The darkest Italian roast has nothing at all to do with what goes as dark roast - and especially not Italian roast - in the US. The absolute darkest roast I ever saw in Italy was with just a hint of oil showing on the bean, and I only saw that once. They drink a medium roast most of the time, although there are light roasts readily available. I have seen documentaries with Italian roasters from Illy and on down to smaller boutique roasters, who come to the US and just rip into the roasters for their crappy burnt coffee. These are their customers / business partners, but they just have to be honest to them about what they are serving. Turkish coffee likewise is not a dark roast, but a medium roast - just brewed quite strong. I can't speak to the others.

I am a grumpy old man and chase hipsters off my lawn, but this point ain't from them.

You have to understand though that Italians are predisposed to rip into all non-Italian food whenever they get the chance, even if it's better than the native Italian version.

Americans just have different tastes/cultures regarding coffee in general. Many of us (including myself) prefer a dark roast, it's nostalgic, consistent, and goes good with a generous amount of milk. I don't care if it's "hiding the flavor of the bad coffee" or whatever, I just like it. I've had coffee all over the world but I grew up with shitty burnt gas station coffee and instant coffee (or even cowboy coffee) made in a tin can over a campfire, and that's just as legitimate a culture as whatever the Italians are doing with their fancy espresso machines.

turkish coffee is also not only coffee. it's a mix with other flavors. so it's some sort of art. with each family having it's own recipe.

That's wrong. Turkish coffee is a coffee making technique, where you dissolve very finely grounded coffee (finer than espresso) in a boiling water directly. There are no filters or puck or anything alike. You get a very strong cup of coffee, similar to espresso, but tastes quite very different. Some people prefer to put sugar (because it's strong) or other stuff to make it taste less strong. But that's the exception (I live in Turkey and know the customs very well)

Turkish coffee is in general just coffee and water. Some drinks it with a little sugar.

There are varieties with cardamon or mastic but they are very rare.

please post links...I want to see these documentaries. And completely reject the premise of the article.

They are documentaries I saw on RAI (Italian TV).

I mean people can drink coffee however they want, but dark roasting beans absolutely destroys the majority of flavors within the bean. There’s no denying that. It’s similar to eating a steak well done. People do it, and it’s even very common in certain countries. But it’s removing the majority of flavor. I don’t see how anyone could deny that.

Or you could argue it eliminates the flavor that needs to be eliminated; using your steak analogy from a sibling comment, drinking medium/light roast may be like eating the steak raw or frozen. Totally different flavor from medium-rare, just not the one many people want.

I recently had an unwitting encounter with medium roast (at the same "semi-fancy" price point as I typically buy) when my wife put some fresh beans in our coffee container. First cup I made, I was wondering why the coffee tastes so bad, bad enough for me to dump it. There were all those weird sour/almost soda like notes that should not be in coffee. Then I got suspicious about the look of the beans, then I asked my wife... "I decided it would be good to try something new" ;)

I have this problem. I’ve tried for years to ‘acquire’ whatever the acquired taste is in these fancy coffees, but it just tastes of compost or dung and makes me feel like I’m drinking the water from the bottom of my kitchen bin. I would never deny it’s a more complex taste and differentiated across different beans, I just can’t force myself not to gag and actually finish a cup of this fetid water.

I find the light roasts interesting as opposed to enjoyable. I had one that tasted like orange juice (not as in “notes”, like actual juice!).

Medium is my comfort zone though!

The most bizarre coffee I've ever had was from the Papua New Guinea Baroida Estate. STRONG tasting notes of tomato. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I love weird flavours like that. Very interesting coffee.

I'm drinking some Papua New Guinea right now that I roasted myself, it's dry processed like many Ethiopian coffees are, and it tastes like berries and spice. The different origin flavors that can be found through different processing methods and soil conditions are amazing. There's so much variety. As a hobby roaster I value my relationship with coffee too much to deliberately drink bad stuff.

she might be trying to tell you something about your regular roast.

fyi, different roasts require different grinds, and changing bean roasts without changing grind can definitely lead to bad coffee (even if the beans are high quality). In general, you have to tune in your grind for each roast.

Simple overview here: https://coffeechronicler.com/grind-size-chart/

all of these look too coarse to me. I make coffee in a moka pot and at these sizes it just tastes like water

To me, light roasts taste like somebody squeezed half a lemon into my cup of coffee. That bright floral/citrus flavor is something I absolutely do not want in my morning brew. I crave that slightly bitter, heavy body, chocolate/nutty flavor that I associate with dark roasts.

My thoughts exactly. Now I drink espresso coffee in normal mugs, without coffee or sugar. There's a lot of flavour in coffee that's masked with milk and sugar. Spicy notes, chocolatey notes. Even mildly fruity notes, but the more bitter, the better.

What you two are describing may be the addition of Robusta commonly found in Italian espresso blends and more. It's what gives those blends that bitter kick. If that's what you're after, try seeking out blends with 5-10% Robusta.

I also like coffee mixed with chicory in the New Orleans style for that bitter kick. The New Orleans Cafe du Monde (besides brewing it on site) also sells the mixture in some supermarkets for brewing at home.

I also like cafe du monde.

I just had some pecan praline coffee that was amazing. Bottom shelf of the grocery store. I only got it because nothing else was on sale... It might be my new go-to for a while. Give it a shot if you can find it

Sorry everyone but this thread is starting to sound like this https://youtu.be/4ZK8Z8hulFg

There are so many levels of irony with your choice to respond with this meme, in this thread, on this HN post.

There is as always an XKCD relevant to these types of conversations: https://xkcd.com/915/

Time for s/coffee or/milk or/, right? :)

There's degrees between lightest roast possible and dark roast. Also, bean origin has such a huge impact on taste, you don't need to have floral or citrus flavors even if it is on the lighter side.

I roast some coffee that could be considered to be 'light' from a color/roast temp perspective but has absolutely none of the floral/citrus notes that you talk about. It depends so much on the beans. It ends up chocolatey and vanilla, with a medium body. Very little acidic taste. On the other hand, there's plenty of coffee that is just a punch of acid.

As others have stated, you lose so much bean origin character the further into the roast you get and lose what makes the bean itself special.

I’m so happy to hear someone else say this. I’m almost ashamed of my preference for medium to the darker side of medium roast. I cannot stand the fruity flavor that’s in vogue these days—I get that it’s more complex and has more intricate flavors, but it’s just not the comforting caramel-y roast that I’m accustomed to.

You should also check if your beans are washed or naturally processed - this also has significant effect on the taste. Natural/dry processing is the one that will get you a heavier body and will hide acidic notes.

It's not undeniable. Dark roasts are much more difficult to get right and be consistent with. Many roasters can't do it, so they're happy to promote the idea that people who like dark roasts are coffee dilettantes. To me, it's similar to how so many American microbreweries go crazy with hops.

> To me, it's similar to how so many American microbreweries go crazy with hops.

Every "hopocalypse" type beer is utterly forgettable. It's like when you go to some tourist-y small town in the Midwestern US and the gift shop has five hundred different INSANELY HOT SAUCES no one's heard of.

I guess "hoppy" is a powerful, accessible flavor that anyone can easily make, like squeezing a bottle of Sriracha onto some noodles.

This is overly dismissive of certain styles, the same could be said for any popular style like yet another chocolatey syrupy Imperial Stout, or yet another crisp Pilsner.

Hoppy is anything but accessible, in my experience, clearly some people love them but most casual drinkers do not. I personally find certain DIPAs to be a near religious experience but others can’t stand them. To each their own.

Sorry, but the modern form of DIPA most definitely is one of the most accessible forms of craft beer. They usually aim for low to no kettle hops, only whirpool and high levels of rx hopping. Fermentation, mash and grist all serve to make the beer sweet. The end result: a beer low in bitterness, silky, extremely sweet (these beers can finish above 1.030) with intense fruity notes.

That is nothing like the DIPAs I am familiar with which are typically very dry and strongly hopped, with only enough sweetness to make it palatable. What you describe sounds to me more like Barleywine, though admittedly the style has wide interpretation. I also think we may have very different definitions of the word “accessible”.

I love IPAs and hoppy beers. Everything else is forgettable.

So glad we cleared up that everyone has opinions.

I’m just glad we have so many options to try and do many craft brewers having fun with it.

I would say, medium roast is difficult to get right, too often, the inside part of the bean is like charcoal. Dark roast is plainly bad, when I see really shinny beans, I know it'll be awful. I rather have robusta blend then a dark roast or badly roast medium.

I like my steaks borderline completely raw, but I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been around steak snobs and a voice in the back of my mind won’t allow it any other way.

But I’ll also admit that heavily browned beef has a distinctive flavor and quality very different from barely cooked steak. Imagine a sandwich with slightly crispy, well cooked beef and all its drippings. Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy.

Coffee is similar. Different roasts for different desires and uses. There is a point where it is objectively burnt, but not all dark roasts are burnt.

> I like my steaks borderline completely raw, but I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been around steak snobs

I usually like my steaks straight up raw, but most steak snobs I know insist on medium-rare as the "perfect" temperature. Truthfully, I won't usually complain about anything from tartare to medium, and you're right, the different amount of doneness has a drastic effect on flavors and sometimes you just want one flavor profile or another.

If it has lots of connective tissue like a ribeye, I want medium rare, preferably gotten that way over a long time at low heat then seared, if it doesn't, like a filet, I want it cold and raw.

>Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy.

Bit of a false dichotomy here. I would take a medium sandwich here. Medium gets you the firmness that you’re hinting that you want for a sandwich without turning it into beef jerky.

> Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy

you mean a stack of thinly sliced bloody sheets of rare roast beef? I don't know what you're talking about, it makes an excellent sandwich.

I mean a really light roast ends up having little flavor besides sour, if you're talking espresso.

no way! i drink exclusively light roast espresso. yes, the sourness is pretty much always there. but there's blueberry (my personal favorite), red berries, tea, lemon, cinnamon. getting a balanced light roast espresso requires going much higher ratio to get a high enough extraction. try upping the temp to 95*C and go for 1:3 or higher.

I've tried and tried to experience the flavor notes you mention across many different coffees from many different roasters, all sorts of brewing methods and settings, but cannot.

I can taste sour, burnt, and something in the middle that I really like, and that's about it.

Not a scientific experiment by any means, but there seems to be more people like me who cannot taste these flavors in coffee than you.

i highly recommend cupping coffee, or at least trying 2-4 different coffees at the same time. you have to compare them side by side, that's where the notes make themselves apparent. trying only one at a time will not be sufficient as the differences can be subtle when recalled only from memory.

believe me, i don't have a super palette and have a hard time finding the right notes myself. you can try tasting while looking at the SCA coffee wheel[1], using the inner ring for broad categories.

[1] https://notbadcoffee.com/flavor-wheel-en/

Maybe I've just had a few bad light roasts? It seems like really light sour roasts are really trendy with additives that cover up or mesh with the taste. Cappuccino/Mocha etc.

I'll keep trying it because I do quite enjoy bitter and roasted flavors but the straight light-roasted espresso I got most recently was verging on undrinkable.

Mm, you're just prescribing preferences I think. You're not wrong that it begins to remove and change the flavors, but that's what some people prefer. It's different to steak as well, in that the bean starts with a flavour profile unique to that bean, and the roast alters it. So roasting different times and temps will yield different results depending on the bean, and sometimes you start with a bean you don't like the flavour of and end up with one you do.

Dark roasts and light roasts and everything in between are common here in Australia, where we have a fairly rich history with espresso coffee.

> absolutely destroys the majority of flavors

Notwithstanding that this isn't measured whatsoever, it also develops flavor. It's just that it becomes more one-note. You won't taste fruitiness or other delicate things, but I don't want my coffee to taste like fruity tea. Neither do most people.

And that is because the harsh taste is a proxy for how much psychoactive MAO-A-inhibiting beta-carbolines the brew contains.

You like it because it gets you more high.

I like it because it tastes better. You don't get to decide why I like something.

We all prefer the concept of free will, but the science is consistent: we tend to grow neurons to like the taste of things that increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the frontal cortex, even if our first taste experience of them is downright awful.

Many things affect that, though. Someone in a constant state of anxiety and stress is running on adrenergic circuits instead of dopaminergic, and thus will probably like the taste of poppy seeds, because the minuscule amounts of opiate alkaloids will make an ever so slight dent on that adrenergic activity and allow dopaminergic activity to dominate.

It’s a similar story for coffee, but there is a lot of variability both in coffee and drinker. Someone with a high activity MAO-A gene variant will clear dopamine and other neurotransmitters from the brain more quickly. Darker roasts contain more MAO-A inhibitors, and so they are more commonly preferred by people with such gene variants.

Same goes for MAO-B; inhibitors for it are more likely to be found in lighter roasts with floral overtones.

> we tend to grow neurons to like the taste of things that increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the frontal cortex, even if our first taste experience of them is downright awful.

High caffeine intake (more represented in medium roast) increases dopamine response in the first place. Notwithstanding that a jolt doesn't make one incapable of judging taste. I've experienced different roasts consistently over different periods of time and ultimately favor dark (done right) all things remaining equal.

You can stop projecting now.

I’m not projecting; you’re uninformed. Caffeine is only responsible for a part of the effects of coffee. There are dozens if not hundreds of other psychoactive substances there, all acting in unison.

Your preference towards darker roasts suggests the presence of high-activity MAOA/B gene variants in your genome. This hypothesis is, fortunately, easy to validate.

> Caffeine is only responsible for a part of the effects of coffee.

You mentioned dopaminergic neurotransmission, specifically.

Notwithstanding that you've shared no compelling source (and I expect none), this is redundant - I like the taste of dark roast, the validity of that sentiment isn't contingent on genes. By no objective measure is one roast better tasting beyond mere experience. It's basically irrelevant whether I do possess those genes or not. Whether we like ANYTHING depends on our genes, so to say "you only like x because of genes" is a moot point - if entire cultures are primarily drinking dark, who's the real genetic outlier?

Disparaging why someone likes it doesn't make you more right. If anything, attacking their reason for liking it (rather than the relative merits of liking one flavour profile versus another) makes you more wrong: It signifies that you've run out of meaningful things to say and must now attack the character / moral fiber of the person in question to get anywhere.

I’m not being derogatory, rather stating how things truly are in the psychopharmacological and neurobehaviorogical senses.

If anything, you’ve now shown that you carry a belief that ”getting high” is inherently a negative prospect. What I wrote carries no such default.

> But it’s removing the majority of flavor.

Removing some flavours and adding others. The fact that you prefer the initial flavours is subjective.

eventually the maillard reactions are no longer developing flavors and are just burning. no different than a bagel, pizza, steak, or chocolate.

Burnt is a flavour. Many people like bbq, pizza and baguette to be slightly charred.

Austria has pretty bad coffee. 99.9% of shops sell Julius Meinl from pretty badly maintained espresso machines. And their coffee is usually burnt.

Italy has, in general, people who know how to make better coffee as they treat their machines and the procedure with more care. The coffee isn't all that better. Both Lavazza and Illy are robusta blends.

Turkish coffee has nothing to do with espresso coffee, or filter coffee for that matter. It's my least favourite one as the traditional method of preparation basically includes boiling extremely finely ground coffee in a small pot called cezve. It's over extracted, burnt and usually has to be tempered with a ton of sugar and/or sweets.

However, none of these coffees are nearly as bad as what the US folks, Poles, Germans or Finns drink. The coffee is basically old and overburnt. I guess it also goes hand in hand with preferring filter coffee.

Illy advertise themselves as 100% Arabica and Lavazza have many products that claim 100% Arabica. Are you saying these are false advertising? Or is this one of those things where the cafe blend is totally different to the store blend?

Lavazza do have Arabica and Robusta blends, they tend to be the more "Intenso" ones, but their default is 100% Arabica.

My bad, I got some of my brands mixed up when writing the post. Illy is 100% Arabica, but Lavazza cafe blends are usually mixed with robusta.

In Croatia, Illy is basically the only coffee brand which serves 100% arabica in cafes.

Austrian here. Completely agree that Austrian coffee is mostly terrible (and expensive!). I still like going to the traditional coffee houses, but it's certainly not for the coffee.

And yes, the first time I had coffee in America (I think it was from Dunkin Donuts) I couldn't believe how much worse it was than anything I'd ever tasted in my life.

First time I went when I was in America, I ordered I think a medium with sugar. It was this gigantic 1 litre cup of very, very sweet "coffee". Had to throw it away, absolutely undrinkable. I'm very far from a coffee snob and that blew my mind.

Which country has the best coffee as per your opinion then? Just wondering as in south asia we haven't started worrying so much about coffee yet - you either do traditional filter coffee[1] or buy instant coffee powder and be done with it. May be it's because coffee is almost always served with milk and sugar or we have other things to worry about.

[1]https://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/a-brief-histo...

Melbourne (Australia) probably has the worlds best coffee. It certainly has the highest proportion of baristas sporting man buns.

Nah, you lost that mantle years ago.

Brisbane reigns king now,

Yours LilBytes the pretentious online only coffee snob /s

Brisbane does have amazing coffee. The 'Melbourne has the best coffee' thing is at least ten years out of date, it's mostly just 'Australia has the best coffee' now.

Agreed!

Australia has great coffee.

Singapore has some really good coffee these days (but also plenty of not so great one). We just had lots of good coffee in Chiang Mai in Thailand, too.

> Austria has pretty bad coffee.

I agree, I traveled once from Italy towards Austria. And the difference could not be bigger. Also aggravated by the fact I payed a ridiculous amount for it (IIRC 4 euro in Austria, 1 euro in Italy)

Agree, I don't even order coffee in Portland anymore because everything is "delicate, fruity, floral" light roast aka. tastes like goddam vinegar.

Last time I was in Oregon I tried to go into a coffee place and get a cup of coffee. Now, I'm admittedly not a big fancy coffee guy, usually drinking whatever Dunkin Donuts or McDonald's swill I can get, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell I was supposed to order. It was all fancy names on the menu and nothing that was just "coffee". I finally just said, "I want, like, normal, I don't know, East Coast coffee." The guy rolled his eyes, but obviously understood me, because he gave me coffee that tasted normal and was just fine and dandy.

If you went into a wood oven Neapolitan pizza place, huffed over the menu when you couldn't find "meat lovers" and then finally said "I want, like, normal, I don't know, East Coast pizza" you'd probably get an eye roll too. But, if you just say you're not familiar with whats on the menu, ask what's good and has meat on it, they'd probably be happy to help you find something you like. It's often about how you say something.

it's a small point but "official" Neapolitan pizza (or should I say pizza Napoletano) is not available with meat on it

You can just ask for a “small coffee”, you don’t have to turn it into a weird territorial thing. Most places will have normal drip coffee ready to go.

In the rare case somewhere only does made-to-order, you want an Americano. It’ll be fast and good and what you want.

An Americano is a normal cup of coffee with a large amount of water added. It's like a medium-strong tea. I was under the impression it was called that as some sort of disparagement of the US. Is this actually what is regularly consumed there?

An Americano is a normal cup of ESPRESSO with water added. It's a common drink in north american cafes and is similar to a "long black" in Australia and other places. Supposedly it's called that because GIs in Italy during WWII would get it/do it because they wanted a larger cup of coffee.

Most coffee in the North America is drip which has a similar strength to an Americano. If you go to a Dunkin' Donuts, Tim Hortons, McDonald's, most cafes and ask for just a coffee they will give you drip.

Where I come from, and Americano is the only quick and easy way to get decaf; a pour-over takes to long, and an Americano with cream is just perfect in the afternoon.

an Americano, in Italy and in the US, is an espresso with water added to dilute it to the strength of "a cup of coffee".

Presumably the eye-roll was about the manner with which you asked, conveying confusion or distress about the menu, and not the drip coffee order; coffee places are happy to serve you a drip coffee (it's easy for them).

I don't think Blue Bottle does--only pour over. For cold brew, I think they sell drip.

I don't patronize Blue Bottle all that often, but I do recall their locations in LA selling ready to drink batch-brewed drip coffee.

Just ask for a coffee. They won't roll your eyes at that. At least, that's never happened to me and that's my typical order at a boutique coffee shop. They're not going to make fun of you for not being a coffee expert. You'll end up with a nice drip coffee of whatever the house recommends.

He rolled his eyes because of your insinuation that their coffee was abnormal.

Sometimes you want the drug, not the drink. In these situations it is annoying to have to pretend to care about what feels like overly researched excuses for addiction.

You gotta get outside the Portland metro area. Then you'll find normal coffee.

Relevant clip from The Sopranos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLyn_feOptg

I never look at coffee menus. They’re all obnoxious. Just walk in an say “I want a medium coffee”.

"Large drip"

They always figure it out.

Go to a McDonald's next time. Would you ask for the Applebee special at a fancy steakhouse?

In fact, mid range "fancy" resteraunts often have a "boyfriend special" cheapo burger and fries, with nothing fancy or special about it, for when you don't have the taste, or wallet, for overproduced, overpriced "we cut this normal food into weird shapes" meals.

Live in Portland. Can confirm there are places that lack a simple dark roast / house coffee option. Portland literally encourages a "keep it weird" ethos that imo just results in folks trying too hard, as in banana-rosemary-licorice blends ...

Portland is the first and only place in the world where I was able to order a “lemonade coffee” and it was super unique and the flavors worked well together. They really get my respect for creativity alone, I like trying new things and changing my perception of what coffee is!

My friend once asked the workers at ColdStone to mix some lasagna into an ice cream. It was disgusting.

Not directed at you, more at the zeitgeist of boutique places mixing seemingly absurd things: Putting random shit together doesn't make you "unique" or "special" or "creative", sometimes it just means you didn't put much thought into something.

Yeah trust me I agree, novelty without mastery is not pushing the envelope at all. The place I had this drink you can tell they were masters of the art of crafting coffee, they taught brewing masterclasses and had awesome coffee brewing/roasting equipment. The passion + appreciation for the art of the craft + experimentation + sufficient iterations leads to true innovation

I'd legitimately rather drink Starbucks than Stumptown for all of the reasons mentioned above. Starbucks is 'meh' but at least it doesn't have that sour, floral taste.

As a melburnian used to espresso, American Starbucks just tastes like milk to me. I try to order the smallest, strongest thing I can find and it's still just...milk.

Australians have no idea how spoiled they are. The italian migration in the 60's really lifted coffee expectations.

I WISH Starbucks tasted like milk. Order just a normal iced or hot coffee from them, and put in as much cream or sugar as you want, it still tastes like you are licking the little hot plate under the carafe in a drip coffee maker.

At least it doesn't taste like battery acid though.

I actually agree. I’ve tried to like Stumptown so many times, but the flavor is too sour for me.

Sisters Coffee Company is my favorite Oregon brand so far.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check them out next time I see them at PCC or wherever.

Meanwhile, I think my two favorite Washington roasters are https://www.mukilteocoffee.com and https://fidalgocoffee.com

I like Herkimer but somehow my partner recognizes the taste anytime I brew it to share. I'm not sure how given that I usually can taste differences but it's been consistent and impressive.

Stumptown sold out to Peets fyi https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/business/dealbook/peets-b...

I can’t look at them the same ever since.

So funny to see this comment. Having moved to Portland recently I've been wondering why most coffee here is undrinkable to me. Guess this explains it.

If anyone is looking for recommendations, Clinton St. Coffee House has never once served me a sour cup of coffee.

Check out the track “Coffee In Portland” by John Craigie on your music app of choice. It’s a great folksy bit about attempting to order coffee at a trendy coffee shop. Hilarious. (I say this as a Portland resident myself).

> “Coffee In Portland” by John Craigie

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PWqoq4UQtQc

Link is more of a comedy sketch, not a song.

Water Avenue Coffee out of an aeropress tastes sweet to me.

Have you tried Spella?

TBH I've always found European coffee to be somewhat lacking - even from European importers in the states. Sure there is decent espresso in Europe but I've always found I enjoy coffee from local roasters in my area of the US more. IDK if this is because Europe style coffee is all dark roast but that has been my experience.

While my European travels are neither recent nor exhaustive, only in Germany could I get a decent cup of drip coffee. Everywhere else the "cup of coffee" was a really bad Americano.

I doubt many places had a drip machine, most of Europe does espresso coffee. It does really depend but in most places a "cup of coffee" is going to be a bit ambiguous, what kind of coffee? Just a cup of espresso coffee would be pretty full on!

Yes, believe it or not, you understand the core of the issue! That ambiguity was the problem. I'd be in a cafe where the menu said "coffee" and I'd order it with no way of knowing what I was actually going to get until it was in front of me.

More often than not in my anecdata, it was a bad Americano. And not a good Americano. A bad one.

I rarely see people order Americanos in Europe, and when they do, they are usually Americans (and actually, the invention and name of the Americano is indeed to please American soldiers who were not used to espresso). Most cafes won't really know what a good Americano is supposed to be because it's unusual to order one and the baristas themselves probably never drink it. A typical customer either wants a tiny cup of pure espresso, or a milk-based drink like a cappuccino.

In at least some modern (European) places it's called batch brew. If they don't have that either, your next best option will be a v60.

The German chain (I think?) Espresso house has always served me a decent Americano, and they're pretty widespread in Europe.

The worst espresso (machiatto) I ever had was from Fabrique in Stockholm. It tasted like straight vinegar.

I think a lot of this sentiment comes from one dark roast in particular: whatever Starbucks brews has the nastiest, most bitter after taste. It's probably the perfect blend to compliment their sugary concoctions, since there's no mistaking the strong flavor it adds, but it's (subjectively) quite awful on its own. I find dark roasts from nearly any other brand to be more tolerable, with all sorts of interesting flavors and variations.

Starbucks' roasters are extremely proud of their techniques, too. They're all mysterious and secretive about how they do it, or at least one of their VPs was when I talked to him about it a decade ago. I think they're aware that coffee enthusiasts generally find it to be bad but didn't find that to be a negative to their business. You're probably right that it's because that bitterness goes well with sugar.

That actually holds true for coffee in parts of Asia, too. If you buy from a street vendor in Vietnam or Singapore, to name two, you get some cheap-ass Robusta mix that was roasted to hell, brewed for hours (or days) and then fixed with a big dollop of condensed milk. My wife describes the flavor as burnt tires and old motor oil. But personally, I love it.

I remember when Starbucks just began to branch out of Seattle... people went gaa-gaa over it. A grad school buddy of mine was so honored when Starbucks brought a franchise to his town. Today it's reviled. I doubt the coffee is any different, but it's become too commonplace to possibly be good.

It’s consistent. I can be very happy getting an Americano in Austin and an Americano in Boston and know i’m getting a comfortable cup of coffee.

I do appreciate the specialty roasters we have here.. but i don’t need to hate on starbucks - other than the ones that treat their employees like crap

Starbucks is like McDonalds, but for coffee instead of burgers.

I dunno, I don’t need my coffee super fancy, but I do need it conveniently located right next to my office.

This is the correct answer (to whatever the question was). I'm no great connoisseur (see my reply re: Walmart instant), but Starbucks is convenient, consistent and acceptable. And I generally like the people who work there as well.

It definitely seems to contrast with say, Dunkin. Some Dunkin locations have great coffee. Others have terrible coffee. Probably all up to how the day's staff wants to brew it.

Dunkin went out of business in my region decades ago. I remember it fondly from the 80s (a friend of mine was a baker there), but now it's not nearly as easy to get a donut and a cup of coffee (of whatever quality) as it was.

Perhaps. But that's how Starbucks works, by buying shitty beans and dark roasting them. It also makes it easier to have consistent coffee (consistently burnt, that is).

Starbucks coffee tastes like battery acid.

Here in the UK, I'd say Starbucks tastes of nothing. Hot brown drink. Their ground bags you can buy and take home are equally a non-event. Not sure why people rave about it. Coffee is some of the worst I've had, not withstanding UK McDonald's.

Which blend? They have multiple, including a pretty light one that you may have mistakenly gotten. “Starbucks” isn’t a blend or a flavor profile.

Isn't "hot and brown" a mainstay of British cuisine in general?

Only according to Americans, tbh, and often ones who have never visited.

Ones who have visited the UK, when asked where they ate, often ate at hellish tourist traps or absolute shit tier chain pubs like Wetherspoons or Greene King.

I'm an American who has lived in the UK. I can report back that we're definitely not the ones who invented the term "eating beige".

Given the choice, I'll actually get a small cup of black coffee from McD's anytime. At least it's only a couple dollars.

you shouldn't taste battery acid. really. don't.

Starbucks Pike Place beans are fantastic. Don't know what your talking about. And I've tried numerous "specialty" beans.

I've always considered Pike Place Roast the worst beans that Starbucks ever foisted upon their trusting customer base; the fact that it's the only one brewed all day is an affront to decency (but that's just me). The best is Christmas Blend.

Many classic coffee places are steeped in tradition. How would they know there are other ways to roast or brew coffee?

There's a good reason that the most interesting espresso machine you can buy right now was from a successful Kickstarter, manufactured in Hong Kong and is controlled by an Android tablet(https://decentespresso.com) and some of the more interesting coffee nerdery or equipment is coming from the UK, Australia or the US.

Everyone has been doing classic medium dark espresso roasts and hitting the cocao, caramel flavour profiles since forever. Or getting really dark till you get the burnt and rubber notes. The point of lighter roasts and all this nerdery isn't to tell you what to drink. It's to show what's possible with the processing of green beans, roasting and brewing, and to bring potential new drinkers in.

Snobbery in any past-time sucks, but discounting things based on that snobbery is also a bit silly.

There's some interesting history of the decent machine/business in this video. A friend sent it to me when we were discussing what it would take to build an espresso machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKA2COJRt6M

This is so cool, thanks for sharing!

There's a difference between a snob and a connoisseur. The amount of roast is just one more variable of dozens. I personally prefer medium roast beans when doing a pour over, but you can't go wrong with dark roast in an espresso, aeropress or moka pot. It's rather difficult to compare coffee that's brewed in such drastically different ways. Like the author of the article, I also don't mind bad coffee.

> There's a difference between a snob and a connoisseur.

I wholly agree with this statement. I worked in the coffee industry for a long time for a roaster that purchased some amazing coffees. We were buying top quality coffees at a time when most of our "specialty coffee" competitors were too cheap to pay for it.

Some people really do not know what they are tasting and are so prone to suggestion. Some people also like to assume the identity of the coffee snob to feel some type of superiority to others or feel some type of belonging to a group.

Personal taste is subjective. Some people like dark roasted coffees because they dislike acidity and like smokey flavours. To me a dark roasted coffee tastes like an ashtray. Taste itself and by taste I mean sweet, salty, sour, umami is not subjective however different people taste these in varying intensities. I happen to be sensitive to acidity so what tastes sour to me might not taste sour to another person. Aromatics too are not subjective with the exception of coriander or with people that suffer neurological taste disorders. Smell is an undeveloped sense in most people though so without visual cues a person might not be able to articulate what they are tasting or may generalise eg saying citrus instead of tangelo.

Like the author I always took the opportunity to drink bad coffee whenever it was the only coffee available. To me it was a recalibration. Nowadays I drink the house espresso blend of my old workplace though an aeropress. It's funny to think I would drink up to 20 coffees a day and now I just have one a day. I brew the aeropress with the same recipe every day. It works out probably 75% of the time producing a nice simple chocolatey cup of coffee.

This is how I feel as well. I've never come to appreciate light or medium with pour over or a good showerhead machine with proper temp. I can be ok with medium out of a moka pot as an Americano, but Aero press turns anything lighter than Vienna into something I can't finish. Moka pot with TJs french roast at medium fine grind is what I usually make. Dunkin donuts boxed coffee for meetings is right up there with my favorites though.

I think this is the same principle as pretty much everything. Variety is almost always sought after, and then within that variety specific characteristics are cherished. I think the "anti dark roast" thing is "anti uniformity". The darker the roast, the closer every bean gets to tasting exactly the same.

For example, why do people dump on pop music and think of jazz as "real music"?

> For example, why do people dump on pop music and think of jazz as "real music"?

Because jazz+jazz=jazz

https://youtu.be/GAbg8X9-uBI

lmfao that guy got the perfect "npr voice" going on

He also voices Homer Simpson. Very skilled!

This is a very accurate perception.

As a side note I once had a conversation with the head roster of a place I worked at. I floated the idea of accentuating certain characteristics of brewed coffee by microdosing i.e. adding minute amounts of long chain starches to increase natural sweetness in the cup. The head roaster saw this as being fundamentally wrong and unethical.

Maybe it was an egotistical response but in his mind the roasters job was to present the best possible unique expression of the green beans and doing what I suggested would be interfering with this.

On the pourover side of things, coffee can tend towards a tea-like substance, with some degree of translucency and delicate flavours, the kinds of flavours that you need light roasting to preserve.

It's in part exploring different kinds of drinks that can be made from coffee beans.

You can also get a different kind of espresso, but it's wasted if it's going to be mixed into a milk and sugar concoction.

It's not wasted. Maybe I'm more sensitive than average, but I can absolutely tell the difference between different beans and roasts even after cream/sugar has been added.

Working as a barista I was always amused when a down to earth tradesman who added sugar to their coffee would pick up on subtle blend changes while others who assumed coffee lover or foodie as part of their identity would be surprised when we casually mentioned that the house blend was seasonal.

Discovering that coffee could taste good (aka light roast) is what led me to become a slight coffee snob.

At the time I didn’t even know what light roast was, but I sure as hell liked it.

(Providing this anecdote since many others here are hating on light roast)

You probably say that because you don't like the slightly harsh, bitter taste of dark roast coffee and prefer the subtle fruity notes and aroma you can get in lighter roast. I, for one, love the harsher, bitter style. Same reason I eat 90% dark chocolate. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Honestly? Hated the coffee in Italy, found it sort of tolerable in Austria. However, that's almost certainly because I have no appreciation for robusta, even in blends. I'm a dark roast fan, even: we all tend to talk past each other because we haven't adequately appreciated just how learned (and ingrained) our preferences are.

(this is really in support of your overall thrust, I suspect)

> a distinctively American coffee snob hipster thing

Didn't it start in Northern Europe and flourish in Australia?

Australians I’ve met all seem to think they invented something they call “coffee culture” (or at least that Melbourne did).

I don’t know why they think this because it seems to be exactly the same as Seattle in the 2000s.

Perhaps because it’s older? Coffee culture took off post WW2 in Australia with an influx in Italians but it didn’t start to catch on in the US until the 90s.

Coffee culture has existed in the US since the 1700s at least when Americans started drinking coffee instead of tea to spite the British, it's just a different coffee culture than the modern cafe espresso culture and it's not "better" or "worse".

Wasn't Starbucks founded in the early 70s? It's an extension of the already existing Seattle coffee scene at the time.

I think Australia has a fondness for espresso but not coffee. FFS the default drink in a McDonald's breakfast isn't even coffee but hot chocolate. What kind of coffee culture does that?

Keep shifting those goal posts, but you’re still off by 20 years from when it was taking hold in Australia

The US has had Italians for just as long, and unlike Australia didn't let the mafia corner the produce industry.

The big North American chains (Starbucks, McD, Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Van Houtes, etc.) push a "dark roast" as their somehow gourmet option. In all cases these are cheap old beans that have been over-roasted so that 'burnt' stands in for flavour.

Many people have taken that experience to mean all dark roasts are bad, when in fact it's not the same thing as buying a fresh darker roast blend from a local roastery.

> American coffee snob hipster thing

I mean there's a reason café americano is a thing: Take a perfectly good espresso and dilute it down.

I’ll say that a lot of these countries drink coffee with sugar or milk. Sometimes a lot of both. They also expect coffee to be super bitter. That’s great if you like it that way. If you don’t, then light roast specialty coffee might be your thing.

I like how James Hoffmann phrases it. He describes specialty coffee as different. Not necessary better or worse. Just different.

I most definitely go to Italy and complain about the quality of the coffee. And I do actually appreciate bitterness in coffee.

Italians drink espresso, and I don't know about Austria, but Turkey, Cuba and Vietnam drink heavily sweetened coffee. The coffee from those places are delicious in their own right, but don't exactly compare to light roast drip coffee, if a cup of black coffee is what you like.

Well many of those places (outside of Italy) add stuff to the coffee like milk or sugar. In that case you want a dark roast because the flavors get cut by the additives. But if you’re drinking it black then a dark roast is very nasty.

It's literally just the typical "If you don't share my tastes then you are wrong" that you get in lots of dumb snobbery circles.

Light roasts have higher caffeine and taste less burnt. It’s just a fact.

In the Philippines, there's a motto in cafes - "Bitter is Better". Yuk... Dark roasts (which makes it bitter) bring out everything bad about coffee IMHO. I'm with the parent comment here - medium to light roasts is where the actual flavour comes from.

Italian dark roast is not American/Starbucks level dark roast.

It's actually kind of funny, because I've noticed that there is one little coffee subculture in America that is big on dark roasts -- you'll find a pretty decent variety of dark roasts at the right-wing-political coffee roasteries. I'm not sure how we turned coffee roast level into a partisan political issue, but somehow we did.

Wow - as a New Zealander that almost sounds reasonable. Any other food splits: White-wine versus red-wine? Chicken versus steak? Ice cubes or warm water in Scotch whiskey? Types of distilled alcohol? Etcetera?

The idea that people are eating soy is apparently a whole big deal to far-right-ists for some reason.

Nearly a quarter of Brexit leave voters (23%) say they prefer their steaks well done, compared with only 12% of remain voters. Source: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume...

I say whisk(e)y of any type lean towards the right, wine is left, steak can be a unifier, but chicken might get you called "soy".

"soy" (or, sometimes, "soi" when used as a prefix) turning into a derogatory name for a liberal among a certain right-wing subculture has a really interesting (to me, at least) history to it.

Your list is interesting too -- I'd have claimed steak as a moderately right-wing food. Though it sorta depends. Filets, NY Strips, and Rib-eyes are pretty neutral, but T-Bone and Porterhouse steaks are more right-leaning.

Certainly, anything "intentionally vegan" is a left-wing food.

Chicken seems to be consumed by most everyone (as are eggs).

Anything with tofu or other soy product (except soy sauce) is probably left-wing unless it is a dish from a region which has historically used it (especially if the tofu is a substitute for meat) -- so, for example, Agedashi Tofu is politically neutral, as is something like Mapo Tofu, but an Americanized sweet and sour tofu would be a little bit left, and any kind of "tofu steaks" or anything where the soy is a meat replacement is farther-left.

Avocado is very slightly left. But, if you spread it on a toast with eggs, radishes, and microgreens making an Avocado Toast, it's now far-left.

There's all kinds of really interesting nuance out there on the subject of partisan foods.

Avocado ceases to be left if you're Hispanic. Then all bets are off. Also, tofu cooked in any way that people who consume tofu on a regular basis actually eat it is slathered in ground meat, so leftists have something of a conundrum: the desire for shallow "authenticity" is pitted against the desire for hippieish veganism. It's a tough choice.

Hey now, Jura (makes whisky) advertises on the Crooked Media Podcasts, so we can't accuse them of being right wing.

Generally I think of whisk(e)y as having like all brown liquors, if anything, a bit of an elitist vibe but not really a left-right association.

I find wine to have more of an elitist twinge vs whisk(e)y - bourbon especially. I don’t think a fifth of Wild Turkey 101 is particularly elitist.

All of the bourbons I've tried were too sweet, I didn't get into them. Although I guess it could be the case that, since I didn't like them at first, I never got to the good ones.

So, I will be the likely ignorant gatekeeper and say, "yeah, I couldn't imagine being elitist about that weird syrup liquor."

That’s interesting. What kind of selection do you have? There’s a pretty big craze over the Buffalo Trace distillery lately. Their normal bottle - just called Buffalo Trace - is the most bourbon bourbon ever, and what I recommend as a benchmark (even if there are plenty of ‘better’ ones).

I don't remember, to be honest -- definitely something super mass market that I just picked up randomly. I'll check that one out, thanks.

There are right wing political coffee roasteries?

Surprisingly, yes.

"Mainstream" ones like Black Rifle Coffee (which is trying to lose its political image and focus on being coffee for our military, now that it is big wants to be able to keep growing by "selling across the aisle")

But also a whole range of farther-right ones -- Liberty Coffee is one, Stocking Mill Coffee made a bit of a name for itself by commenting over the Kyle Rittenhouse controversy, Thrasher Coffee is another, and then there are a bunch more I can't remember the name of that make a "1776" or gun-themed roasts.

I've tried some of them -- like I said, they have dark roasts. Some are kinda trash and are clearly just trying to trade on the backlash against liberal coffee, others have pretty tasty dark roasts.

I just find it fascinating how dark-roast-focused the right-wing coffee scene is and how ultra-light-roast the left-wing coffee scene is these days.

I personally find "food partisanship" in America generally to be a fascinating topic, so I tend to go out of my way to experience some of the "controversy"

Huh.

Coffee shops definitely have a vaguely liberal vibe to them.

Otherwise, though -- it is kinda funny that there's apparently a left-leaning association for coffee that they feel the need to push back on. Like coffee is kind of a ubiquitous thing that people consume to help them concentrate at their bland corporate jobs.

And the story behind sourcing it is... something that left leaning people are often not super psyched about. I guess that leads to the whole fair trade coffee thing, which... maybe that could be though of as left-leaning?

But whatever, the giant union-busting corporation Starbucks is sometimes assumes to be left-leaning, so what can you do, right?

The smaller "third wave coffee" shops generally have a liberal bent to them -- largely because the movement was born in Portland and Seattle. You are much more likely to see an "ACAB" sticker, a rainbow flag, or other left-virtue device on display than anything on the other side of the spectrum.

Starbucks may be anti-union, but they have frequently taken public stances of a liberal variety (particularly around visible issues like LGBT activism, and occasionally on guns) which has left those who felt alienated as a ready market for coffee without the moralizing (or coffee with their sort of moralizing)

I often try to find a mainstream trend in the other direction to compare it to, but there are so few mainstream consumer categories dominated by the right, mostly due to demographics.

Strangely quite a few seem to be drop shipped coffee. Which I didn't know was a thing, but seems to be a real enough business. I'm sure there are plenty of other brands doing it too.

https://www.temeculacoffeeroasters.com/copy-of-drop-shipping...

Drop shipping, white label coffee is an enormous business these days - a considerable number of "influencers" have started launching their own "coffee brands".

Usually they are pretty cagey about the fact its white labelled.

White label is a much better term for it, thanks.

So, they're just fleecing right-wingers by marketing them anything that's opposite to "the liberals"? I can't imagine making my coffee, beverage, or food preferences based on political affiliation.

The right wing are incredibly easy to market to.

Some of the products I've seen shilled almost exclusively to that market are hilarious.

One of my favourites is a certain "gold subscription" service, where you sign up for X$/month, and every time you have paid enough in to cover the cost of an amount of literal gold, they send you the gold.

I did some calculations at the time based on my own purchasing of gold in the past and worked out that people buying via that service are getting absolutely rinsed.

The ad/sponcon copy tends to blather about inflation, etc, etc.

Why do you think that might be?

I believe https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ is the biggest, though I believe there was drama surrounding them.

Yes, I was warned against drinking their "cuck coffee", but I never achieved clarity on what their unforgivable offense was.

In case you actually wanted to know, there seem to be two key incidents that led to Black Rifle losing their reputation as the place to get right-wing coffee.

The major one was an incident involving Kyle Rittenhouse. Shortly after his release from prison, he was photographed smiling and wearing some Black Rifle swag. This happened at a fairly sensitive time for Black Rifle, which was in the middle of opening its first physical coffee shop (in San Antonio, I think). The owner/founder posted on social media some negative commentary about Rittenhouse and indicating that the swag was not given by the company and did not represent the company's support of either Rittenhouse or his actions. As you might expect, the social media "conversation" on the subject got very hot very fast. One of the smaller right-wing coffee shops stepped into the fray and became very vocal supporters of Rittenhouse and his defense, making a bit of a name for themselves (and possibly a lot of money).

The lesser event actually occurred first, and was also some commentary that the owner/founder of Black Rifle Coffee made. I wasn't following the Food Partisanship beat at that time, so I don't know exactly what was said, but he posted to social media some commentary about gun rights that was less guns-for-all than you'd expect from a company with their imagery (and product names), and that talked about the pro-Trump part of the Republican party as not being the good guys, whether armed or not.

There's been some debate about the degree to which these incidents were about a company trying to continue to grow (and thus needing to gain mainstream "legitimacy") or whether the founder was actually never a right-wing ally -- but either way, these events were seen as a betrayal by a portion of the right-wing coffee community.

For ex: https://gab.com/RangerCandyCoffeeCompany

Huh. I have no idea what to do with this bit of information, but I did ask for it, so thanks.

sadly yes. some featuring gun themed branding for incomprehensible reasons.