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?