endlesscycles wrote:quinine / quinic acid? like tonic?

I get what you're describing as far as a taste evaluation, but if I detected that in a coffee, I'd personally just consider it a defect in the coffee itself, not a flaw in the roasting process. It would be the antithesis of a sweet, bright cup of coffee.

quinic acid comes from hydrolysis of chlorogenic acid and is associated with a slightly sour, clean finish. it's in every coffee.

thinking how to mimic the light roast described (I've had several bags from one sf roaster), possibly 6-7 min to yellow, 2-3 to crack and dump <1min?

It's a product of every roasted coffee, I know. I'm saying if I detect it over the sweetness, or if it overly masks the sweetness, then it becomes a problem for me.

And the short, fast finish you describe, I imagine it would work well only for a certain subset of coffees. Ideally, ones that stand up enough with some narrower, specific positive flavor component clear enough that it still accentuates the coffee in a good way, even though it was finished extremely quickly and the volatile aromatic compounds haven't been fully developed.

One that contrasts this was a train wreck of a coffee that I accidentally chose to serve here at a meet up of forum folks about 2 years ago, it was an ultra-light roast recommended by and from Ritual, some kind of Colombian. It was disgusting, underdeveloped and damn near looked like a bag of quakers, they were so light. Ran thru the grinder the immediate area smelled like really bad tomato soup. The coffee tasted like sour tomato soup. It was the last time I took a barista's recommendation from Ritual, and bad enough that I took the remaining 90% of the bag back in and asked for a replacement because it was so bad I was certain it was defective. They were frustrated, but slightly accommodating and sent me home with a different roast of the same coffee. It too brewed up very sour, just lacking the severity of odd tomato. It went in the trash and that was the last roast I've ever bought from Ritual. I don't plan on going thru that again. Their ever changing "sweet tooth espresso" is an insult of the word sweet. But I digress.

Long story short, I don't think very light roasted, fast finishing profiles accentuate many coffees. And I think the people behind the roasters at places like Ritual and Four Barrel do.

If the hipsters hanging out to blog and listen to the vinyl there, found another place that was newer or more fashionable, I doubt Four Barrel would be able to sell much coffee for very long. Turn off the wi-fi and Ritual would turn into a ghost town.

Is there anybody these days who likes their coffee to taste like ...uh coffee?
I still don't understand this quest for the blueberry or lemon taste in what is a berry of its own being coffee.
Coffee has a very distictiv taste of its own which is coffee.
If it's too bright it tastes unpleasantly sour and if it's too dark it tastes like an ashtray to me.
In between it tastes like coffee as it should.
Any roast that hasn' t gone a full 5 seconds into 2e crack is undrinkable to me.
Must have some Italian blood in me somewhere.I'll ask me mom.

I really enjoy coffee that tastes like coffee, like a nice buttery, clean coffee from Bolivia, but I drop it before second crack where I like most of my coffee. That being said, I also really enjoy sweetness, citrus, florals in other coffees too. I get bored with the same coffee day after day so I like to mix it up and have a couple different origins roasted up at any one time.

Right now I'm enjoying a nice coffee from Colombia roasted from The Excellent Cup that tastes very much like coffee with a bit of sweetness..

Just finished reading this thread all at once and I had a big smile on my face by the end. Couldn't help but think of the song "Still rock and roll to me," by Billy Joel, or maybe "Losing my edge," by LCD Soundsystem...for the "hipsters" among us

Taste, as in what we like, is a funny thing, and is as much a product of our social environment / group affiliations / childhood experiences as it is our brain's interpretation of what's actually going into our mouth. To abandon or change what we like involves changing who we are, to some extent. This is especially true for connoisseurs of wine or coffee, whose identities are wrapped up in their unique sense of what's good.

There's a parallel in sociolinguistics involving regional / social accents. What various studies over the years have found is that the way we speak is as wrapped up in social identity as it is in where we were born and who we grew up listening to. Sometimes consciously, but largely unconsciously, we emulate the speech of those we identify most closely with.

My argument is that there are very few us who are able to completely divorce ourselves from the baggage of what we like, how we think things should taste, and it what it says about us as people. Even those among us who are professional cuppers, tasters, etc, are still doing so within the context of an established framework of taste...otherwise the idea of establishing a cupping score wouldn't be possible.

All that being said, we're social creatures, and our sensory experiences on this planet wouldn't be nearly as rich without a context in which to share and discuss them. So I guess the point of this post was to briefly, theoretically, lift my head from the heavy burden of being a "serious" coffee drinker, laugh at myself and others, and dive right back into it.

BTW, any rebuttal or defense of my accusations will be seen as proof of my point

frank

If you are looking for the Gedeo Worka of memory, at least my memory, you might try Ceremony Coffee's Worka. They had some in at Barista this morning, and it sure smelled like the natural Worka of old.

Best,
David