Where’s your palate at?

MWJB Sadly, this option was taken from me, rather than a conscious decision, or choice.

I understand this as my wife has relatively recently become dairy intolerant and more recently been told to avoid caffeine, hence my posts about a separate decaf grinder .

She has water added and occasionally a latte with almond milk.

I can drink espresso with water added 1:2 usually as a minimum, i just find a straight shot too short for one thing but too intense also.

Im not saying everyone should be the same.

Similarly i like single malt scotch whisky (straight of course) but do not like rum, but ive nothing against run drinkers 🥰

A tot of irish whisky is great in a latte.

JimmyP Looking for better roasted coffee all the time. My palate only has to please me (and those I brew for), I’m not taking any position on what anyone else needs to buy/do/perceive/prefer.

I do, seriously, often wonder if I am doing it all wrong, I do try many brewer & method recommendations, as well as trying coffee when out & about. I’m yet to encounter any evidence that I am doing it all wrong (maybe just occasionally, when exploring different methods/gear).

Always open to enlightenment if you have any suggestions?

JimmyP Question one being?

JimmyP Exactly what I find ideal for my preference in espresso only… A dialed in Silvia Pro, recently did a pump swap so I can push extractions into the 90+ second range if I choose. Grinder is a Baratza Forte AP as I find the ceramics in this dialed in little beast to give superior grind quality/fines that just beat anything else I’ve used to this point. Over the yrs I’ve had various machines and grinders (flat and conical) and so far nothing else has matched this setup for taste and especially texture that I prefer. My preference is what I term insanely restricted extractions as in averaging using 20 grams of coffee depending on fineness/density, ending up with ⅔ of an oz in the demitasse. Restricted to the point of not seeing the 1st drop until upwards of 30 seconds and then push the extraction another 30-45 seconds. Melted honey butter sums up the viscosity and just outstanding taste/smoothness most of the time. Of course not all coffees will excel at this point. I also strongly prefer dry process (natural) over any other process method, mainly Yemen/Brazil offerings and take pretty much every coffee to a full city range.

Having a very capable setup my focus for some time has been on green selection/roast development as I can get exactly what I want in the demitasse by tweaking those variables. That can’t be done if you’re stuck buying roasted coffee regardless of changes made.

We all have varying experience, expectations, etc. and I will honestly say I’m missing out on nothing as I get exactly what I like with my daily fix. Been at this a fair number of years and estimate I’ve consumed upwards of 30K extractions so yeah I definitely know precisely what I want and how to achieve that. I don’t buy into palate improvement, cupping, what have you. Those that think their palate needs ‘training’ needs to figure out what THEY like in taste/aroma, not what others prefer as taste will always be subjective regardless of the spin some wanna put on it. IMBHO cupping is a waste of coffee to begin with unless you’re a commercial roaster with paying customers depending on it. Trying to cup specifically for espresso is a joke as that will never duplicate the changes in coffee/pressure being applied a week or more post roast.

MWJB Who in their right mind follows someone else’s guidelines to begin with? Been in coffee awhile now and have never given SCAA ‘standards’ the least bit of respect and simply won’t. That sort of thing is like an industry claiming ’this is how it SHOULD be and if not then you’re doing it wrong!'… people need to figure things out to work in their favor and ignore idiotic guidelines.

Blimey, I did not expect this thread to get so intense, but thinking about it, I should have realised, like real petrol heads who can argue… sorry ‘discuss’ the minutia of car’s engines and power trains and what is better than what, those who deep dive into coffee and the machinery and technique for producing it, would be those who have, shall we say the most ‘strident’ opinions.

I on the other hand, who as I have said on multiple occasions, have no idea what I am doing or what I can taste, with what I think is the palate of someone with a permanently blocked up nose, look at it like this…

As a kid I hated sprouts, but as an adult I love them. Since going on my major weight loss, part of which was drastically reducing my intake of biscuits, chocolate, desserts (puddings in our house) in fact all sweet stuff, I now find that on the occasion when I do eat those things which I loved (I could never have one or two biccys with my cuppa, but at least half a packet) I can no longer enjoy as much, simply because I now find the sweetness too overpowering. So, given those two examples, over the years has my palate been trained or just changed with age and lifestyle choice? Now the only thing my palate has not changed with over time, and yes I have tried to ‘encourage’ it for want of a better phrase, is with the taste of Fish or any water born creature. I have tried all sorts, from many different places, and still find the smell and taste quite disgusting. I can never see me being able to ‘train’ my palate to like it, if only because I would probably have to go through putting many pieces of fish in my mouth and retching before I got to that stage.

Furthermore, I know what bitter taste is, I know what sweet taste is, I know what sour taste is. But ask me to identify many of the additional flavour descriptions offered by coffee roasters, and you might as well ask me to tell the difference between a real diamond and cubic zirconium. I know what caramel, chocolate, mandarin, apple, berry etc tastes like too, but have I ever been able to get even a hint of those from coffee… Nope, just a nice tasting brew; and I am happy with that, because that way I will hopefully never be disappointed chasing that rainbow and just enjoy looking at it.

dfk41

You folks have been having fun here.

For the record, I enjoy espresso drinks with and without milk, mainly in medium to dark roasts.

I remember a PHD study from a while ago that may have some relevance to the milk debate.
The subject was actually tea and why/whether black tea or tea with milk in it was better for dunking biscuits.
It concluded that milk in tea was better because the fats in milk actually dissolve the starch components of biscuits.
The fats also spread the flavours across the flavour receptors on your tongue, much like petrol spreading across the surface of water.
It also explained why we have milk on cereal rather than fruit juice.

I appreciate that coffee is a different substance to starchy biscuits but I wonder if there is any correlation and I don’t slavishly dismiss a bit of dairy in drinks.
Starbucks style buckets of milk are a different thing.

https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/02/03/97177.htm