Did the Gear Save This Coffee?

In this episode, I share the story of an Ethiopian white honey processed coffee that had me ready to give up on it entirely. I kept it one-dimensional, flat, a single note of bright lemon acidity with a little chocolate on the finish. But instead of moving on to something new, I made a decision I don't usually make: I stayed with it for two weeks straight. I brewed it every way I could think of, across different brewers, different temperatures, different grind profiles, different experiments. Most of the time the results felt the same. But then I introduced a new brewer with a different bottom configuration, layered in the Sybaris Booster, and went back to the Melodrip I had talked badly about for weeks. And something shifted. The coffee came alive in a way I didn't recognize.

What I learned from this experience goes beyond any single brew method or piece of gear. I started to realize that the tools I already own, the knowledge I had already built, and the simple act of staying with something long enough were doing more for my coffee than any new purchase could. I started to appreciate what was already on my shelf. You will hear me talk through whether the transformation was the gear, the coffee's natural maturation over time, or something that changed in me as a brewer. If you have ever given up on a coffee too early, questioned whether your current gear is enough, or wondered why the same beans can taste completely different weeks apart, this episode will give you a new way to think about patience, presence, and what it actually means to understand a coffee.

Transcript

[00:00] Something on my shelf saved the coffee that I gave up on. I don't know if it was the gear or time.

[00:15] I've been talking about this particular coffee for a while. It's an Ethiopian white honey processed coffee. It has similar traits that you would think you would get from an Ethiopian coffee. Nice, bright acidity, lemony type of flavor. And I don't know if it's me or my palate or whatever, but it's a one-hit wonder. It's one dimensional. Little chocolate notes on the end. Soft acidity like a Meyer lemon type of taste on it.

[00:54] But I did something that I haven't done in a long time with this particular coffee. I didn't move back to different coffees. I just stayed with this particular coffee for two weeks. I drank it so many different ways. Different temperatures, different brewers, different experiments. Most of the time they tasted exactly the same. Variations here and there. But at the end of the day, it was the same.

[01:41] I had nothing to lose on this coffee. So I got a new brewer, which we'll talk about in the next couple of days. And something about the bottom changing on this particular brewer, if you know what I'm talking about, you already know. It turned the coffee upside down. It was more lively. It filled in those hollow parts of the coffee that I wasn't too fond of. It actually made the coffee a little bit more fruity compared to its limiting characteristics.

[02:24] I kept trying this device. And then I started playing around with the Sybaris Booster. And then I started playing around with the Melodrip, the thing that I've talked really badly about the past couple of weeks. And the coffees were so expressive, so lively, that I wondered what I was drinking. I didn't realize that this was the exact same coffee.

[03:03] And it got me thinking. Was it me? Was it just time for the coffee to get that type of maturity that coffees tend to get at times? Sometimes it just needs more time in order for it to actually come alive to you. Or was it the gear? Or was it a combination of all of that together?

[03:32] That's the thing about coffee that we seldom go through. If we're drinking a coffee for a while and we're trying to understand it for what it is, sometimes we write it off too early. I know at least I do. If I have a couple of coffees on my shelf ready for me to drink, I'm going to this coffee, that coffee, this coffee. I've seen the different elements that I do like about them. But for the most part, if a coffee doesn't really gel with me, I just tend to move on to something else. Something hopefully more exciting.

[04:17] But I'm not playing around with my gear as much as I talk about. Sometimes you don't want to. Sometimes you just want to make a cup of coffee and it comes out great. But something about the drive and the dedication that this coffee put me through has got me to appreciate a couple of things.

[04:44] One, the gear that I do have, ironically speaking. It lets me know that I do have enough. I'm not the perfect person to judge whether I have enough gear or not. But I started to use it all. Started to play with my water chemistry a little bit more. I started to see what was on the shelf for a very long time to see if it could express different things and qualities about the coffee.

[05:21] I started to realize that I had a lot of understanding about extraction, about flavor, about what I can do with this particular coffee. Understanding the slow drawdown, how that affects coffee taste. Paying attention to that coffee, different grinders, different profiles, what they were doing.

[05:54] Those are some of the things that, since I didn't like it as much, I started to push myself even further down this rabbit hole of trying to figure it out. I'm glad I did. Because the other piece of this puzzle was the actual coffee. I started to appreciate the coffee even more. I started to understand that no matter what is said on the bag, it doesn't really even matter. It's what we do to that coffee. It's how we approach that coffee. It's us just actually giving that coffee some time to talk to us.

[06:26] And it's interesting that my frustration with one coffee is somebody else's total understanding of it. I was starting to roast him some, lightly roasted the same coffee. It was fruity. It was delicious. It was wonderful to him from the get-go. It's interesting how our palates are so different. We get different things out of coffee. The exact same coffee. But that's perfectly fine. Because at the end of the day, it's our journey. It's our dedication. It's the things that we go through in order to bring the best out of the coffee.

[07:35] I was talking to somebody online a couple days ago. We were talking about our routine, the way we approach coffees. And it's always interesting hearing others' opinions, because even though it may seem far-fetched, even though it may seem very different, it's still more or less the same. Trying to see what we can get out of this coffee. Seeing if we approach it this way or that way. See if we can agitate a little bit more or do a little bit less agitation, and see what that brings out.

[08:16] Sometimes it matters. Sometimes it doesn't. But something is happening to that particular coffee for us. And when it does work, it just works. Sometimes I can just do the exact same recipe on any coffee I have, and it's lively and expressive, and it's something I want to drink every time. Sometimes you have to work on it, like this Ethiopian coffee right here. This white honey.

[08:53] Smells so good. This is a medium to light roast. The one that I've been tackling, exploring, getting frustrated with. Conquering to an extent, but understanding it even more so.

[09:10] And I think that's one of the things we don't talk about so much. Those intermittent journeys that we go on with a particular coffee. How we feel initially. How we feel afterwards. How we feel about the coffee as we're trying to really figure it out.

[09:36] This is the exact same coffee. But in truth, the kicker is that by the time we've come back to it, we've probably changed. That coffee has changed. We've gone through different things in our lives in the past couple of weeks. And it's pretty cool to realize that we can get close to what we think about this coffee in our own way. As long as we stay with it.

[10:12] So like I said, I believe it was the gear. I believe it was the Melodrip coming alive, putting that rain dance on the coffee drops. I believe something about the bottom of the brewer makes a bigger difference than we give it credit for.

[10:49] And then I think about the different paper filters I used. That didn't have too much of an effect on the coffee. But it was a good idea to try. I manipulated and changed the things I needed to in order to bring out the best I could in that coffee, depending on the filter paper.

[11:15] But then again, as much as I think about it, it could have just been time. Just time for it to express itself. To come alive. To do different things in different brewers. Maturity of the coffee and, to an extent, the maturity of us. Probably accepting it for what it is, but realizing that the coffee can actually do something else to us and for us. How we can change its personality if we change the things that we do.

[11:50] I think that's the most rewarding part about all of this. More than anything. Is this my favorite coffee? No. But something about this coffee I'm going to take with me throughout the year. It pushed me to stay with something long enough to understand what I was trying to do with it. Even if I wasn't gelling with it. Something about that makes you feel like you can do anything.

[12:30] So is this talk about something deeper? To an extent, yeah, it is. Probably about the way you approach different coffees. The way it comes alive differently. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's also about that maturity of the coffee. The time it has to just sit and mellow and get more expressive.

[12:57] It's a combination of it all. I can try to isolate it. But you and I both know that's not entirely true. It goes in the direction it does. Sometimes some coffees click a lot faster. Sometimes you just need that time to sit with it, understand it, and probably enjoy it.

[13:40] Let me know what you think. Do you go through that with coffee? Do you sometimes think about it not working, and then eventually it does work? What is it about that particular coffee that eventually comes alive to you? Have you had those experiences where it wasn't the best coffee at first, but over time it started to be? Let's talk about it. I'll talk to you later. Bye.