Two major themes strike me as I have read this thread. Firstly is how closely this discussion hews to the philosophical debate that is forever ongoing between art and science. The second being that no one really seems to get what the true scientific process is. I would like to expand on these ideas for just a bit.

How long has the idea existed that our espresso should be first and foremost about the taste? I am guessing it became the guiding factor just about the same time steam powered brewing got bumped off by a lever system that could generate the pressure to force slightly less than boiling water through the coffee puck. Since that time the extraction space has been crossed so often it is worse than a Star Trek marathon.

Even if we do not know within our internal mental construct what perfect espresso tastes like, we do know instantly if we take pleasure in the quality of the sip of that shot we just made. The real kicker though is the other turn of that coin, you may instantly know that you missed the quality you were aiming for and the shot is just not that good.

This is where the mind has to make that leap, from perception and art, to thought and science. Your first thought may well be to head to the sink and send that shot off to where it belongs. But how much critical thought have you had time to give that shot? Can you think and find a taste you have a mental construct for that matches the flawed flavor?

I think this is where most new espresso imbibers hit their first wall. They lack the taste experience in their analytical mind to ascertain the actual flaw they know is there. This is by far the best argument for cupping training I know of. It gives the person internal fixed points of reference to put a name to what they otherwise feel is just wrong somehow. Without this formal training you get to wander the extraction space and hope you can find a variable that changes that wrongness without adding more problems. And odds are with multiple coupled variables at work things will get worse before they get better.

The formal cupping training gives one other benefit that may be just as great as the internal taste mappings. That is that those map points are standardized and given the same descriptive tag so that two people saying it has this taste are actually talking about the same taste at that mental point. This allows silly things like communication to more easily describe the flaw you taste both in your thoughts internally (yes you can communicate with yourself and hopefully do it most of the time, something called thinking) and with others when asking for help.

Enough of that, time to go and bash on science for a bit. I guess there are lots of people who believe that changing one thing at a time and seeing what happens is a scientific experiment. But to make it science you need to do your work up front. The first part is actually the hardest, and this is figuring out exactly what question you are trying to answer. A question such as 'Why do I feel something tastes wrong with my espresso?' while valid will produce so many theories that you will be back to wandering the extraction space to answer them all.

And so you stop and think a bit more about the taste of that shot. Maybe you think it could have had some bitter flavors that you didn't like. So we firm up our scientific question to be 'Why do I feel that my espresso has bitter flavors?'. Well now we can start to make a theory for that question that we can test, or more likely several theories we need to test. Because at this stage is where you can trick yourself by not thinking of the simplest theories.

I would guess a lot of you have at least one or two theories to mind right now that you would test. But I bet I have one in mind you skipped right over. Theory: That cup was bad because there was a bad bean in the grind and everything else is fine. Easiest one of all to test right? Then predict what will happen to your next cup if your theory is correct. Now go design your experiment to test that prediction.

Off you go to the grinder and do everything just like the first time. You taste the cup, and then you have to make a judgment. Did the prediction prove correct or not? Is the bitterness still there, lets say yes it is. Odds are your theory was wrong, but you need to repeat the experiment a time or so to make sure. If it is not repeatable it is not a valid result.

Well you had better go make another theory to test. You do this and keep coming up with less obvious theories until you work your way around to the true answer. Or until something happens you totally did not predict, then you truly get to learn something. This seems slow, but it still is better than brute forcing the extraction space looking for the answer.

There is one other stage I guess I should mention since it is coming back to the heart of this discussion. After you understand espresso tastes and processes I can see that you will internalize the interrelationship of all the myriad variables into a holistic feeling once again. There lies the true art of being a barista.

At this point we have gone from being the art historian back to being the true artist, no longer debating brush strokes and pigments, but putting the brush to canvas because that is where the color needs to be for things to be right.

Someday I hope to reach that point with espresso, someday.

-c

So... yes? Or no?
Are you saying it is better to change only one variable to see where that gets you before moving on to the next adjustment, or that you should try to identify all the variables that are off, and correct them all in the next shot as a method for noobs to correct their flawed techniques?

Psyd wrote:So... yes? Or no?
Are you saying it is better to change only one variable to see where that gets you before moving on to the next adjustment, or that you should try to identify all the variables that are off, and correct them all in the next shot as a method for noobs to correct their flawed techniques?

I am still a noob:) I try and isolate and change one action of the espresso making process, changing the overall volume of the shot say. But this will require several related changes at one time that would be wasteful and unproductive in reaching my goal if I did them separately. Testing to see if what changed was what I was looking for, sometimes I balance my adjustments and hit where I was aiming, a lot of the time I just get part of what I wanted but having some unintended slip from a variable I did not want to change.

The trick is knowing your grinder and dosing so well that you can hit that mark time and again. So I guess I am on the multiple change side, if you don't need that crutch anymore it is counterproductive to your art in the cup.

A person new to espresso needs not to learn to only change one thing, but to learn what relationship of things they need to change to improve one aspect of their drink.

Hard to make a one sentence golden rule for that eh?

-c

CRCasey wrote: I try and isolate and change one action of the espresso making process... ... But this will require several related changes at one time that would be wasteful and unproductive... ...if I did them separately.
The trick is knowing your grinder and dosing so well... ...if you don't need that crutch anymore it is counterproductive to your art in the cup.

A person new to espresso needs not to learn to only change one thing, but to learn what relationship of things they need to change to improve one aspect of their drink.

Sooo... uhm... I'm still lost.

You're saying, if I start to get your drift (but there's no guarantees, this is a bit of a shot in the dark) that if you know the variables and how they effect each resulting tendency in the cup, go ahead and change them all at once, but if you're not that familiar with what does what, change them one at a time til you learn how each will affect the cup and you have the experience and skills to change more than one at a time?

Or have I missed something yet again?

Psyd wrote:You're saying, if I start to get your drift (but there's no guarantees, this is a bit of a shot in the dark) that if you know the variables and how they effect each resulting tendency in the cup, go ahead and change them all at once, but if you're not that familiar with what does what, change them one at a time til you learn how each will affect the cup and you have the experience and skills to change more than one at a time?

Quite a tidy summary, yes that is mostly it.

With a small footnote saying that learning to change just one thing in the cup may be the hardest part due to all of the interrelated variables. Jim's whole black box problem.

-c

Psyd wrote:You're saying, if I start to get your drift (but there's no guarantees, this is a bit of a shot in the dark) that if you know the variables and how they effect each resulting tendency in the cup, go ahead and change them all at once, but if you're not that familiar with what does what, change them one at a time til you learn how each will affect the cup and you have the experience and skills to change more than one at a time?

Bingo!

CRCasey wrote:Firstly is how closely this discussion hews to the philosophical debate that is forever ongoing between art and science.

Actually, that debate isn't as old as it seems. It was largely started by C.P. Snow is his lecture "The Two Cultures" (1959). Until fairly recently "science" was known as "natural philosophy" and many philosophers engaged in science, most notably Descartes.

Sorry for the detour from espresso but I thought it important to remind everyone that science and philosophy are not enemies.

Cheers.

Heilmittellehre wrote:Actually, that debate isn't as old as it seems. It was largely started by C.P. Snow is his lecture "The Two Cultures" (1959). Until fairly recently "science" was known as "natural philosophy" and many philosophers engaged in science, most notably Descartes.

Sorry for the detour from espresso but I thought it important to remind everyone that science and philosophy are not enemies.

Cheers.

Good call. I would have been stating it better calling it the emotional vs the rational , instead of art vs science.
-c

Good call. I would have been stating it better calling it the emotional vs the rational , instead of art vs science.
-c

Ah, now that debate is as old as philosophy itself!

I appreciate you taking my comment in the friendly spirit in which it was given.

Psyd wrote:... if you know (all) the variables and how they effect each resulting tendancy in the cup (and how changes to one impact others), go ahead and change them all at once...

And to be clear, I've been "exploring" espresso for around a decade, with almost half the time spent doing so for a living, and have been trained by some of the best in the business, and I would be flat-out lying (to you but more to myself) if I claimed that I understood coffee and espresso as required by the above statement. For me, this is a lifetime goal that I'm not confident I will reach. Of course... as noted earlier in this thread, I'm a moron.