Why Winey Coffee Doesn't Move Me Anymore

In this episode, I sit with a cup of Kenyan double-washed pea berry coffee and confront a question I have been turning over for weeks: is this coffee not landing, or have I simply changed? I walk through everything I did to make it work. I roasted it light, medium, and dark. Fast roasts, slow roasts, careful attention to development and sugar expression. I brewed it on a flat bed brewer, adjusted temperature, slowed down the drawdown. Nothing clicked the way I expected. What I kept coming back to was this: the coffee presented exactly the same as it did years ago. The tomato-y strawberry up front, a little chocolate through the middle, that grapefruit-like finish on the back end. The same profile. The same story. And therein lies the problem. Familiar is not the same as good. I also question whether the double-washed processing was an R&D advancement or compensation for a quality issue in the preparation. I do not know the answer, and I sit with that honestly.

By listening to this episode, you will understand how palate evolution is a real and often quiet process, and why asking yourself why a coffee is not working matters just as much as dialing in your brew variables. I get into what the word "winey" actually means when you stop using it as shorthand, why coffee as agriculture means we cannot always hold it to the standard of our memory, and what my next step is to finally answer whether it is the coffee or me. If you have ever had a coffee that used to move you and now just sits there, this one is for you.

Transcript

[0:01] Lately, every single Kenyan coffee I roast has left me flat.

[0:09] I don't know if it's me or the coffee.

[0:18] A couple months ago, I got a slew of coffees. Most of them were washed, to see what it was all about. To see if washed coffees were washed.

[0:39] One of the coffees I did pick up was a Kenyan double wash pea berry coffee.

[0:53] I don't get Kenyans all the time. It's not that I don't like them. It's because I want to savor that taste and that nostalgia I usually get from Kenyan coffees. It was Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees that really painted the story for me with coffee. With what coffee can be. The unique flavors, the winey taste of it all.

[1:29] So I was kind of hoarding it, not wanting that allure to die.

[1:40] So I picked up this coffee, excited, roasted it, and I tasted it.

[1:58] Then I put it down and started thinking about it. I started to get those unique flavors, that winey taste, that lingering, soft acidity on the end. Sometimes it can get grapefruity, which I'm not a fan of. But it does whatever it wants to. Sometimes you get a little tomato-y type of taste, which I'm not really fond of in a coffee. Sometimes that resembles a little bit of a strawberry intensity to me. But that's what I was getting.

[2:40] I roasted it all different ways. Light, medium, dark, fast roast, slow roast. Nice rate of decline, all the things I know I need to do right when it comes to coffee.

[2:57] Got better when it was dark. Shocker to me. Dark roast, fruity Kenyan coffees. There's just something else.

[3:10] But this particular coffee, the exact one I'm drinking right now, just didn't really do it for me.

[3:20] I wonder if it was me. I wonder if I've gone past it. When I used to drink these coffees, I didn't have the refractometer. I didn't have my water dialed in. I didn't have any of that. Probably because it was just new. It was exciting. It was different.

[3:47] But this particular Kenyan coffee hasn't done it for me. It's familiar.

[3:59] And I think that's where the problem lies. Perhaps I've moved on. Perhaps all that whininess and that fruit forwardness. That's it. I've tasted this before. I've read this story before. It doesn't really matter what I do to it.

[4:26] As I sit here and think about the state of my coffee existence, what I care about in coffee, I come to the conclusion that maybe I've changed. Maybe I've come to the conclusion that I don't care for that type of fruitiness. And I start to realize that's more true than not.

[4:55] I think it is. I like fruity coffees, but they don't need to shout to the world. I like acidity, but it has to be softer than what my palate wants right now. I'm craving a little bit more sweetness in my coffees. Those are the things I want more than anything now.

[5:25] Why do I care about this coffee? Why is it not doing anything for me? Is it the coffee? The coffee kind of presents the same way as it did many years ago. It really did.

[5:49] As I wonder why it's not really working for me, I wonder if the quality is not there. I wonder if they're double washing it because it's funky, its preparation is lacking, so they have to double wash it. Maybe it's an actual advancement in technology, R&D, so to speak. Maybe they do this because it brings out different elements of the coffee. I don't know.

[6:36] And as much as I think about it, am I really thinking about coffee like this? When you actually sit down and wonder about all of this together, it's like, whoa. Coffee got you like this?

[6:54] And it does.

[6:58] I keep thinking about when I first had this cup, all the cups I've had this way. I wonder if I've always felt that way. Was it others telling me my mind was gonna be blown because this coffee is amazing?

[7:21] It has the exact same profile as I remembered years ago. And I think it's because of that winey taste.

[7:35] It's kind of interesting that I'm saying this, but when you say wine in coffee, more than likely you don't know what you're talking about. Explain that wine taste. What does that really mean? We do it with coffee. We go beyond "it's good." We can tell you where it connects with us. We can tell you where this coffee falls flat. We can tell you the acidity is high but smooths out, and then sometimes we get sweetness. We can tell you which fruit we're tasting.

[8:19] And I think that's where the problem lies. I don't care for wine. I never really have. It's a cool party trick from time to time. But once you get that taste, that surprise in the cup, especially when you don't care about wine, it's just something you knew before.

[8:54] And now, thinking about it in retrospect, have I always had these feelings about this Kenyan coffee? I start to second-guess my tastes, my palate, my way of being, and what I care about now compared to before.

[9:14] Each day that goes by, I'm getting better at understanding coffee. Understanding what I like, what I don't like, and the reasons why exactly. I think that's really where you need to be.

[9:27] But as I keep progressing, I'm getting further and further away from that special moment I had with this Kenyan coffee. It's not the same Kenyan coffee, but it's the same Kenyan coffee.

[9:51] And I wonder if it's me just progressing in my palate. I do still wonder if it's the coffee. How much better can it really be?

[10:06] I'm going to have to keep thinking about this, because if I keep talking about why I don't like it, or if it's me, or the coffee, or the water chemistry, or all that good stuff, I just don't know.

[10:25] These are the thoughts and the stories that go in my head that I think about constantly when it comes to coffee. Coffee that I used to love and adore and look forward to drinking. Something I wouldn't get all the time, but when I got it, I'd just sit there and be mesmerized. The smell, the taste, the flavors, the uniqueness of it. All that good stuff that has kept me going on this journey in coffee.

[11:04] That tomato-y, strawberry mix hits you right there. Then it dies down to a little chocolatey top note. Then it wraps back up with that grapefruity taste on the end. It's familiar. It's not unique anymore. Damn. It's barely special.

[11:32] But it's something I think everybody should experience.

[11:37] Maybe I need to buy different ones from different purveyors. Probably get two or three to see if it's the Kenyan coffee in general, or if it's me, or if it's that particular coffee.

[11:55] I think that's going to be the next step.

[12:00] Maybe I haven't found my Kenyan coffee that works with my palate now.

[12:07] When you think about your coffees and when you're drinking them, it's one of those things I have to constantly remember. It is food. It is agriculture. It is something that somebody has made, grown, harvested, and processed. It's so easy for us to lose track of that. We want this year to be like last year or better. There are so many different variables here. But we don't always put that together. We have to, when we're really trying to be real about our coffee.

[12:55] It doesn't do it for me. It probably hasn't done it for you either. As long as you're honest about it, that's all that matters.

[13:07] Ask yourself why you don't feel it anymore. If you feel it, that's great. That's even better.

[13:15] But that's my take on this pea berry Kenyan coffee right now. This is a light medium roast. Wasn't too fast with it when I roasted. Gave it some time to develop those sugars. That's what they say. It doesn't matter. It's not gelling with me. I gotta figure out why.

[13:45] What about you?

[13:48] Have you had those moments, those trials and tribulations where coffee just makes you go trippy? Like you're constantly thinking about why it's not working. You've tried brewing it different ways, slowing it down, trying to get more sweetness out of it. You use a flat bed brewer. Play around with the temperature. Just not working.

[14:18] Have you changed? Has your palate changed? Has the coffee changed? Do you care about it as much as you did before? More than likely, you don't. How do you move on to something more agreeable with your palate? Something radical, something punchy, or something subtle?

[14:47] Let me know about it. Just talk about it. Talk to you later. Bye.