Disappointment

I totally agree. It is so so challenging to find beans that: a) meet my taste preferences and b) are properly roasted. I drink decaf, which most roasters do not know how to roast and stock one as an afterthought. I like a full city+ to Vienna roast. Most roast “medium” and get mislead by the exterior roast colour of decaf, which roasts to a darker colour than the actual roast level. This means that their supposed “‘medium” is actually a medium light. Or they are catering to consumer trends, who expect “notes of mango with a hint of strawberry”. It doesn’t matter if the coffee tastes good as long as the notes sound intriguing and the original seems cool. Many burn their coffee beans. Many do not ship freshly roasted beans with a specified roast date. The few I like don’t always roast consistently.

It’s tough enough to get the shot right. It’s a frustrating pain when you have to work through ½ an over priced 375g bag to get passed the flaws and get the coffee tasting decent.

I have a roaster setup and ready to go in the basement but have not had time to roast. And I am a tad nervous about it as my first try smoked out the house and peeved my wife. Will try again.

dutchy101

The process for the extract decaf is still sugarcane process, they have just labelled it as water and ethyl acetate but they are the same process by different names. The process isn’t labelled as sugarcane because the ethyl acetate isn’t derived from 100% sugar cane but from fruit as well

whinmoor85 It wouldn’t surprise me if roasters are using stale greens but I have no way of proving it.

You can sometimes check on the website, for instance the frukt coffee was harvested december 2022 so it is older than I would have expected (not that age of greens is always an indicator of taste).

I do find these multi roaster subscriptions can sometimes be an excuse for roasters to offload coffee that isn’t selling well, it is not always the case and you can get great exclusive lots for a great price but I have seen some coffees appear that have been for sale for a few months already

InfamousTuba I do find these multi roaster subscriptions can sometimes be an excuse for roasters to offload coffee that isn’t selling well, it is not always the case and you can get great exclusive lots for a great price but I have seen some coffees appear that have been for sale for a few months already

This is very true….and logical.

Companies who aggregate deals from different roasters on a monthly basis can be directly compared to those companies who send you a box of wine for a supposedly cheap price and then you get a wine selection each month, or in the old days, book clubs, music clubs etc.. etc..

Coffee is a commodity, it has a traded standardised price (unless direct from farm, which has it’s own issues). So a roaster needs to add on an amount of margin to make it worth their while. They can’t easily reduce that margin and are generally unwilling to do so. Remembering that speciality high quality roasters who are good, generally are not into bulk roasting and can sell everything they roast without problems. It’s like getting a good builder, you normally have to wait, they will not be available immediately!

There are some situations where roasters will discount and sell to the coffee amalgamators (who need to make margin on the beans as well):

• They have some old coffee that needs finishing
• Business is very slow and they need to shift stuff (there may be lots of reasons)
• They are not that good
• They are a bulk roaster, simply churning out omni roasts.
• They are new roasters/startups who see it as free advertising
• The coffee is only available as a special by this route, so they are making normal margin and you are paying more than it’s worth after the aggregators margin is added on. The old RRP false discount thing.
• You are getting a great deal, on excellent quality expensive coffee and a top quality roast. The roaster is taking massive hit and even with the aggregators margin added on, it’s a bargain.

How realistic does the last one sound?

dfk41 asked: “Does anyone else have any thoughts on how we can progress this topic?”

Beyond giving each other a heads-up when we find something good, not really…there are a few widespread issues:

Most coffee is roasted then despatched ASAP to fulfil orders and the customer’s expectation of receiving recently roasted product. Rather than, the coffee being roasted, rested for a couple of days & QC’d.

It would be interesting to know whether roasters QC their coffee after certain periods in the packaging in which it is despatched. I have received coffee in sealed packaging that actually has holes in it and is not airtight.

Roasters, from my discussions with them, don’t seem to be very adept at brewing. I have heard just about every excuse imaginable as to why their coffee doesn’t met expectation, such as:

Your burrs are blunt (how do they know this, it will take the rest of my life to wear out my hand grinder burrs!)

You can’t brew coffee by pour over as it is fraught with issues (how do they expect customers to brew coffee that is filter roasted?) The brew method & detailed recipe as to how they achieved the notes on the bag is absent.

Your grinder makes too many fines (how many do the roaster’s grinder make, how many should I have, how do I check/correct this, why are they particularly interested in fines rather than grind size?)

They sometimes blame water, but can’t tell you what properties to look for (A couple have, like Prodigal & Square Mile for example).

Filter roasts have, for the larger part, got darker compared to 6-7 years ago. Some roasters have stated this to me, but never been clear as to why. How can we taste the, sweet, delicate acidity of, say, pears against the overriding background of burnt wood/toast scrapings (I don’t mean that coffee that is fruity/bright is better, just that if the coffee is roasted more towards generic roast flavours, like Illy or a fairly good supermarket bean/Nespresso pod, how are these stated notes supposed to compete in the cup?