The Coffee Drinker I Am: A Confession About Preferences, Struggles, and the Quest for Mastery

In this episode, I open up about my current relationship with coffee and what drives my brewing choices every single day. I confess that I'm a pour-over person through and through, with a strong preference for medium to dark roasts—especially darker roasts that deliver both sweetness and acidity in balance. I share my struggles with light roasts, my evolving palate that's making even medium roasts taste too acidic, and why I'm gravitating toward African coffees and certain Colombians. I also reveal my frustrations with fruit-forward profiles that lack natural sweetness and explain why clarity isn't always the holy grail it's made out to be.

By listening to this episode, you'll gain insight into how personal preferences shape our coffee experiences and why understanding your own palate matters more than following trends. I also introduce an upcoming challenge that will push me outside my comfort zone—attempting to master any coffee in just two to three trials instead of fifteen. This journey is about appreciation, growth, and questioning whether we're chasing the right things in our cups.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:45 Pour Over Devotion and Brew Method Preferences
• 3:44 Medium to Dark Roast Preference Confessing
• 6:06 The Light Roast Problem My struggles
• 8:16 Origin Preferences and Processing Methods
• 10:16 The Challenge Ahead Introducing
• 12:18 Final Reflections and Invitation Asking listeners

Transcript

[00:00:13] Before I really get started on this crazy challenge as I'm thinking right now, I want to first talk about the coffee drinker that I am right now. That should help me understand the situation I'm going through, the obstacles, the likes and dislikes, and all that.

[00:00:41] So, I'm a pour-over guy. I really am. I love pour-overs. It was almost love at first sight after the French press stuff. But I'm a pour-over guy.

[00:00:58] I like the Hario V60. I like the Origami Dripper. I like anything that's mostly a cone shape. And I'm coming around to flatbed brewers.

[00:01:11] I like a basic, normal filter. I understand fast filters, but I think they're kind of a little overrated. I think coffee tastes the way it tastes. Mainly, I don't know if that's because I'm a roaster. And I've done so many different profiles and after the end of the day, the coffee's personality is what it is. Can you change things in the brew? Of course you can. You really can.

[00:01:47] But at the end of the day, I'm a pour-over type of person. And I get my satisfaction and my kick from that.

[00:01:58] Sometimes I'll play around with the AeroPress. Sometimes I'll do an immersion brew with the Switch or the Bonavita. But for the majority of the time, I'm a pour-over guy. Espresso from time to time.

[00:02:15] Probably once, twice a month. It's kind of interesting. I wonder if a lot of people are like that. Either you're one way or the other as it comes to coffee. That's one thing that I've noticed. Don't really mess around with cold brew as much.

[00:02:33] It's okay. It can be exciting, depending on the coffee, right? Actually, like a lighter roast in a cold brew kind of just brings a little bit more out of it, then something that just kind of mellows out, gets muted with a medium and a dark roast. But whatever.

[00:02:59] I am a medium to dark roast person. But now, as I've been drinking a lot of coffees lately, I think I'm more of a dark roast person. But not just any dark roast person.

[00:03:14] I like style. I like flavor. I like intensity. I like a balance of sweetness and acidity. Believe it or not, that comes alive to me quite a bit in a darker roast. Yes, it can tend to be a little too sweet. It can be a little too muted, depending on the coffee, if I'm using a Brazilian coffee.

[00:03:38] But for the most part, it kind of just works.

[00:03:44] I can manipulate it. I can go high temperature. I can go low temperature. I can play around with acidity a little bit more to bring it out more in a cone-shaped filter.

[00:03:57] It just speaks to me. And I think I'm kind of a unique unicorn in that case as it comes to specialty coffee.

[00:04:10] A lot of people tend to be more so lightly roasted type of folks. I despise it most of the time. I actually had a good cup yesterday. It wasn't bad, probably because my expectations were very low. And I used the Clarity King, as they say, the ZP6.

[00:04:34] It was pretty good. It was actually pretty good. It was a Kenyan light roast.

[00:04:41] I've had it many times. But yeah, lightly roasted coffees. I used to like them. They used to talk to me. I didn't really get so much of a sweetness out of it, and I still don't.

[00:04:57] If people can really get sweetness out of light roast, I want you to explain to me what you mean by that. I want you to tell me or explain to me what you're tasting, because I don't get it. The biggest thing that light roast does for me that I've noticed is that it's just a complexity of acidity.

[00:05:22] So many different things that can happen with acidity. And at first, it's pretty interesting. But then even in that same cup, it could get boring, be one-dimensional, even though it's complex.

[00:05:41] It doesn't do it to me like other people have described it for them. And that's perfectly fine.

[00:05:50] For some odd reason, medium roast to me is starting to taste like lightly roasted coffees. There's no balance. There's no sweetness now. Just acidity.

[00:06:05] Which kind of hurts my feelings if I think about it correctly.

[00:06:10] I don't know why that's the case. Sometimes I can get a little bit of sweetness out of that coffee. But I have been dealing with a lot of fruit-forward coffees that could be more so the problem.

[00:06:24] Probably should go back to the chocolate, nutty type of taste of coffees. See how they do with my palate. See if I can get that balance again. It's not 50/50. It just has to have some type of character, some type of balance, some type of personality, something that tells me that you're not a one-hit wonder.

[00:06:47] You actually have style. You actually have character. You actually have something of substance that I can actually gravitate to. That's kind of crazy, I'm talking about coffee like this, but I'm sure you do too.

[00:07:02] And as we're talking about coffee, I tend to gravitate to an African type of coffee, even a Colombian, if it's not too crazy on the experimental side of processing.

[00:07:18] I do like washed coffees. They are losing their luster a little bit. But again, it could just be my selection of coffees. There have been a lot of fruit-forward coffees. Probably as I'm talking about this just realizes that too much fruit can be a detriment to me.

[00:07:37] It's cool to taste cherry, strawberries from time to time. But if it doesn't have that actual natural sweetness in it, it kind of pisses me off.

[00:07:50] I've been talking about this quite a bit and I don't know why I keep talking about things pissing me off. They are. And I don't know what this challenge is going to do to me.

[00:08:03] I'm going to have to be as objective, welcoming to this whole experiment. Now that I think about it, this is going to push me because I'm one way.

[00:08:14] As I explained, I tend to like things the way I like it. You know, I wouldn't even think about just making a pour-over, not even thinking about it. Have my recipes ready to rock and roll.

[00:08:31] Playing around with Third Wave Water light, medium and dark. It doesn't really matter. It just depends on the situation, depending on what I want to bring out in a coffee.

[00:08:43] I'm going to have to push that notion too. I'm going to have to start making my own water. Sorry, Third Wave. I got to push past all of this. I have to master this thing.

[00:08:56] As I'm thinking and trying to contemplate and trying to see where this is going to go, this is the present state of my coffee.

[00:09:07] State of the union, whatever it may be. My confessions, my things that I like about coffee, the things that really get me going. Something that I think about each and every day. But as interesting as I think about this right now is that I don't like everything in coffee. Just like you, I'm sure you don't like everything in coffee. I've talked about this many times.

[00:09:32] But as it is right now, before I actually get going on this challenge, this is the way I feel about coffee.

[00:09:43] Darkly roasted, African preferred, Colombian if it's interesting, pour-over type of guy.

[00:09:54] I love coffee that has sweetness, it has acidity.

[00:10:00] Sometimes I like coffees that linger a little bit, depending on the grind, dirt profile. I don't mind fines in my coffee. Clarity is pretty cool, but it could be over-exaggerated, especially when it cools down, it kind of loses its luster.

[00:10:20] I don't know. I don't know what this is going to do for me. I don't know how big of a deal me confessing to myself about all of this. I guess the biggest thing here is that I just want to be able to appreciate it all.

[00:10:42] I think that's really what it comes down to. Appreciate everything in coffee. I think that's more so like a homage or a salute to coffee, if that makes any sense.

[00:10:55] Because the way I get down with coffee, it's extremely magical, extremely great to me. But some things about coffee, I'd rather just have tea instead.

[00:11:09] But again, I think by me confessing or telling you or getting you to understand where I'm at as it is right now, the context of all of it, that is going to help you to understand what I hate, what I don't like, what I like a lot, what I do 90/10% of the time.

[00:11:35] So then we can be on the playing field of things getting better, why it's getting better, the things that I'm going to be struggling with, just because I don't like it, at least right now. I wonder if I can get back to liking light roast.

[00:11:52] I don't know. Hopefully I can at least get back to liking medium roast. But like I said, I think the biggest thing, the biggest kicker of me kind of seeing if I can master this is I can make any coffee, not with 15 to 10 different types of trials, two to three.

[00:12:13] That means I have to really understand exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and what kind of flavor profile that I want to get at. I think that's really what it's going to come down to. I know this is kind of crazy just saying this right now. But now that I'm thinking about this, I have to change the approach that I have to coffee, my expectations. The things that I like, don't like, things that I care about, things that I don't, all that stuff all meshed together. But I'm going to have to separate, analyze it, of course enjoy.

[00:12:52] But ask myself, what am I chasing? What am I looking for in this particular cup?

[00:13:00] What am I getting from the smell of the coffee? I know I can get there hopefully soon, about a year.

[00:13:12] I think it's going to be very magical. And again, the biggest kicker of all this is that you're going to be on the journey with me. Hopefully this gives you an insight of yourself for you to ask yourself those questions like, what kind of coffee drinker are you now?

[00:13:33] Do you feel shameful? Do you feel that you're not a part of the cool kids? Or you just like what you like? You don't care about whatever else? And that's what it is.

[00:13:47] Do you want to get better? Do you want to figure it all out? I do.

[00:13:54] And I know that I can't wait to share as much as I can with this whole thing as we go down this rabbit hole of mastering coffee.

[00:14:03] So yeah, it was okay. Everyday Beans, letting you know, at least in the beginning of the year, what kind of coffee drinker I am. Talk to you later. Bye.