endlesscycles wrote:Being able to extract more middle notes is real: Measurably so. No amount of blind tasting can prove otherwise. Getting past 20% is difficult to impossible with a Robur. Breaking 24% is not only possible, but delicious with the EK. It's not even a matter of which is doing it better, it's which is actually doing it. Being able to roast to a lighter degree, extract more balancing caramels while preserving characteristic acids and aromas, have a thick mouthfeel without baked or roasty notes is today's holy grail and it's being attained with this grinder. It's a whole system to buy into, but once the cotton is out of your ears, you can't help but hear the music.

Thanks for the breakdown in flavour perceptions. I tend to think that focus on the extraction level, primarily, can be bamboozling/alienating for folks who don't measure their own extractions, or seem like a parlour trick, "I can make coffee at 24% and it tastes nice!"...If I play devil's advocate, I think a lot of folk will say, "It's supposed to taste nice, I dunno what mine extracts to, but it tastes nice too, so what?".

If extractions below 22% don't taste good with the EK43/reduced fines, then we're looking more at a new area of interest rather than an 'arms race' where the objective is an ever bigger number?

So I think references to sensory perceptions & comparisons to good bimodal yields/shots may be more useful than those to an "ethos/movement" (even though the ethos leads to the result, it's the cup we're most interested in)? Just my take on how it might be perceived...I could be way off?

MWJB wrote:There are typically protocols involved in what constitutes a blind test in the sensory testing world...our vague idea of a blind test isn't good enough if we are to follow this methodology, it has no more credibility than our untested idea of what is "better/worse". If you're going to do it, do it right. (I have never seen a blind test where respondents prepared their own samples.) If we aren't going to do it in every case, for every bean, machine & grinder then why do it in these cases.

TomC wrote:I hastily agreed to placate Jim by attempting such a double blind test, but even if I do, what validity at all does that have to you, or anyone else in a wider audience? I could just lie and nobody would know any the better. What then is the value of such a test? Are you or someone else going to go out and buy a $2500 grinder because of what my "blind" one-man taste test reveals? I certainly hope not. But if you did, it would be your foolishness, not my or anyone else's hoodwinking to blame.

I think you guys may be misunderstanding the difference between a blind test and a double-blind test. Double-blind tests are the gold standard of medicine. You could design a double blind test for this question, but it would require several people. Jim never suggested doing this (though I'm sure he'd be delighted if you conducted one), he simply said a blind test-a simple informal test where, when you're tasting the espresso and recording your reactions, you don't actually know which grinder the shot came from (but you can reveal it to yourself afterwards). These are comparatively easy to arrange.

endlesscycles wrote:It's a whole system to buy into, but once the cotton is out of your ears, you can't help but hear the music.

In the war of words, it strikes me that all comers to this party are playing pretty neatly into each other's stereotypes. Kaminsky himself seems to talk this way. Do you guys think you could tone the rhetoric down a little bit? Have I never really had a great shot of espresso before, because I haven't had a shot from a light-roasted coffee ground on an EK43? I suppose this is a possibility, but I've made enough espresso on grinders that produce less fines to have a pretty strong suspicion that this is hyperbolic at least. Are all other methods of preparing espresso really so inferior as to just be unacceptable?

This isn't to say that I disagree with the advocates of the EK43: my instinct is that they are onto something here, and I'm excited about the prospect of where this will lead. But I have tremendous respect for skepticism, and I doubt the credentials and reliability of those who would brush it aside. I feel like there'd be a lot less noise and anger on this topic if we toned down the hyperbole and tried to understand each other's comments a little better.

JohnB. wrote:I don't think you can accurately compare what you are getting from your 1203 to what the EK produces......

I stated exactly that beforehand.

TomC. wrote:Mind you, like I've said from the start, I don't even own an EK43, I didn't lay out a single cent for it as an additional expense. I already had the Ditting 1203 as my drip grinder. And I'm not even making strong claims that what I'm doing is even relevant to the EK43 because they're quite different grinders. I'm only noting my similar findings.

I treated them as separate devices entirely, note or, not "and".

TomC. wrote:It would be an extraordinary claim to blankly state that the EK43 grinder or the Ditting 1203 produce objectively better espresso, consistently.

TomC wrote:..

It would be an extraordinary claim to blankly state that the EK43 grinder or the Ditting 1203 produce objectively better espresso, consistently...

I think that IS what is being claimed, and offered. Low retention means consistent, and higher extractions ARE totally objective. You simply can't do this with a Robur or K-10: https://twitter.com/mattperger/status/2 ... 60/photo/1

I meant for me to state such. I don't have the tools or time to do so. And I'll let those who do fight their own fight. It was a reply to Jim's post about "hobbyists getting unblind god shots is not evidence of any kind, never mind extraordinary evidence".

shadowfax wrote:I think you guys may be misunderstanding the difference between a blind test and a double-blind test....

You are right, I switched the two in my head when I was thinking of my rebuttal and errantly treated his proposition of a blind test as a double blind test that I'd prefer to do, because I was more focused on having more tasters involved to reduce some bias and wanted to do it as a double blind at a meet up where the proper equipment is available.

A collaborative mindset, thoughtful questions, and gathering data and refining the process as we go will go a lot further than an adversarial approach. This is a community of volunteer coffee enthusiasts. Kindness, support and coaching will be more encouraging for those who have access to the equipment. There is nothing at stake here other than ignorance... So let's investigate!

I keep feeling the need to say this. I don't "hate" espresso; in fact, I rather like it. Of course, one's always keen to improve his experience of it, but I don't see that it needs to be "fixed".

I understand that the title of Kaminsky's talk is meant to be provacative. I just find it off-putting.