. The vocabulary just isn’t there. The reps aren’t there. We say "it was fine" or "it was kind of bright" and move on.

And I think that’s where the actual skill lives. In the dislike.

Because the magical coffees? They teach you what you like. Which is something. But the meh coffees teach you who you are. They make you sit there and take inventory. They make you notice things you didn’t know you cared about. They reveal preferences you didn’t know you had.

They also reveal preferences that have changed. Which is huge. Because if you’re still buying coffees based on what 2019 you liked, and you’re not paying attention to what current you actually wants, you’re going to keep being disappointed.

So if you have a coffee right now that’s just… not doing it for you, don’t toss it. Don’t freeze it. Don’t turn it into cold brew (sorry cold brew people, you know I love you).

Stay with it.

Brew it a few different ways. Try a different ratio. Try a different brewer if you have one. Push past the parameters you usually live in. If it runs slow, go finer instead of coarser, just to see. If it runs fast, go coarser. Mess with it.

And then ask yourself the questions I had to ask myself 

What specifically isn’t working? Not "it’s bad." That’s lazy. What about it? Is it the body? Is it that it doesn’t change as it cools? Is it that the acidity feels harsh instead of soft? Is it one-note? Is it muddy?

Get specific. Write it down if you have to.

Because the next time you’re looking at a bag of coffee, trying to decide if it’s for you, that vocabulary, that articulated dislike, is going to be the most useful thing you own. More useful than any flavor wheel. More useful than any roaster’s description.

You’ll know what you don’t want. Which is half the battle.

Here’s the question I actually want you to sit with.

What’s a coffee, or a coffee style, or a brewing approach, that you used to love, that doesn’t hit the same anymore?

Not because it got worse. But because you got different.

Maybe you used to chase Kenyans and now they feel too much. Maybe you used to swear by your AeroPress and now you only reach for it on travel days. Maybe you used to think dark roast was beneath you, and now you’re sneaking into the medium-dark zone and actually liking it.

I want to hear it.

Hit reply and tell me. I read every email.

Oke