Balance makes me think of sensitization.

Like with Beethoven, what I used to hear as a screech out of balance, I now might hear as a lush peach after having listened to it over and over again. Now the radio bores me to death. It's really something that is understood through experiencing rather than reading. I'm not even sure if it'd work with all people. I've heard a rumor that good marijuana increases sensitization, but I wouldn't know.

Have I experienced this (not liking or understanding, and then coming to love) with coffee? When I was 8 years old I didn't like coffee, and now I do. When I first met the very best coffees I've ever had, it was usually love at first taste (though those coffees would be very flawed by my current standards). It might take somebody a couple or even dozens of tastings before they begin naturally seeing a very unusual "juniper" flavor of a great Colombian as a positive; maybe they'll never see it as a positive and that's ok. Also, coffees that are part good / part bad (perhaps like most specialty coffees right now), might require some sensitization to see the good through the bad. It's strange how some contrived experience and discipline can bring a person more in touch with a primal experience that they never knew they were capable of.

We all might share the same basic tastes, but the totality of the experience is extremely various. One coffee can't please everybody.

Ultimately forces should be applied in many directions. Sure, much force can go towards enjoying one's OWN sense of balance; be it defined, multivariable or constantly evolving. But, it'd probably be good to drive oneself also to what new school masters in the trade are offering you.

SL28ave wrote:Balance makes me think of sensitization.

I think conditioning of the taste buds may play a big part in the home espresso experience.

I fell in love with espresso in Europe, where the coffee bears no resemblance to the high-class American roasts popular with people on this board, and where I would dump a ton of sugar into the cup and enjoy a sweet, syrupy coffee-flavored shot of energy. But when I got home, and dove head first into making espresso at home, I was very disappointed. I didn't like the taste of the espresso, even if I dumped a ton of sugar in the cup. That only made it worse.

Surely, some of this had to do with not knowing how to make good espresso, some equipment limitations and not having found coffees suited to my tastes. But I believe some of it was just not liking the taste of big, American-style arabica roasts, especially when updosed according to convention. Aside from sour and bitter shots that were due to bad technique on my part, I often found the coffee overpowering and not very pleasant.

There followed a lot of learning and experimentation. A better grinder and a little attention to distribution corrected the extraction mistakes, and I learned how to dose and grind. Perhaps even more important, I found coffees that pleased me and I toned down the concentration by using smaller doses, pulling lungo, making singles, preinfusing, etc. As a result, I'm more and more happy with my shots.

But while all this so-called improvement has been going on, I was also becoming conditioned to those big, American-style roasts. I prepared and consumed 500-1000 shots during the last six months, which must have conditioned my taste buds. I have to believe this has played a big role in how I perceive espresso, and I suspect that the longer I drink the stuff, the more I'll appreciate it. Just like listening to Beethoven.

I suspect if I took my very best cup, and gave it to my wife, she'd spit it out. That's because she's never had an espresso in her life, and is not at all conditioned to drinking highly concentrated black coffee. But if I fed her 500-1000 shots of the stuff over a 6-month period, she might come to like espresso a lot.

"Balance" is just as bad as "natural." With apologies to Winston Churchill, these are irregular nouns:

• Whatever I like is natural and balanced
• Whatever you like is interesting
• Whatever they like is swill

Let's focus on ways to use "natural" and "balance" for something more than self-congratulation.

another_jim wrote:Let's focus on ways to use "natural" and "balance" for something more than self-congratulation.

Yes sir!

Natural to me is roughly...

another_jim wrote:The term "natural" can be used in a way that is both meaningful and useful: the way the coffee would taste if grown, prepped, roasted and brewed in the most transparent and best practice method. Nowadays that would be hand picked when ripe, quickly wet processed, platform dried, vacuum packed, shipped fast, roasted light, and steeped French Press or cupping style.

I'm not sure how to define balance. It'd be something about "nothing unpleasant being too loud" (not aimed at you Jim, you're pleasant to me!).

The problem is that "nothing too loud," is a matter of habit. Remember when we compared light and sample roasts? We both thought the other's was unbalanced; it's simply a matter of habit. If the habit is relatively informed, and the alternatives have the same information (i.e. some aspect of the taste doesn't just vanish in one alternative), then it's culture which selects which one is more balanced or natural.

Gilbert Ryle, an English philosopher calls words like "balance," "natural," or "good," trouser words; they are used to dress up otherwise naked statements of preference. My wise cracks have been based on this analysis.

Aristotle and Confucius use balance in a more interesting way: virtue is not the opposite of vice, but a happy balance between two vices. For instance, courage is between timidity and foolhardiness, justice between vengefulness and cringing, and temperance between self-indulgence and self-mortification. In taste, you can speak of this Confucionist balance when the right proportion of two bad tasting parts makes a good tasting whole (a blend of Monsooned Malabar and Kapi Royal, for instance?).

Personally, I'm not capable of such precision. If a coffees has only good flavors, every proportion is fine, natural and balanced.

Thanks, Jim! I'll see where that leads me (probably after Finals Week).

I am very aware of the wooliness and, I suppose, uselessness of the term balance. That is why I added the extraction range.

I am not saying that every espresso should have the same levels of acidity/sweetness/bitterness - I just can't find a better word to describe a well pulled shot of a Kenyan SO, that also describes a good espresso of a more traditional espresso blend - though they clearly have something in common.

Ah....

I honestly don't know....

What I do know is what I like. Sometimes that's not natural - like a Monsooned Malabar. I can understand all the reasons why a purist would dismiss it as unnatural or not a proper SO or whatever...

But sometimes it really floats my boat.

Similarly, I love Yirgacheffe. Breakfast is never the same without it. But there are people who turn their noses up at preparing it as an espresso.

I love the eccentricity of single origins - the fact that they are neither rounded nor balanced. That's character to me. I like some characters more than others. But I'd rather have character than a balance.

And then sometimes I love a good blend that is trying to achieve precisely that.

Just as I very occasionally want a robusta....

Calling me fickle. But that's what I like. And if the rules are too narrow for that.... so what?

It goes back to individual preferences. Some like sweet, some like salt but it is balance that is my preference. White chocolate has always been distasteful to me because it is just sweet with no identifiable flavor...just sweet to me. Too much salt is just as objectionable. When a coffee is mysterious in the flavors it projects it becomes interesting and enjoyable to drink....not boring. Some coffees are boring with short term affect on the palate. Some linger and continue to project an enjoyable and memorable flavor. Both Dolce and Moore's Palermo project an extremely interesting, mysterious, full and memorable flavor.....not too sweet, not too sharp....just right in my opinion or balance. Each day I am learning something new about preparation. However it is still subjective. There is magic when all the elements come together. I have also learned that the machine stamps a signature on the flavor.

Coming to a conclusive absolute on taste is a moving target.

another_jim wrote:Personally, I'm not capable of such precision. If a coffees has only good flavors, every proportion is fine, natural and balanced.

I can mostly agree with this. Which can(?) be tied into this,

King Seven wrote:I am not saying that every espresso should have the same levels of acidity/sweetness/bitterness - I just can't find a better word to describe a well pulled shot of a Kenyan SO, that also describes a good espresso of a more traditional espresso blend - though they clearly have something in common.

Maybe there isn't a very useful, singular, non-trouser word that ties a Kenyan SO to a blend; the answer to which is that each coffee be tackled as being distinct (for the current HB-community. I'm not at all talking about when speaking on TV or to a shaman in the mountains)? An example of what might be a coffee description without wooly language or overreaching theory: "This Karogoto lot pulled in this specific way tastes like black currants, and a mellow but clear sensation of this special chocolate."---and--- "This other Karogoto lot pulled in this specific way is like biting into a fresh lemon, but a bit more bitter.". There should also be allowance for phrases like "I love this lot of Karogoto!" And one doesn't need to say "to me", because that is assumed. Jim's coffeecuppers.com may already be an example of all this. There's room for creativity.

HB is strong when it comes to engineering and that's Please overwhelm me with engineering! But, I urge some expansion and enrichment of presentation about specific coffees. I will certainly try to not critique anyone here about their unique styles of presentation and language; likewise having points in a Math class deducted because of the coffee you drink would be unacceptable.

drdna, apologies if I'm being too indirect. michaelbenis, keep that curiosity!