The Coffees I Lost to Water Chemistry

In this episode, I open up about one of the most humbling realizations in my coffee journey: the coffees I've lost along the way. I'm talking about those bags where I knew something special was hiding, but I just couldn't crack the code to unlock it. The culprit? Water chemistry—and more broadly, ignorance about the variables that truly matter in brewing. I've been experimenting intensively with water over the past week, using a TDS meter and testing different mineral profiles, and I'm blown away by how simple tweaks can completely transform what you taste in your cup. It's made me rethink every coffee I dismissed as "not working" when the truth was that I simply didn't have the right knowledge to bring out its potential.

What you'll learn by listening to this episode: I share why understanding water chemistry might be the single most impactful variable you can control in coffee brewing—potentially more important than your grinder or brewer. You'll hear about my journey from relying on bottled water solutions to taking control of my brewing water, and how this knowledge gap affected my relationship with light roast coffees. I'll encourage you to push past the things that seem hard or mysterious, to question recipes and advice (even mine), and to understand the context behind what you're doing. Most importantly, you'll walk away understanding that we don't need to know everything about coffee—we just need to know the right things.

Transcript

[00:00:00] The only thing I can think about right now as I go through this journey of mastering coffee, again that sounds very weird when I say that, is the coffees that I lost, the coffees that didn't work for me, the coffees that I knew there was something there, but I couldn't crack the code to figuring it out, all because of this: water, or essentially anything else that I don't know yet that I will discover and tell you about. Things to watch out for, all because of, at least right now, at least to me as I see it, water, or another way to put it, ignorance.

[00:01:02] We know what ignorance means. It means that you don't know anything, right? You just don't know what you don't know. You don't know if you're doing this right, if this person's telling you the right thing, or if whatever you do know is just what you know. Realize with a couple of tweaks here and there that you can probably get there with something as simple as water, something that I've shied away from quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, third wave water is great. It's served its purpose. It has helped me to get back to the love and joy of coffee. However, when you still leave it to others, you're probably second-guessing yourself, your choices, the way that you think, the way that you see coffee for what it is.

[00:02:06] That's more the situation that I see it. And the past week or so, as I've delved into this whole water thing, coffee thing, brewer thing, mastering coffee thing, my mind is blown how a simple tweak can make that big of a difference in what you're tasting, what you're experiencing, how you're dealing with that coffee, what that coffee is really saying to you. There's a moment in time, I even did a video on it, about how sometimes it doesn't work. And this doesn't necessarily mean that in the future a coffee won't work. It still has a high possibility of a coffee not working. But I believe this gives you the best chance, the best opportunity to see what you do like in that coffee, why you like it, why you don't like it. It presents that coffee in the best light as possible.

[00:03:20] And again, all because, at least for me, at least right now, water. Having a TDS meter, understanding what things are doing, what these different minerals and chemicals and powders are doing to your coffee and how you're experiencing it. Those are some of the biggest things that I'm understanding about a lot of this. And as we delve deeper into this, it's that ignorance that kind of plagues me a little bit when I think about all of this. Because it's one of those things to the point where if we don't know, we just don't know.

[00:04:14] And as we stay there and contemplate and wonder for the longest, like if we're doing something right or wrong, we don't even know what variables we need to change. For instance, somebody's telling you to get a grinder because it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Grinders are extremely important. But you get that grinder, you dial it in, you get used to it. But something still isn't right. Probably it's the way that you actually brew your cup of coffee. I don't know, it is what it is. It's one of those things to the point where you just don't know what you don't know.

[00:05:07] And then I just think about all those coffees I downplayed, talked bad about, said it was shit. But again, it still can be shit. That's not what I'm saying. I think what I'm saying here really is that those coffees that were lost just weren't optimal with the information that I knew at the time. And as I get closer to understanding coffee, understanding chemistry, science, the art and love of brewing a cup of coffee and enjoying it afterwards, I'm realizing that we don't need to know everything. We just need to know the right things.

[00:06:00] Even to the point of the brewer part. Cone shape, trapezoidal, flat bed. We can be on the V60 camp. We can be on the Kalita Wave, April Brewer camp. It doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, it's about us matching our palates to the curiosity of what we're trying to do. Same thing with light roast, medium roast, dark roast, and everything in between. It all kind of plays its part as long as we're honest with ourselves of understanding coffee even more.

[00:06:51] But again, I think about that Sumatra coffee. I had it for a while, a couple of months. It had all the stuff on the bag that I remember. It had melon, it had chocolate. It kind of had this mystery of figuring it out, but also to the point where it was like, wow, that's what coffee is. And then when you roast it, let it rest, and then brew it, then you kind of just sit there and wonder all the things that you didn't get from that bag of coffee.

[00:07:42] And now that I sit here many months later thinking about that particular coffee, I think about all the things that I have done already lately. And the reason why I'm saying this really is because as many of you know, I'm not so much of a lightly roasted coffee fan. I think they're amazing, complex with acidity. It kind of just keeps going. And as I understand them even more, I can see the wonder, the greatness of a lightly roasted coffee. But this past week, by me tweaking here and there of that coffee with that water and understanding it for what it is, I truly really started to enjoy a lightly roasted coffee.

[00:08:40] I have this Kenyan right now that was really just tasty and it tasted like a true Kenyan, tasted very winey. The notes just kept on going. And then I started to taste a little bit of the sweetness come through. Same thing with this Colombian, this Huila. I thought it was a medium, but it's actually a lightly roasted coffee. But I kept going back after it, back and back and back and back, and just enjoying it for what it is. And it was fun and it was exciting and it's something that I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to all the other lightly roasted coffees that I'll get a chance to drink, to experience, to get that complexity and acidity depending on where that acidity is going. And then hopefully get that sweetness too, that balance that I've been craving.

[00:10:12] Just because I've tweaked and played around with water, something that I thought was very simple, which it is, but never really explored it as much as I should have. I think that's the thing that I'm going back about this whole thing. It's like we just need to explore more. We will continue to do recipes, we'll continue to understand things for what they are. But as we do, we have to keep asking ourselves: Why? Why does this work? Why doesn't it work? Because if we do that, then we're going to be in a better place.

[00:10:34] Not for anybody else, but for ourselves. Because of the knowledge that we do know, that we do understand, that we can apply to something that we do each and every day, multiple times a day. That's where the magic is. And I think that's really the cool thing about this. The cool thing is that we can pick any coffee that we want, and as we pick any coffee that we want, we can understand it for what it is. We can probably get some good things about it, some bad things about it, and then we can move on.

[00:11:14] But as we move on and understand the things that we're trying to do, we know for sure that we're not ignorant in things that we're supposed to know, or even things that we don't know. I guess really, as I conclude this, is that we have to be open to things that seem hard, that seem like a mystery, something that we just give to others. Because if we do that, that's where we're going to be leaving ourselves short. That's where we're not going to be understanding the things that we should, just because of all the things that we're really trying to do with coffee. That's really what I'm saying here.

[00:12:00] Push yourself. Second guess yourself. Second guess that person who's telling you to try this recipe. Get the context that they're in. Understand what you like. Try it all. Play around with different things. Really push yourself to understand why you like what you like, even if you just like what you like right now. Ask yourself if there's something that you are not going down that you should go down in this particular proverbial rabbit hole.

[00:12:41] That's really the game plan here of trying to understand what we're trying to do. Because hopefully with this lesson or what I'm trying to say to you is that you're going to have coffees that you may find some good things about, but at least you know that you optimized it for the best possible brew. Because again, I still think about that Sumatra. And now moving forward, all the coffees that are in front of me, even the ones that I've saved. I'm glad I saved this crazy pink Bourbon Colombian. I'm looking forward to roasting it again, lightly roasted, medium roast. I'm looking forward to throwing it through my paces or my water chemistry that I'm working with right now.

[00:13:38] Seeing what I like, see what I don't like. Keep tweaking and playing around with it. Really figuring out how I want to bring the best out of that coffee with my preferences and all the tools and knowledge that I do have. Because I think that's the biggest thing really. We have all these tools, but do we understand them? That's where we're really trying to get at. So let me know what you think. I'll talk to you later. Bye.