This just doesn't make sense to me. There are a great number of beans and vegetables that taste bitter or unpleasant "raw" but are very delicious with a bit of heat and time.

If you don't think it makes sense, then don't do it. There's no reason to argue with people who in their subjective experience have enjoyed it.

People do eat tea leaves (matcha for example, or Burmese pickled tea leaf salad). But a dry spoonful wouldn't be a good way to get a feel for a given tea, I agree.

you just drink water which has super small ground up coffee particles in it...

Even the oft-maligned Nescafe is pleasant for me if I make it correctly. Not the original formula, but the 100% coffee one without the extra ingredients. I thought it tasted horrible when I first tried it, but if I drowned it in a lot of soy milk it actually made for a fairly pleasant drink.

In general, people are going to be happier if they stop trying to cultivate aristocratic aversions to common food, and instead start cultivating curiosity and an interest in finding ways to enjoy things they didn't expect themselves to enjoy.

a wise old friend of mine once said "you think you like chocolate, but what you actually like is sugar in cocoa"

There’s a difference in taste between dark‑roast beans from Starbucks vs medium‑roast beans from your local coffee roaster.

I've never had a coffee bean that taste bad on its own, but tasted good in coffee. Similarly, every coffee bean that tasted good brewed, also tasted good on its own.

By far my favorite coffee-making device I've got. I'd just do drip but cleaning the machines is a PITA (lots of people don't bother and their coffee all tastes like mildew, it's disgusting) and they all expose hot water to lots of plastic, seems like. I have a French press but it's a bigger pain to clean. Pourover cup takes up less space than any of that, too.

One other factor that matters for some, including me, is that nobody else in my family drinks coffee, and the Aeropress is an incredibly great way of doing coffee for one that with maximum results and minimum cleanup.

Other people in my family drink tea, so we keep a teapot and the Aeropress immediately next to the kettle and it works out great for us.

James Hoffman, mentioned in the OP, has an excellent method of using it though. Removing all the bullshit and serving a slap in the face to the culture around it, I've actually come to enjoy this device using his no-nonsense "recipe".

I still prefer a good pour over but sometimes a quick plunge with the aeropress hits the spot.

I disagree. I think the reasons are all solid. It's (used to be) cheap, almost unbreakable, easy to use, easy to clean, easy to carry, no faffing (unless you want to be pretentious), highly tolerant on incontinences regarding grind size or brew times. There is no other coffee brewer that ticks all these boxes simultaneously, and I tried them all. The only downsides are it doesn't make huge hearthy portions for multiple people.

>People are so damn pretentious about it with their recipes and championships.

So what? You don't have to be. Just use it the way it suits you best. That's kind of the beauty of it: you can use it like a caveman or like a campion barista if that's your jam.

Now re-reading it, I am not sure if that reading is entirely justified given the "removing all the bullshit and serving a slap in the face" in the latter sentences. Oh well!

I did an experiment with this (and you can, too!), comparing the same beans ground 5 min, 2 days, 4 days, and 6 days before brewing. The freshly ground beans were the clear winner.

It makes sense, though. Why do we grind coffee to brew it? To maximize the surface area and exposure to the water. That same increased surface area causes it to react with the atmosphere much more rapidly than whole beans.

Not everyone is going to like less-roasted beans. Less roasted beans have strong, distinct flavors which might be characterized as "green" or "floral" or "woodsy", and it's true that a lot of the individuality of the bean varieties is obscured by darker roasts. But I for one usually prefer the standard roasts of the mainstream vendors over the light roasts you can seek out at smaller boutique vendors.

I wish I could find the word that describes the lighter roast taste that I don't like (to me, it's the IPA of coffee) because I have yet to be able to walk into a coffee roaster and ask them, "Is your coffee <term of art>?" so I know not to even bother.

As an experiment, try Starbucks Kenya. It’s one of the most aggressively citrus-y among the coffees they serve — that sharp flavor even survives the darkish Starbucks “medium” roast.

Starbucks and Peet’s and Red Bay and Equator are all good for me. When I was in Europe I didn’t have a single bad espresso. Here I dislike many of them and stick to espressos from classic roast establishments. I wish it was easier to feed my occasional espresso kick.

You might experiment with the same bean and different grind settings to see if that helps with the taste you don’t like. Though age of the beans messes with this too which is maddening. Generally speaking though lighter roasts are more fiddly to brew so get messed up more frequently.

that is always a possibility.

It why you want to have a pro brew up the best cup that is possible from those light roast beans, and test out the flavour.

If you're a self taught brewer, you might find that you've made mistakes, and also mistakenly took those mistakes as the flavour of the bean, thus incorrectly dislike it.

There are two kind of "sourness" in coffee, one is of acidity, which is a (for some highly desirable) feature of the beans, which can be toned down with darker roasting levels. The other is astringency (tea-like) which is a sign of extraction defect and generally not liked by all. This can be controlled with grind settings.

Anything that could be called “woodsy” or “grassy”, or possibly “green” depending on what you mean by that is a roast defect. Either under roasted, or not roasted properly. I roast coffee that is frequently on the very end of light roasts and it should never have those flavors.

Floral is a flavor note that some coffees have especially at the lighter end, but not all of them.

me: :(

Kirby64: ”What?”

My point is that taste is not that subjective, but taste preference may be subjective. If you're a coffee roasting professional, you would attempt to get rid of such flavors since you're not getting the most out of the coffee.

For what it’s worth, I worked as a barista for a spell a long time ago and blind testing is a hobby of mine; I’ve done lots of dueling press pots experimenting with different varieties and brewing techniques. I also have a hobby of trying out new eateries and cafes. I’m a hobbyist, who loves coffee — but this love has been nurtured mostly outside of professional circles.

You're conveying meaning with your vocabulary even if you don't mean to. If you don't have the proper words to describe it, that's fine. Like I said, some people even enjoy particular defects in coffee. For instance, growing defects known as 'quakers' have a particular peanuty taste. It's considered undesirable, but some people might like that.

As to your general idea of conveying that light roasts all taste a certain way, I don't think I can agree to that notion. There's such a wide variety of flavors you can cultivate depending on the origin, roasting style, and processing method that you can't really make that generalization.

One thing I will say: many coffees that are advertised as 'light roast', especially in the non-specialty markets, tend to have one or more of the following problems: 1) underroasted (which leads to grassy/green flavors), 2) not actually roasted to 'light' (maybe more medium), 3) poor temperature control, as a result of trying to roast light (leading to 'baked' flavoring), 4) poor coffee selection for a lighter roast, leading to much more green/grassy flavoring as a result.

If you haven’t given that or a caramel macchiato a try, I’d highly recommend it. You might be surprised. I was.

say what you like about coffee - it's disgusting, bitter, horrible tasting stuff.

but chocolate ? I shall beat thee as fine as the dust of the earth, I shall stamp thee as the mire of the street, and cast thee abroad.

And so is chocolate, unless you put an absurd amount of sugar in it.

I drink my coffee black, though, no milk or sugar. When I've got a good bean and I prepared it just right, it reminds me of unsweetened chocolate, in a good way.

After all, coffee and chocolate both originate with the roasted seeds of a fruit.

I used to be the same way. Although I liked the smell of coffee, I absolutely hated the taste. Then I met my wife, who would make a pot of coffee (and not "brown water" either) at 8PM and I guess I just got used to it. Now it's an everyday thing.

liking the "brown" chocolatey/caramelly flavour isn't lowbrow - you found a flavour you enjoy and it is valid.

The idea that only those people who enjoy the light floral type are "true" coffee enjoyers (and everything else low brow - including sugar laden lattes) needs to stop.

The specialty dark roast will have notes of cookies, chocolate, nuts. Lots of brown roasty flavour.

Starbucks tastes bitter. With very little nuance. (Unless you cold brew it, then you can leave most of the bitter behind)