The Cup That Revealed My Preferences

I spent a long time chasing sweetness in coffee, and I was doing it in all the wrong places. In this episode, I take you back to the moment I was locked in on a Colombian pink bourbon, lightly roasted, brewing cup after cup on a Hario V60. I kept adjusting the recipe, lowering the temperature, changing the ratio, reading everything I could find online, and nothing worked. What I didn't know at the time was that the V60's cone geometry amplifies acidity. It brings out the best of acidity. And a lightly roasted coffee stacks that same quality on top of it. I was chasing sweetness with a setup that was built to highlight the exact opposite of what I wanted.

What finally clicked wasn't a new recipe or a better grinder. It was the realization that I had been brewing coffee for somebody else's palate, not my own. When I moved toward medium and dark roasts, tried different origins, occasionally blended, I started finding that balance I had been searching for. And once I understood that, I stopped being frustrated. I stopped being mad at myself. In this episode, I talk about why knowing your own preferences is the most important thing you can do as a coffee drinker, why it is perfectly fine to not like what everybody else in the specialty coffee world likes, and how finding your cup is where the real journey begins. By listening, you will learn how brewer geometry and roast level interact to shape what ends up in your glass, and why chasing someone else's ideal cup is a dead end for your own development.

Transcript

[00:00:01] Chasing sweetness. It's all I cared about for a very long time.

[00:00:08] Sweetness to me is that interesting thing that comes and goes. Something that you realize is there, but it's kind of not there. You only get it when you actually sip it.

[00:00:22] When you start to think about it, you're like, "Wow, amazing, right?"

[00:00:32] It's interesting, though. I was chasing sweetness in the wrong places. I was chasing sweetness in a Hario V60, a cone-shaped brewer. I didn't realize at the time that it amplifies acidity. It brings out the best of acidity.

[00:01:00] And then this Colombian pink bourbon, lightly roasted coffee. I was chasing sweetness there.

[00:01:13] I kept going. Kept brewing. Kept getting more frustrated. Didn't really know what was going on.

[00:01:26] I started reading, looking online, trying to figure out every single brewing recipe variation I could. Didn't matter. It just brought out different elements of acidity. Amplified here, more intense there, a little more subtle somewhere else. I brought down the temperature. Nothing was working.

[00:01:51] I couldn't understand why it wasn't working.

[00:01:56] I sat there, confused, contemplating what to do about this coffee. It's kind of a strange thing when you start really drinking coffee and you're into it beyond the buzz. You're chasing that taste. You sit there and wonder why it's not working for you.

[00:02:36] I kept at it. I kept trying to get the best out of that coffee. Chase that sweetness. It wasn't happening.

[00:02:46] Months, years later, I started to realize it wasn't necessarily that one coffee. I had another lightly roasted coffee that did the same thing to me. Different elements of complexity and acidity. That sweetness really wasn't there.

[00:03:28] I sat there wondering, "What the hell is going on here? What are you doing wrong, Oki?"

[00:03:37] Then I had other cups. Medium roast, dark roast, different variations, origins from all over the world. Sometimes I would blend them. And then I started to get that balance. That sweetness alongside acidity.

[00:04:00] I kept going down that rabbit hole. I didn't question why those coffees were what they were. I just knew I enjoyed them more than what I had been drinking before.

[00:04:11] I realized I had been making a cup of coffee that wasn't the coffee I was supposed to make for myself.

[00:04:33] As I sat there and thought about it, I started thinking about all the other people who were making coffee, what they liked. None of it really agreed with me. No shade. No daggers at anybody. At the end of the day, it just wasn't my thing.

[00:05:13] I started to realize that. When I did, I stopped being mad at myself. Stopped pushing myself to a point that didn't make sense anymore.

[00:05:29] I was getting on that plane of understanding. That more balanced medium and dark roast, origin didn't matter so much. That was my thing. It still is my thing.

[00:05:56] Once I got there and understood what I was actually trying to do with coffee, I realized that's the most important thing. Your preferences. What you care about. Why you care about it. And then you keep chasing that.

[00:06:18] From time to time you'll go back and try other coffees. That lightly roasted Colombian pink bourbon. You go back and taste it again. You're in a different place than when you were trying to shake the hell out of it to manipulate it the way you wanted.

[00:06:49] Now when you drink it, it's just an experience. You drink it. You like what you like. You don't like what you don't. You move on. It's perfectly fine.

[00:07:07] It is perfectly fine to not like what everybody else likes.

[00:07:18] There are people who only like cold brew. That's it. They don't care about hot coffee. Just cold brew. There are people who only like high-end, lightly roasted coffees. Some only like co-ferments. I'm more of a washed process, medium to dark, lightly roasted coffee guy.

[00:07:59] There's a realization in all of this. When we see it for what it is, we know that everybody has preferences. The way we eat our steaks. We like what we like. We have that realization with ourselves. That's the most important thing here.

[00:08:40] Once we figure out what we like in life, in coffee, we can do whatever we want. We can go on any journey. We can figure out why we like it, why we don't, how we can push and manipulate these coffees with the knowledge we have.

[00:09:00] That's where the fun starts. When we're not brewing for others. We're brewing that cup that's meant for us. Most of the time, that's where we should be.

[00:09:22] We shouldn't be Team Light Roast, Team Medium Roast, Team Whatever. Whichever coffee makes you feel alive, that's the team you're on. That's all that matters.

[00:09:43] Sit with that. Think about the coffee and you. That's it. The coffee you want to drink. The coffee you look forward to drinking. Your preferences, wherever they may be.

[00:10:10] Let me know what you think. What is your preference of coffee? Why? Don't be ashamed of it. At the end of the day, most of the time, we're drinking coffee for ourselves. We're not drinking it with other people. So that's what it's about. You and your coffee.

[00:10:38] Talk to you later. Bye.