Smell of coffee grounds not transferring into cup flavours

Discuss flavors, brew temperatures, blending, and cupping notes.
Rytopa
Posts: 228
Joined: 7 years ago

#1: Post by Rytopa »

Hi HBers,

I have recently been home roasting some Yunnan Peaberry coffee beans on a simple stove top drum roaster. The roast is a medium light roast.

Letting it rest for a 3 days before using it for V60. Now the interesting part is, smelling the spent grounds after the V60 brewing is a delight, perfuming notes of in your face blueberry fragrance. However the fragrance of the bluberry notes does not seem to reflect in the cup. Its seems like the "blueberry" is stuck in the grounds and not seeping into the coffee itself. The taste of the coffee itself is rather bland, or boring.

I have tried a few variables in terms of coffee grind size and timing, but it seems like it does not do much for the above problem. Any suggestions or experiences with the above issue? Could it be a under development issue?

thepilgrimsdream
Posts: 310
Joined: 10 years ago

#2: Post by thepilgrimsdream »

A lot of times dry fragrance and wet aroma can tell you quite a bit about what a coffee will taste like. I'd expect a blueberry note to somewhat transfer.

Have you tried a simple cupping bowl?

I'd shoot for a 16:1 ratio in 2:30-3:00 @ 198f


Bland/boring usually signifies baked.

Any more info on the roast/your brews?

User avatar
another_jim
Team HB
Posts: 13872
Joined: 19 years ago

#3: Post by another_jim »

Rytopa wrote:Now the interesting part is, smelling the spent grounds after the V60 brewing is a delight, perfuming notes of in your face blueberry fragrance. However the fragrance of the bluberry notes does not seem to reflect in the cup. Its seems like the "blueberry" is stuck in the grounds and not seeping into the coffee itself. The taste of the coffee itself is rather bland, or boring.
Well reported -- sadly, this is a common experience; David Schomer, an espresso maven, went so far as to say the goal of good coffee or espresso prep is to get the brew to taste the same way the coffee smells. So getting a cup in which the fragrance is fully present is more an aspiration than a given.

You can get some idea of how overwhelmed the flavor is by using an old taster's trick (wine, whiskey, coffee -- everyone uses it): chew on a small sip and let it distribute in your mouth, at the same time breath in and out through your nose. This forces the vapors into your nose backward. The taste experience is called the "finish" or aftertaste.

Also, the aromatics can become more apparent as the cup cools to lukewarm. At this point, the overall balance of flavors and smells is most individualized, and it is easiest to tell similar coffees apart.

Mostly when this happens, the aromatics are not absent, but overwhelmed. The most volatile ingredients tend to brew first, not last; but they can get swallowed up by buffering compounds that do extract late. Your best bet is to try grinding coarser, brewing faster, and underextracting a little.
Jim Schulman

Rytopa (original poster)
Posts: 228
Joined: 7 years ago

#4: Post by Rytopa (original poster) »

Thanks for the reply, i shall attempt to roast more aggressively to prevent the bake flavours. I tried cupping but i guess my tasting skills are not up to mark, they all taste the same to me..lol..

Common logic for me was to grind finer to "extract" the flavour out which did not really work, never considered going the other direction.

I shall try grinding coarser, would it make sense to to slow my pour rate to compensate the coarseness?