What Coffee Really Means Beyond Gear

In this episode, I'm getting real about my evolving relationship with coffee and where I'm heading in the new year. I've been reflecting on my coffee journey over the past couple of weeks, especially as I've been exploring clarity in my brews, and I'm realizing that my love for coffee is becoming more specific and intentional. I talk about how I don't care much for really light roasted coffees anymore—they tend to taste all the same to me with their forward acidity and lack of sweetness. I'm gravitating toward medium roasts, but only certain ones that hit that sweet spot of balance and intensity. I also share my honest thoughts about naturals, espresso, cold brew, and the various brewing methods I've been experimenting with.

The bigger revelation I'm sharing is that I want to move beyond just collecting gear and talking about equipment superiority. I want to understand why I like certain coffees and why I don't—truly understanding my palate and what coffee means to me personally. This episode is about challenging myself to go deeper, to understand the "why" behind my preferences, and to explore coffee as a journey of self-discovery rather than just gear accumulation. If you're looking to understand your own coffee preferences better and move beyond the endless gear chase, this episode will give you perspective on how to approach coffee with more intention and curiosity.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:16 Moving Away from Light Roasts
• 2:12 Finding My Sweet Spot with Medium Roasts
• 2:58 My Complicated Relationship with Naturals
• 4:16 Espresso, Cold Brew, and What I Actually Brew
• 5:49 Challenging Myself to Grow This Year
• 6:03 Understanding Why I Like What I Like
• 7:07 The Gear I Already Have is Enough
• 8:42 Putting Myself Back in the Driver's Seat
• 10:09 Why Espresso is Too Intense (But I Still Like It)
• 11:20 A Trippy Journey: Understanding Coffee Beyond Good or Bad
• 12:06 The Love Story to Coffee Through Your Palate

Transcript

[00:00:00]
I've been thinking about my coffee journey for the past couple of weeks. As I'm figuring out this whole clarity thing, I'm really liking it. It's different. It's trippy. It's one of those things that you never know what it really is until you actually get there. And now that I am embarking on a new year, as you probably are too, it's like what else can I do with coffee? What other things can I do to really push my understanding, my love, and my curiosity about coffee?

[00:01:05]
Throughout the year, after a while, I'll get bored of it. But one thing that I have realized as I have been talking about coffees I do like, coffees I don't like, is that I don't care so much about really light roasted coffees. There's no excitement in there for me. They tend to start tasting all the same with acidity forward, lack of sweetness in the coffees.

[00:01:45]
And then I thought my jam would be more like a medium roast. And it kind of really is. It does get interesting. You have that balance of the two, of the acidity and sweetness and different variations, right? But I guess what I'm saying here now is that only certain medium roasts do it for me now.

[00:02:12]
I don't know if it's because the grinder selections or the way I brew my coffee is bringing different things out of the coffee that I'm not necessarily used to. I think I still don't care for naturals.

[00:02:56]
The ones that have those interesting fruit flavor notes on the bag. But then when you go a little bit darker, a little bit more developed, you'll get that sweetness and then the intensity of that fruit flavor taste. I look for that quite a bit now. And as I've talked about before, it's one of those things where I'm like, wow, this is coffee. This makes me sing. This makes me happy. This makes me get out of bed and try to figure out and just sit there and just drink it for what it is.

[00:03:14]
But as I get older and as I see things for what they are, I'm starting to realize that my love for coffee is different. It's limited, it seems. I still don't care about cold brew. I don't think I ever will get down with that, probably in the fruity coffee, that's probably the way I get down with it. Espresso is pretty cool, but truthfully, at the time of the recording of this video, I haven't done espresso in about two months, probably even closer to three, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I wish I would get more into the Moka Master a little bit, playing around with the fast quick drip, as they say, or even the Moka pot.

[00:04:35]
I guess what I'm saying here is that there's a lot of things that I tend to say that I like, tend to say that I agree with and want to do more of, of just self-being, of who I am, and probably who you are, just don't do it, right? We're just not there. We tend to stay in our bubble, stay in our comfort zone, and to really try to understand the coffees that we like. That's where we're at. Sometimes we know exactly why we like the coffee. Sometimes we don't.

[00:05:16]
But I guess what I'm saying here is that I think this year coming, I'm going to be challenging myself, pushing myself, as I always do, into a growth pattern that is amazing, that's just something that I can really get down with. I guess what I mean by that is that I want to understand why I like something and why I don't.

[00:06:00]
I really want to understand if it's this particular coffee, this roast degree, whatever it may be. I don't want to really get so concentrated into this whole gear thing because at the end of the day, the April Brewer is slightly different than a Hario V60 or Origami dripper. There are variations in the taste and flavors that you get out of these devices, but for the most part, what that coffee is, is what that coffee is.

[00:06:40]
I want to understand why that coffee works, why I like it, why I don't like it, beyond just saying it's good. I believe I have enough tools in order to get there. Truthfully, I think all you would need really is two grinders: a clarity grinder like the ZP6 and a Kin grinder. I have one, two, three, four, five, whatever grinders. I have enough tools. I have enough coffee filters, different variations, fast, slow, low.

[00:07:03]
I want to go beyond just getting this particular gear and telling you why it's superior than others. I will probably still do that from time to time, but right now it's about me actually understanding my palate, my way of loving coffee, why I like it, why I don't like it. This is going to be more like a diary to coffee for me. I still want to push extraction. I still want to put more things in the toolbox. We're still going to be doing that.

[00:08:41]
But I guess what I'm saying now is that I want to understand why I like something in coffee and why I don't, and how I can probably more mitigate those situations as much as I can. Because it's interesting as I drink coffee and explore with coffee and get to the nitty gritty of it, beyond just it being good or bad or I just don't like it. I want to understand that with my palate. My palate is very unique to me, as your palate is unique to you.

[00:09:25]
So again, I don't know where this journey is going to go. I'm looking forward to it. Like I said, I'm still going to be on this whole clarity thing because I barely think I've gotten there to the extent of me getting gear and experiencing some coffees already like that. But I think it's beyond just this bag, these notes, this water chemistry, and this grinder. It's more about me putting myself back into the driver's seat, into me understanding the love story that I have for coffee.

[00:09:39]
I don't know again where that's going to go. I don't know if I will have a better fondness of espresso. I do like espresso, but it's too intense, right? But why is it intense? Why is it something that I like sometimes but not all the time? Why is it that whenever I have a macchiato, it sings to me? I mean, it's something that I gravitate to. Why not a cappuccino? Is it too much milk? I want to explore those things.

[00:10:05]
I want to get into the nitty gritty of me truly trying to understand what coffee is, because at the end of the day, that's all we really have going for us: to truly understand coffee, not gear, how that coffee translates into our palates, into our minds, into the way that we do things. Because I think once we do that, we will know exactly what good is to us. We will understand that this particular natural process coffee is great to us. And what is great really mean? Because I say good, you say bad, and vice versa. It doesn't matter.

[00:11:18]
So this is going to be a trippy type of journey. I don't know how long it's going to go for, but I think it's going to be a fun ride. If that's something that you want to do, let me know. Comment, say whatever. Say that you've been on this journey for a while. Tell me if you understand exactly all the coffees that you do like. Do you like that apple crisp acidity at the end? Do you mind coffees that don't have any sweetness?

[00:11:57]
How are you manipulating the bean in order to excite your taste buds? Are you pushing beyond your comfort zone? What are you really doing in order for you to have fun with coffee, enjoy coffee, tell yourself why you don't like certain things and the reasons why? Yes, this is a love story to coffee, but at the end of the day, it's about the palate, the mind, and how that really does make sense in the whole grand scheme of things, right? Beyond good, beyond great, what does that mean to us? What does that mean to you honestly? What does that mean to me?

[00:12:47]
How can I get better at enjoying coffees, even coffees I don't care about? That's going to be a lot of fun. So this is Okia Everyday Beans, challenging myself about what is coffee truly to me and what it is to you. I'll talk to you later. Bye.