Often the Coffee and Espresso We Sample Is Not Very Good…
And definitely not perfect.
In fact, we discard a high percentage of the coffee and espresso we buy as customers – prior to finishing our purchases. On some days, we might throw out 3 of 5 purchases.
When you look at it that way, it’s really quite an expensive hobby. What drives someone to do such a thing? It’s not something you plan in advance. You don’t plan to create an expensive hobby where you regularly throw away money, so to speak.
It is rooted in a search for excellence. Seeking the Holy Grail of coffee – and really it could apply to any other interest as well.
We have had multiple discussions about this over a long period of time.
We rarely write about our experiences with poorly executed espresso – other than a generic reference. Instead we focus on quality and finding the coffee beans and cafes worth sharing.
We’re looking for the perfect cup of coffee.
What is the Perfect Cup of Coffee?
In the practical world, there is no such thing.
Finding it is not an achievable objective. Maybe that’s because coffee flavor – and the coffee experience itself – is a variable, not a constant.
Cafe operators and baristas have good days and bad. Beans sit in the direct sunlight – in the hopper of the grinder – and sweat for an hour or two, on a hot day. Some days humidity is erratic and it’s a challenge to keep the grinder settings adjusted properly to compensate. Beans vary seasonally. There are lots of components and variability is at the heart of it. Really, nothing is constant.
We have good and bad days as well. Some days the taster is “off”.
When you throw in the fact that tasting something is totally subjective, objectivity is a real challenge.
How do you define the standard? What is perfect?
What We Really Mean
Thinking about it, what we really mean by the perfect cup of coffee is consistency in flavor and preparation. Quality equipment brings us much closer to achieving the perfect cup of coffee where our “subjective” reaction is “man, that tastes good,” repeatedly.
At the same time, every single person has their own version of what that means.
There are a lot of people who love Dunkin ® Donuts coffee – for example – a lot of people. That’s cool and I’m genuinely glad they enjoy their donut and coffee when they pull out of the drive-through. Over and over again, I’ve tried to like it so I can enjoy that experience with friends of mine who do.
It just doesn’t work for me.
On the other side of that coin, the person who is savoring the morning Dunkin ® probably wouldn’t like the coffee I just made before I sat down at my desk. They might, but probably not.
So Your Perfect Is Different Than My Perfect
In order to evaluate “flavor” in a way that is objective, our job is to learn to appreciate a variety of coffee flavors – each for its own specific qualities and variations.
My wife tends to be much more objective about variations than me. Although I am growing constructively from her example.
One of the big elements to this chain of reasoning is perspective. Ten people observe the same event and we get ten variations of what happened when they describe it later. The same is true (or can be) with coffee.
It goes back to the idea of content versus context. Change the context of the content and you change the meaning – or the perspective – of that content.
It is an interpretive event.
So “how we see something” (or evaluate flavor) is a function of our “perspective” on what we see or what we taste. Our perspective on anything, for all intents and purposes, is our truth.
At least it is our interpretation of truth at that moment. Moments change. Contexts change. Perceptions change.
The key is that we don’t have to be right. We can share other people’s interpretations of perception and still enjoy our own.
Sensory Interpretation Is Often Tied to Emotion
Your memory of your first good cup of coffee is different than mine, for example. The way you learned to enjoy coffee varies from my experience.
So many of the memories we have about coffee are tied to the emotional experiences we had during the creation of those memories.
The memory of your grandmother’s loving voice is connected to a fresh pot of coffee with dessert.
In your mind’s eye, you can see the smile of your significant other – across the table – when you first enjoyed a cup at your favorite cafe together.
You remember the time you spent all day outside in the snow. You can feel the warmth of a crackling fire inside the cabin that night when your friend’s dad hands you a hot cup of coffee.
Maybe you remember how the styrofoam cup made the coffee taste at the hospital. You were waiting to hear how your sister was doing after the accident.
Often we associate coffee experiences with travel.
That’s because we always seek out new coffee cafes whenever we travel. The fact that we like traveling and experiencing new things enhances our coffee experience – and more often than not – the memories we create are happy moments.
So over the long haul, we have lots of happy coffee memories.
Maybe Not Perfect, But Pretty Darn Good
So all in all, we have had a lot of coffee experiences – probably more than most people – just in sheer numbers.
Out of all those experiences, there is a relatively small percentage of really good coffee moments.
Out of the hundreds of cafes we have visited, you can probably count on two hands the ones that we really enjoyed. None of them produced a perfect cup of coffee, but they came close.
At least in each of those cases, the majority of the elements that create those “perfect cup of coffee” perceptions were in synch during those visits.
One of the best ways to move in the direction of creating a “perfect cup of coffee” is with a good quality espresso machine. Maintaining stable pressure and temperature are key elements in the proper extraction of quality espresso.
We have not found the perfect cup of coffee, but we’re still looking.
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