Everyday Beans Podcast - Mostly About Coffee and Other Stuff

Breaking Free from Coffee Perfectionism

• Oaks, the coffee guy • Season 1 • Episode 167

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In this introspective episode, I dive into the often overlooked struggles of being a coffee professional while maintaining honest perspectives. I share my journey of being overly critical of my own coffee creations, only to discover that others genuinely enjoy what I've made. This disconnect between personal standards and external reception has taught me valuable lessons about subjectivity in taste and the importance of accepting different opinions.

I also explore my recent experiments with light roast coffees and my honest assessment that they often lack the complexity and depth I personally enjoy. Through candid reflections about how we sometimes romanticize coffee, I connect this to larger life truths about accepting when things don't meet our expectations. Listeners will gain insight into the authentic mindset of a coffee professional and learn why it's okay to have preferences that go against popular trends in the coffee world.

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com

For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

[00:00] We love, we love, we love right now. Today is Wednesday, February 26, 2025. We're doing pretty good right now.

[00:13] Yeah, so I usually have a topic. I usually have something to talk about, especially when it comes to coffee, because this is more so a coffee podcast. But today, as I was thinking about a topic, I was like, just roll with it. It's been a while since you just rolled with it. So that's what we're going to do. We are going to be talking about coffee and we're gonna go from there. But I hope that you're doing really well. I'm doing pretty well. Things are moving and grooving and doing this thing.

[00:47] Something hit me the other day. I may be really too critical for my coffee. But it's one of those things to where when you're really close to the action, you get very, very objective. You're hard on yourself. You think that everything is worse or bad than the real true outcome.

[01:12] And it's been interesting to drink your coffee, analyze it, say it sucks. And then once you do that, you give it out to people or they buy it. They say it's really good.

[01:26] And it's one of those things that I come to realize is that I don't need to be hard on myself. I mean, I need to be critical, but it's one of those things to where other people think differently. They taste differently. They see things for whatever reason, their perspective.

[01:45] And I need to understand as I put myself out there more and more and more, I'm going to get opinions that are not mine. Some are good, some are bad and everything. And it's one of those things to where I need to realize is that everything needs to get better, but also realizes that we have so many people in the world, so many different opinions. And it's OK for us to not agree.

[02:12] So, speaking of opinions and things people notice when you put yourself out there on the Internet in a world where people take in your information or not. You're going to get people coming to you for whatever reason, telling you how they feel about certain things.

[02:28] Recently, I've gotten this many times. I've actually talked about this particular thing. But again, it was the other day and kind of made me think a little bit more about the situation. I think in one of my videos I was doing and they mentioned how my equipment is dirty.

[02:45] I go through that quite a bit, meaning that I'll clean it from time to time. But for the most part, if it doesn't really bother me, it doesn't really bother me. But it's cool to kind of get that feedback from others, even when I guess you didn't call for it, but you don't get to choose what people call out. Not all of it is going to be positive. Not all of it is going to be singing your praises. Sometimes you can just be like, dude, your stuff is dirty. You clean it, which is true.

[03:16] And I do need to clean it. And I'll be cleaning it later today. But it's cool. And I didn't know if I was going to have this type of thick skin as people would say for this whole putting yourself out there, this YouTube, this podcast, all of this stuff is different and new to me.

[03:36] And I know years ago, as I was thinking about doing something like this, I told myself that I don't have the skin for this. This is ridiculous. This is not easy. This is hard. And I actually do. And I like the fact that people just say, what they want to.

[03:55] You just take it all in. And see if you can understand more about others, about yourself and about the situation at hand. So, interesting stuff, right? That, you know, you get called out a lot more compared to the times that you don't even say anything because nobody knows what you're doing.

[04:16] So, to you and to all the other people or even the people who are thinking that, yeah, my stuff is dirty. I'll clean it and make a video about it of how to clean gear.

[04:30] So one of the other things that I've been working on the past couple of days, weeks right now is the light roast saga. I've been on and off again for the past couple of weeks, but now I'm in full swing. I roasted the coffees and now I'm actually drinking them.

[04:46] And it's been a bear. It's been a struggle to really come back to something that you really loved and realized is that palates change. You see things more clearly.

[05:00] And I still look forward to drinking light roasted coffees. I think they still have this one dimensional type of situation. Some present it a little bit better than others. But it's acidity. It's mostly acidity. There's not that much sweetness on the coffees. Sometimes you can get a little hint of it, but they're not interesting. They're not interesting to me.

[05:24] They don't really talk to me. They are kind of foreign people that I don't know their language and they're trying to explain to me how great they are. And I'm just being as real and objective as I can and calling them out on their issues.

[05:41] And it's interesting just kind of saying all of that when it comes to this whole coffee thing, because coffee is really objective. It really is. It's one of those things to where I have an opinion. You have an opinion just like the whole thing that we've been talking about constructive criticism, things people like or that don't like.

[06:01] But in this case, it's just coffee can do weird things to you. It can trick you. It can trick you in a way to where you think that it's amazing all the time. That it's magical, that it talks to you every single day, that it gives you this kind of sense of hope of a wonder and happiness and all that stuff. And a lot of times we romanticize coffee to an extent, right?

[06:24] We have this way of saying that this is our thing. This is what we love about coffee. This is the thing that we know that other people will love about coffee. But then when we're just presented with a cup of coffee, we drink it and we keep drinking it and we're just trying to find the magic and we can't find it.

[06:45] I remember - here's another quick story, it's a little personal, but it's okay. You'll understand what I'm talking about. My dad passed away six years ago. And throughout that whole year, we had a really good time. We talked all the time. We didn't even know it was going to happen until towards the end. A couple of months before that, right? But we were talking all the time. We had our time and everything.

[07:10] And he lived by himself and he had a dog. And I would go to his house all the time, a couple of times a week. I had my family. He was just with his dog. And I can see it on his face. He was just bored.

[07:25] And there's been many times where I've told him, I was like, "Dad, why don't you get some hobbies? Why don't you do something? Why don't you explore? I know you said you used to paint when you were a kid and all that stuff. Why don't you do that anymore?"

[07:40] And he just sat there and he was like, "It's boring. All this right here is boring." Sitting there watching daytime TV and all that stuff and by moving around, trying to get some tea or coffee or something to eat and kind of doing the same thing over and over again.

[07:58] And he was just there and he was just like, "This sucks. Life sucks." And again, the reason why I bring that up is because it was very pure. It was very honest. It was very raw. And when you think about it, life does suck.

[08:13] If you sit there long enough, you realize that, "Hmm, this is boring. Water does suck to drink. I don't want to walk 12,000 steps today. All this stuff on TV sucks." And yes, at times when you do that, you get very pessimistic and you wonder about what are the good things about life.

[08:34] They are there. But when we're really, truly honest with ourselves when it comes to coffee, sometimes it does suck. Sometimes it sucks more than we give it credit to. And that's light roast for me.

[08:48] Certain devices are better than others. I believe AeroPress makes it a little bit more subtle tasting, not so offensive, not exciting. Again, light roast doesn't really excite me, at least not yet. I think I dialed it in pretty well in this case, but I think this is going to be the best that it can be. I think it's one of those things to wear. I think the best application for espresso...

[09:12] I mean, for espresso. I gave the answer away. For light roast is espresso. I am understanding that I can push the coffees even more so and not create that bitterness.

[09:25] I just made coffee yesterday at a 24% extraction. No bitterness. High acidity. It just kept on coming. A little roundness. Just a hint of sweetness. But that was it. I made about five or six cups of coffee. I wasn't wild. I can't wait to get back to my medium roast and my dark roast coffees.

[09:49] But then again, I'm romanticizing it to an extent, right? Because not every coffee I drink hits it out the park for me for whatever reason. The day, the ratio, the way I feel can affect the way that I actually drink and enjoy that coffee.

[10:06] So I guess the biggest thing that I'm really trying to say here more than anything is that we romanticize a lot of things. And in this case, especially if we like it, it's coffee. And at times, sometimes we just got to be real and honest with ourselves and be like, "Hey, it sucks. It sucks. If it tastes like tomatoes, oh, it tastes like tea. Forget that."

[10:30] And kind of get to the place to where you want to be all the time. Because not everything about something you're going to enjoy. Like I've talked about this many times. Cold brew doesn't do it for me. Ice coffee doesn't do it for me.

[10:45] We're humans. We're adults. We're trying to understand situations for what it is. And that's perfectly fine. So I don't know really what else to say, but it's been cool to kind of just freestyle and give you a little bit more of what we're talking about, why we're talking about it.

[11:03] And it could be more topics like this that we're just talking and trying to understand ourselves better because at the end of the day, it kind of gets back and hits us right back in the face to where we're looking at the mirror at ourselves. We can get opinions from others. We can get feedback from others. We can be extremely critical, but as long as we understand what we're trying to do in a grand scheme of things and realize that we're going to either change or not change ourselves.

[11:33] So that makes any sense. Sometimes I make sense. Sometimes I don't. But yeah, this one's a little different. This one's kind of all over the place, which is perfectly fine. But we're just talking and I hope that you got something out of this and we're going to keep it going.

[11:50] I think next time I'll have something to truly really talk about. But I don't want to keep talking about light roast right now. I've been beating the dead horse on that. It's more so my thing and my struggle. And then once I'm ready, I'll be ready to give you it in a place in a way to where it'll be helpful to you.

[12:15] So this is me, Oke at Everyday Beans signing off. I'll talk to you later. Bye.