Mastering Coffee Through Failure

In this episode, I share my ambitious resolution for the year: mastering coffee through intentional failure and relentless experimentation. I open up about what this journey means to me—pushing past comfort zones, questioning the status quo of specialty coffee, and discovering why certain coffees, roast degrees, and brewing methods work the way they do. I talk about my desire to understand everything from light roasts to dark roasts, from Brazilian coffees to exotic processing methods, and from basic Mr. Coffee machines to high-end ZP6 grinders. This isn't just about acquiring knowledge; it's about tearing down what I think I know and starting fresh with curiosity and wonder.

By listening to this episode, you'll gain insight into what it means to pursue coffee mastery as a personal challenge rather than a destination. I discuss the role failure plays in learning, why I want to test recipes for AeroPress and pour-overs, how I plan to use my palate and refractometer to push extraction boundaries, and why I'm inviting you into this journey. You'll learn about my plans to experiment with roast profiles, understand climate change's impact on coffee, question specialty coffee rules, and ultimately help you think differently about your own coffee routine. This is about breaking free from the rinse-and-repeat cycle and truly understanding the logic behind every brewing decision we make.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:04 From Clarity to Mastery
• 1:53 Fear, Excitement, and What Mastery Really Means
• 2:45 Embracing Failure as a Teaching Tool
• 3:37 The Big Questions I Want to Answer
• 5:07 Why Espresso, Equipment, and Roast Degrees Matter
• 6:10 The Missing Piece Despite Better Tools
• 7:07 Pushing Past Basic Coffee Logic
• 8:12 Why I'm Sharing This Journey Publicly
• 9:18 Rediscovering My Love for Coffee
• 10:12 Can Anyone Really Master Coffee?
• 11:12 Testing Equipment, Papers, and Recipes
• 12:12 Breaking the Rinse-and-Repeat Cycle
• 13:15 Your Role in This Journey
• 14:15 Blind Testing and Impossible Challenges
• 14:56 The Invitation: Let's Tackle This Together

Transcript

[0:00:41]
That's what came to me about this year. Mastery.

[0:00:49]
As I kept thinking about it, I was wondering what I mean by mastery.

[0:01:01]
Last year was all about clarity. I think I got some good understanding of it. There's still more room to grow with that.

[0:01:16]
But to blow it up, to really push myself, I thought about mastery and coffee. Like mastering coffee, how insane that sounds. When I kept thinking about it, I kept getting more excited.

[0:01:37]
Then a day or two will go by, the excitement was still there. And then I got scared. I was wondering, what does that really mean? What does mastery and coffee truly mean? Am I setting myself up for failure already? And then I start thinking about failure.

[0:02:00]
See, I am a person who likes to do a lot of different things, try a lot of different things, push myself. When I push myself, a lot of times I fail. And when I fail, I use it as a teaching moment.

[0:02:24]
I used to get pissed about it. It used to rub me the wrong way. But now that I understand what true character is, what it does for me, I revel in it.

[0:02:38]
This year is all about mastering coffee through failure. I still don't know what that means. Probably you can help me define it as we go along this journey together. Because you're going to be a part of this journey.

[0:02:56]
I think the biggest thing is that I'm sure I'll get comments or whatever may come my way. But I want that. The biggest thing is that you're going to hopefully be enjoying this ride together. Because it's not about me. It's about us mastering coffee through me.

[0:03:27]
Tons of different experiments, tons of things that will get me out of my comfort zone. Maybe I should do a competition, barista competition, a brew competition. I don't know.

[0:03:42]
I want to see why certain things work with coffee. I want to know if every coffee can actually be tasty. I want to push past my comfort zone. I want to tear everything up that I do know and simply start all over. Start fresh.

[0:04:04]
Can Brazilian coffees taste more than just nutty and chocolatey? Can we conquer and understand lightly roasted coffees even more? Why do I have a tendency to like a darker roast than a medium and a light roast?

[0:04:25]
Those are some of the things that I want to work on. Are single origins the best way to actually enjoy your coffee? Or is it a mix? Is it something else that I may think about or you may give me an idea to try?

[0:04:42]
I want to push extraction. I want to understand clarity even more. I want to understand it on a basic grinder. I want to understand it on a ZP6. I want to understand in a light medium and dark roast and everything in between.

[0:04:59]
I want to get better in espresso. I know I can. I have the grinder to do it. But the thing is that I just don't care for it. I want to ask myself those questions. I want to ask myself why I like certain things over others. Why certain coffees gel with me more. I want to know all of that.

[0:05:27]
I want to master it all. I want to know why this roast degree works better for this particular coffee. I want to understand all the variety tools. I want to understand all the different funky process things that we do tend to get with coffees from around the world.

[0:05:46]
I want to understand how climate change does really affect the coffees. Are coffees better now that I've gotten third wave water that I've gotten decent repeatable grinders? Yes, it has. But there's something there that's still missing.

[0:06:06]
I want to master it. I really do want to master all of this because why not. I don't want to be on the fence of like this tastes like this just because I don't like it. Why don't I like it.

[0:06:22]
That's really what we're talking about here. I want to push myself to the point where there's no second guessing all the decisions, all the things that I do. And I'm trying to do this in a year.

[0:06:38]
That's bizarre. That's banana. That's crazy. I wonder what that looks like. I truly wonder what that looks like.

[0:06:47]
When I start to come out with different videos and different ideas and different concepts. That's the thing that's going to be my North Star.

[0:07:01]
How can we push past this basic logic, this basic lesson in coffee? What does that really mean?

[0:07:11]
That's really what I'm getting at right now, because if I do that and I'm able to push myself, you're going to be the one who benefits from it. You know why? Because I'm going to be posting it. I'm going to be sharing it. I'm going to be giving it out into the world because that's the best way to do this.

[0:07:35]
It wouldn't be any fun if I just kept this to myself, to just do these experiments, be the geek that I am. It's not fun that way. That's where you play a big role in this.

[0:07:52]
A lot of stuff I do, I do it for me. But I love getting insights. I love getting comments. I love people disagreeing. That's where the real magic comes from.

[0:08:07]
So that's where I'm at with this mastering coffee. Even though it's been a couple of days since I've thought about this crazy concept, this crazy resolution for the year. It sounds bizarre. It doesn't make any sense.

[0:08:29]
I think it's awesome. I think it's the right thing to do. It's going to push me out of my comfort zone, which I love. I'm going to push whatever being it may be.

[0:08:57]
I'm going to push whatever being it may be. I'm going to test different lightly roasted coffees. I'm going to be roasting a lot of stuff that I have, experimenting with new, exotic coffees, even basic ones.

[0:09:15]
I want to try it all. I want to rediscover, rekindle my love for coffee. Because the spark is back. It's been back for a while now, but I want to amplify it even more.

[0:09:32]
Again, I don't know what this means. I don't know what this journey is going to be about. I'll be writing about it. I'll be struggling. I'll have some victories from time to time.

[0:09:48]
I really want to understand why we do what we do. And when we get there, I think that's going to be a glorious thing.

[0:10:01]
It's a journey right now. I don't know where the destination is. I don't know what this path looks like. But I think the biggest thing is announcing it to the world. Think about it. Can anybody really master, conquer, make coffee wave that white flag like uncle?

[0:10:42]
Yeah, you got me. You figured me out. You really did truly figure me out.

[0:10:48]
I want to test and try different things. I want to question the status quo. I want to understand why rules are in place with specialty coffee, why they're different for different people and different organizations.

[0:11:07]
I want to make the best coffee that you can out of Mr. Coffee Machine. I want to have the best recipe, figure out the best recipe for the AeroPress. The ultimate mega recipe for pour overs.

[0:11:23]
I want to understand why different papers do what they do. And if you can actually really taste the difference in it all. That's really where I'm getting at.

[0:11:36]
We're going to keep pushing ourselves there. And the biggest way that I can do that is keep asking myself moving forward.

[0:11:48]
How can I master this lesson, this talk, this idea, this logic, this notion of trying to really get to the bottom of what coffee is, why it is that way.

[0:12:03]
If I can do that, I will probably share it because why not. And then that will give you the understanding of your own coffee, your own way of seeing things, pushing you past your comfort zone.

[0:12:20]
Because a lot of times, we get comfortable. Get a bag of coffee, read the notes on the bag. We try a recipe. After we try a recipe, we say we like it. We say we don't. We either finish the whole bag or we put it to the side and we get the next bag and we rinse and repeat. Sometimes we scratch our heads wondering why we do what we do.

[0:12:51]
A lot of times we don't understand the things that we're trying to do. That ends now.

[0:12:59]
We're going to figure this out together. Maybe I get another gadget or two. But for the most part, it's me, my refractometer and more importantly, my palate, my taste, the way I understand coffee.

[0:13:16]
Blind testing me, doing different things of trying to understand the whole logic of it all. Because that's really what it's all about.

[0:13:25]
That's going to be badass. That's going to be cool. And as we go through this journey together, I want all the ideas and comments from you, too.

[0:13:34]
If you like what I'm doing, great. If you don't, that's cool, too. I don't care. I just want to get to the bottom of actually mastering and understanding coffee.

[0:13:48]
And through failure. And eventually triumph. We're going to get there. We're going to be able to do anything that we want to do with coffee.

[0:14:01]
Anything like a bag comes on in your kitchen. There's no notes on it. It's just color. Some idiot put just colors on it to describe coffee. And now it's your turn to figure it out. And you're going to figure out like that. I want to see if it's even possible to guess the roast degree just by grinding the coffee and brewing the coffee.

[0:14:38]
I thought about that a while back. And I left it because that didn't seem possible. We're going to see if it's really possible. One of many things that I'm thinking about right now.

[0:14:50]
But I'm going to have so many ideas, so many things to think about when I do this. But you're going to be a part of this. I want you to be a part of this. I want you to challenge me. I want you to push me. I want you to trust what we're doing by breaking the thing.

[0:15:10]
I want you to think about the things that you want to do. Why you like it. Things that you've always wondered about coffee. I want to know those. I don't want to know those conversations. I want to know those things. I want to be able to tackle it in a way that is helpful.

[0:15:31]
But kind of gives you that insight of like damn. OK, we're getting somewhere. We're building these steps because this doesn't make sense. Who says that they want to master coffee?

[0:15:43]
Well, I'm saying it now. More than likely, I'm going to fail miserably at this. Coffee is going to beat the crap out of me, but that's fine.

[0:15:53]
I'm up to trying to get up each and every time that I get closer to a problem, get closer to a situation that does make sense, that will make sense and hopefully will make sense to you.

[0:16:07]
So mastering coffee. Through failure, through experiments, through wonder. That's what we're up against. Let me know what you think. And we'll keep going from there. Talk to you later. Bye.