I'm in year 2 of my espresso journey. Year 1 was rough with a lot of harsh tasting coffee.

Year 2 changes:

Keep the grinder hopper half full. I have a Mazzer Major V that is used to get inconsistent grinds from because I would grind all the way until it was empty. Now I make sure the hopper is at least half full and that seems to keep the grinds consistent (16-17 grams in 4.75 seconds) and as a result I'm able to brew 32-34 grams in 20-30 seconds consistently.

Changed the LMLM gicleur: did this a few months ago and really didn't notice a difference in taste...

Coffee freshness: I used to only brew coffees 1-2 weeks post roast. Now I'm brewing coffee upwards of 4 weeks off roast that's sat in my hopper and for some reason it tastes so much better.

I think the combination of the grinder, gicleur and coffee freshness has led to much better tasting espresso.

My wife whose a relative novice made me a cup a moment ago with coffee that is at least a month old and it tasted fantastic and inspired me to write this post

You haven't really given us enough information to help.

First up, you talk about "better". One of the infuriating things about coffee is that many of the desirable attributes are tradeoffs against other desirable attributes, so "better" is subjective. What do you mean? For example, lots of people hate acidity and like aroma, but darker roasts tend to reduce acidity at the expense of the aroma unique to the particular coffee. Equally, many people hate acidity and also hate bitterness. Lighter roasts increase one and decrease the other.

Second, you give us no information about the coffee that you are using. This is the vast majority of your success will depend on the coffee and he roast of it. The equipment is much less important

If you can explain what you mean by "better" and what coffees you are using, someone familiar with the coffees may be able to volunteer some suggestions.

Oh I've pretty much been using coffee from the same local roaster called Brash Coffee Roasters . They make a medium roast Blend that's carried in local grocery stores.

I found it fascinating that all of a sudden it started tasting better to me.

I was consistently over extracting with bitter a bitter taste and no sweetness and now it's a very balanced taste profile where you can taste all of the flavor notes and a hint of sweetness.

I've always kept the water temp at 200, and I used distilled water with espresso profile third wave water.

May I ask for the name of the blend. Always happy to try something new, and since it's local I would not mind buying a couple of bags.

Moka 1 Cup wrote:May I ask for the name of the blend. Always happy to try something new, and since it's local I would not mind buying a couple of bags.

They have a blend called "Audacious" that you can find at whole foods around midtown.

Jeff wrote:If I look up the coffee in your profile it describes it as "Dark Chocolate, Orange Peel, Black Currant". To me, that suggests a coffee that has quite a bit of "roast flavors" in it. Many roast flavors tend to be perceived as bitter, which it sounds like you're not a big fan of. (Some people enjoy them as they "cut through milk" or other reasons.)

I don't know the roast level compared to Square Mile's offerings and your bag is opened but https://squaremileblog.com/2020/02/21/r ... freshness/ may provide a hint. There they found that opening a bag at a month off roast the extraction was lower and that the flavors were more "mellow" (my word).

If you like what you're getting and the beans are readily available and reasonably priced, keep doing it.

If you want to explore, you might consider a coffee or blend whose flavor descriptors aren't quite as bitter as "dark chocolate" (or "baker's chocolate").

The blend of theirs I use now has a milk chocolate profile that I enjoy.

The Miguel Mendez in my profile is a single origin that they don't sell anymore, but it was their daily driver in the shop and it was fantastic, I just could never recreate that magic at home.

Brash is my favorite coffee shop in the Atlanta area. I've never tried their bags of beans, but have seen them at Whole Foods. Seems like they only sell blends to the grocery stores, single origins are reserved for the cafes.

Before I started roasting my own beans, I would buy beans from Whole Foods. You could find a fresh bag for good prices from good roasters, Counter Culture and Perc out of Savannah were my favorites. Seems like there's been fewer fresh options for single origins at WF recently, Perc being one of the remaining high quality fresh options.

I'd venture to put forth, perhaps the roaster changed their profile and bean selection for that blend over the last year? What you are describing sounds like a rather hard swing in quality that sounds like a bigger change than would happen by aging a few weeks more.

One can always ask to talk to the person in charge of the coffee purchases for the local Whole Foods. They will be able to tell you what their stocking pattern is. For my Whole Foods, I was told they re-stock based on demand, so if people are buying less coffee, it will sit longer on the shelf and be less fresh.