Thank you for this discussion. I'm not going to take part too much as I'm a mere consumer, mostly ignorant. So I'll comment from that point of view.

I think the hype / influencer factor has been already discussed many times and I'm on the skeptical side. There's just too much hype and fomo but perhaps this is true to everything nowadays. Certainly a similar situation in the baking hobbyists scene. It seems we have to follow some guru in anything and everything, without really being critical. This goes on to the end product, almost like we convince ourselves the result was good because "it has to be, the <insert guru name here> said so!".

As for coffee, I'm personally a light roast drinker and I do make espresso too out of them. I'd like to think I'm not following trends blindly but it is a mixture of actual taste preference, and rediscovering old taste memories (i'm from Scandinavia-ish and light roast coffee was always a thing there). Coffee is probably quite a bit of an acquired taste type of thing, such as beer also. I'm not totally convinced it actually ever tastes truly good though I have tasted some spectacularly non coffee tasting coffees, but I doubt myself there.. I'm pretty sure also wine rarely tastes good unless you get used to it, and I'm not sure if even sommeliers are immune to that. Give a sip of top-notch Franciacorta to someone not used to wine and they'll likely say it's very sour. Most here in Italy at least expect their coffee hot and bitter, they will not like even a sweet and mellow medium roast because that's just not what they expect from coffee.

I have moved from espresso to mostly filter coffee during my few years of being a hobbyist which could be because of the roast degree preference. I may be getting old but I resent the new espresso derived drinks such as "turbo shots" or "yeet shots". It feels like trying very hard to find a way to use the fancy espresso gear to make coffee out of beans that are not great for espresso. I'm not really against them, I mean do what you like, but at that point I personally prefer to just make pourover, frenchpress or even a mokapot.

This all also ties into the discussion of "what is light roast". So I need to describe my very simple personal measure of "not dark roast": If the beans smell roasty it's too dark for me. So in a sense what I go for is medium-light to light, not really just light. I keep this measure because there's no trusting roaster classifications. Often for "filter roast" I get what is probably more a light-medium to medium, and very much doable in espresso. Sometimes I get stuff that is really only doable in filter.

Also this has been discussed but roaster flavor note descriptors are mostly useless, be it because of my lack of skill or them copy-pasting the notes. I have said this to Luca but I'd like the roasters to at least say whether it's fermenty because that most definitely is something all of us can taste and is also a divisive taste. You either like it or not. I don't, at all, so I avoid all anaerobic processed coffees. Letting those fermenty beans to rest 6 months certainly makes sense to me But yeah, can't expect honesty I guess in the marketing and hype lead world of today.. too bad.

I don't know if I'm getting into any real point here but I'd like to say, with all the above disclaimers of sorts, that I'm not afraid of to call a lightly roasted coffee boring. The majority are just coffee, good coffee but still just coffee. I just happen to prefer the more lightly roasted ones. I'm also not searching for exceptional coffees actively, ain't worth the financial investment considering the likelyhood of actually finding something exceptional.

Sorry, had to add my 2 cents from my non expert point of view.

ojt wrote:Sorry, had to add my 2 cents from my non expert point of view.

Don't apologise! Whether you like something or hate it ... you are right!

There's also this "chicken and egg" of whether roasters are roasting for what consumers actually do want now, or if they are presenting something different to consumers to see if they like it.

Most online writing about coffee tends to be by people who are selling it, and it would benefit from more voices from actual consumers. In the absence of actual consumers writing about what they genuinely think, we get what we have today: a tonne of writing that purports to be "education", but is actually marketing material, which you can easily see by looking to see if any given piece of writing mentions anything remotely negative about a coffee. An every time that this happens and is unchallenged, roasters are emboldened to disregard established norms and practices that protect consumers. So, to give a few examples, I have recently seen these things sold to consumers as premium products with premium prices:
1. Coffee with SCA ferment defect and partial/full sour green defect. I'm just parroting a story I was told here, so I'm very happy to be corrected if wrong, but I did hear that there was a guy deliberately adding these defective beans to coffee and marketing them as "activated beans". And, in fairness, I can see that people might like these.
2. Natural processed Kenyan coffee with at least 10 full black defective beans per 350g. The presence of just one full black defect bean per 350g results in a coffee from being unable to qualify as "specialty coffee" under CQI Q grading green grading rules. This particular coffee tasted phenolic.
3. A variety of coffee commonly derided as being low quality and usually not used for specialty coffee, described as having all manner of fruit flavours. It tasted like the bottom of a chicken coop smells.

Now, no doubt a lot of consumers bought these coffees and didn't complain about them. I'd be interested to know if they were genuinely happy with them, and if they would be happy with them if they were asked to taste them single blind, side by side with a cleaner example of a coffee that delivered what the tasting notes claimed.

malachi wrote: Trust your taste.

Thank you for this. Words to live by.

Interesting discussion. Although I have been a lurker of this forum for some time, after joining this forum just a few months ago in search of an "exceptional" cup, I now realize that much of the "hype" and "FOMO" about new trendy coffees are probably just that. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying those expensive, exceptional, and sometimes exclusive "light" roasted coffees are bad. I just don't see them satisfying my gustatory sensation as it does to many forum-goers here.

After spending a little over $400 on bags of professionally roasted coffees almost all "light" roast from high-end roasteries (Tim Wendelboe, SEY, Passenger, George Howell, Prodigal, Onyx), I now have my own conclusion. My taste buds do not prefer "light" fruit-forward coffees. Before my recent exploration, I thought I had not had a good "light" roast simply because I was not buying good greens, or due to my inability to roast them correctly. But after this brief exploration of the lighter side, I have reached the same conclusion I reached about espresso before. They are not my favorites. Maybe for a traditional coffee drinker like me, the "light" roasted coffees are drinks of acquired taste. But, I simply do not have the desire to get acquainted much further at this point. I am going back to my own style of "traditional" and "classical" earthy, full-bodied, chocolaty, buttery, sweet cup WITHOUT ACIDITY. It is not necessarily a dark roast, but most likely a nicely executed medium roast is what I desire for I do not like any "bitterness" in my cup. But quite frankly I am not likely to find my favorite cup from any "light" roasted coffee.

Does anyone want my leftover $60/bag super-light fermented Columbia? Or, if I hold onto this bag to let it stale for a few years, does it become the chocolaty, full-body, buttery, sweet cup I desire? LOL

A huge Thank You to the posters in this thread. I no longer feel that there is necessarily something wrong with my taste or technique for not agreeing with the most common descriptions and preferences. One of the most frustrating things as a home espresso roaster and drinker is the almost universal "you can make good espresso from anything" answer from experts on what coffees and roasts are best suited (this includes Ikawa's video on roasting for espresso, which completely fails to address the title question).

I almost always drink my coffee too soon after roast. A bit more gummy bear, please!

malachi wrote:Really?
I have to admit that the perfect weather and gorgeous surroundings here in Kauai never get old, and never become unremarkable. After 30 years of Kauai, I still stop alongside the road at least once a day to stare at something with wonder.

IMHO, there is no such thing as "too much of a great thing." And that isn't just for beautiful places or perfect weather - but also for coffee.

Who said anything about surroundings? Do you believe the inhabitants of San Diego spend a lot of time remarking about the weather, unless it's one of the 3 days a year when it happens to rain?

And too much of anything is usually problematic. It's kind of built into the "too much" qualifier.

As far as coffee, I'll stick by my assertion that drinking nothing but great coffee all the time makes the experience less remarkable. It is far less frequent that I find me saying to myself, wow, this is the best coffee I have ever had.

luca wrote:There's also this "chicken and egg" of whether roasters are roasting for what consumers actually do want now, or if they are presenting something different to consumers to see if they like it.

As a roaster/retailer I walk a fine line between serving what most coffee consumers have come to expect from 1st and 2nd wave coffee, and trying to educate them as to what is possible in this new world of lighter coffee without be condescending. Dark roasted coffee still pays the rent around here. I hear from a lot of customers how this or that "new style" coffee place out and out insulted them for not liking the "lemon juice" espresso they are serving.

My main coffee bar is in a very touristy location and I get a lot of old school European customers that love my espresso, which is on the medium side of medium/dark. And although I drink light espresso myself, I wouldn't think of serving it to my customers. That said, I do keep a nice, single dose grinder on the bar for the slower times when questions about coffee come up and we have time to play.

Just commenting that the turn that this thread took away from the Flat, Stale, and Very Profitable towards coffee trends in the coffee drinking masses as well as enthusiasts has been very enjoyable to read. Thank you, Jim, for kicking this of and a big thank you to Chris for your contribution!

I would add, why is marketing coffees with vape flavors (Cotton candy, gummy bears, candy crush, etc...) so rampant in the high priced light roast coffee sector. Are we children?

luca wrote:So, to give a few examples, I have recently seen these things sold to consumers as premium products with premium prices:
1. Coffee with SCA ferment defect and partial/full sour green defect. I'm just parroting a story I was told here, so I'm very happy to be corrected if wrong, but I did hear that there was a guy deliberately adding these defective beans to coffee and marketing them as "activated beans". And, in fairness, I can see that people might like these.
2. Natural processed Kenyan coffee with at least 10 full black defective beans per 350g. The presence of just one full black defect bean per 350g results in a coffee from being unable to qualify as "specialty coffee" under CQI Q grading green grading rules. This particular coffee tasted phenolic.
3. A variety of coffee commonly derided as being low quality and usually not used for specialty coffee, described as having all manner of fruit flavours. It tasted like the bottom of a chicken coop smells.

I'll add to the mix...

1. A coffee with profound mold (visible under UV when evaluating the green) and black defect (well over the 1 per 350g limit) sold with the tasting note "marinated over-ripe peaches." The coffee was sold at a premium due to it being "single lot" and was to my taste undrinkable - tasting like solvent and baby diapers.
2. A "high end" roaster who bought another roaster's 18 month old stock of baggy natural East African coffee and sold it at a mark-up as "limited edition aged" coffee. In the cup this tasted like damp cardboard and doritos.

LBIespresso wrote:I would add, why is marketing coffees with vape flavors (Cotton candy, gummy bears, candy crush, etc...) so rampant in the high priced light roast coffee sector. Are we children?

This brought a smile to my day. Thank you.