chipman wrote:Just for the sake of accuracy, could we please stop referring to coffee as a fruit? It is not. it is the seed of a fruit.

Exactly. Try a green bean .I did. Doesn't taste like fruit at all.

Are seeds part of a fruit or a separate entity along for the ride?

Seeds are not going along for the ride. They are the ride. But yes, they are part of a fruit, just as a cherry pit is part of a fruit.

merriam-webster.com wrote:Scientifically, it is the name for the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a flowering plant enclosing a seed or seeds. So, apricots, bananas, grapes, as well as bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, and (when in their shell) acorns and almonds are all fruits-fruits are not necessarily sweet, succulent, or pulpy foods. The botanical use of ovary has similarities in meaning to the one found in human anatomy textbooks.

While common usage has generally called an entire peach the fruit of the peach tree. I have never considered the pit to be a fruit. It is the seed contained by the fruit. Nor have I ever found a seed that contains the flavor of the fruit other than in some deep metaphysical sense.

Honestly, I could care less about what people decide to classify coffee beans as. Though bean is a misnomer of gigantic proportions in itself. How they are prepared on the other hand is of great importance because it decides much of how the coffee tastes in the cup.

You may like your steak rare or you may like your steak well done. But you have to admit that how it is prepared changes how it is perceived when it is eaten. While each of us has their favorite ways for certain foods to be prepared, it's a matter of personal choice and should be respected.

My feelings on roasting is that between raw (green) beans and ash there are multiple possibilities. Some I like, some I don't and you may not like what I do. But the current fad isn't better because it's the current fad.

..and off the rails the train continues. I add a bit of blather..

I had an acquaintance who thought Sierra Nevada Pale Ale tasted like a band aid (his exact descriptive term). He also preferred Folgers over any other coffee he had ever tasted. I had a cup when there and I can honestly say it did not taste bad. It just did not taste. It was a bland, flat, indistinct beverage with no real soul that was a cheap and artificial representation of coffee; it resembled coffee. An old quote that is often incorrectly attributed to Lincoln: "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

Between the "Big Red Jug" which sells roasted, ground, packaged, and sold in stores for less than we pay for green coffee to the micro lots of exemplary coffees that sell for more per pound than a new car, there is a myriad of tastes to be found. Find what you like. It raises the curiosity as to how much a person has spent on equipment to get the best from a coffee which only offers that dark-roast flavor devoid of soul in the cup which can be had from a percolator.

samuellaw178 wrote:At least one thing this thread proves is that not everyone is looking for fruits in coffee.

I think coffee can be a very individual experience and the preference can depend on what the individual has experienced or is expecting...

That is an honest, really nice and positive way! I think some went on a different track here. But that's also fun, some are lost in translation. Not every one noticed, but light roasted coffee became a must, and not vice versa. It became a trend. So why fruited coffee lovers feel attacked? I could have added "espresso" in the title, but I wanted wider range of opinions and stands. What I like is, that people reacted, which is really good. If we are talking about espresso, things have changed a lot, that's also what I wanted to say. So we drank bad espresso just until recently? I don't think so. We had cafes and bartenders who made (not all of them) excellent espressos. But not any more, now we have baristas and science in cafes, the whole thing became a bit complicated rather then simple, baristas are artists these days, so even we have "latte art", hm

If a person never heard about all the hidden notes in a particular wine I wonder how many of us could recognise any? Probably none.

There is no magic to me if you pull out a banana taste from the coffee, I'll be shocked for a moment, but then it will be just a banana coffee. And if you make me an espresso, and I can't recognise what the "f" is happening inside beside the fact that it is amazing, I would be under impression for a long time.
Something crossed my mind, when I made this thread I didn't have an idea of dividing one side against another, but since some felt attacked, perhaps the title of the thread should have been "Coffee lovers vs Fruit lovers"
Oh, yes, someone mentioned coffee is a fruit, that's a great point, so why on earth we just don't enjoy eating apples without mixing them with another fruit, lol

Another question: what makes espresso different from all other brewing methods, what characterises it, when you try it what is the thing that makes it so different?

Cheers!

Contributors to this thread should keep the site's Guidelines for productive online discussion in mind. For example, the first one "Be respectful" means not criticizing by implication other members. It's perfectly fine to correct or criticize someone's ideas, but leave criticism of someone's intellect or presumed motivation out of the discussion, as it invariably leads to an escalation of tension.

I'll put this thread on pause briefly so everyone has a moment to ponder this distinction.

Hello guys!

First time poster here, thought I'd chime in.

Coming from Indonesia where the most common method of preparing coffee is by steeping finely ground coffee with boiling water and waiting for the sediments to settle before drinking it, I would say that looking for organic but non-coffee flavors in coffee is not so weird. However the tendency here is to go for the brighter or sweeter fruits, particularly berries or grapes. I don't know anyone here who likes their coffee sour or citrusy.

In my experience those sweet fruit notes do tend to come out more with delicate brewing methods (I prefer French Press over other manual brew). However they are what you expect from the boutique roaster/cafe single-origin beans. The everyday coffee we use here interestingly uses corn as fillers, perhaps a tradition going back to the Dutch times when (presumably) all the decent beans are sent on export while the poor natives were left with cheap beans and need a way to buff the flavor of the coffee... Not sure. But they do taste decent here.

As for me I like my espresso blocky, single-note, chocolate-bitter and... taste and smell like coffee

D_Prince wrote:I embrace the plethora of flavors, but I don't necessarily want to pucker from aggressive acidity or wince from aggressive bitterness. It's a balancing act for sure.

Perfectly said! Neither a wincer nor a puckerer be. After reading so much about profiling to bring out the best of complex lightly roasted coffees, I'm thinking about adding FC to my ECM and taking a more serious shot at the exotics. Ya don't learn if ya don't try.

To the OP and others of his ilk:

What specific espresso beans do you prefer? FWIW, I agree with the sentiment; I prefer espresso that taates like coffee.

Excellent discussion in this thread!