Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Same Cup, Two Answers, Both of Them True
Description
Nutty and chocolatey. That is what this Brazilian is to me, and I spent a long time quietly assuming that anybody who tasted something else in the same cup had it wrong. I do not think that anymore, and this episode is me working out why. I talk about the years I spent on light roast, why I moved to medium and dark, and why I still roast lightly roasted coffees to see what is in them. I talk about treating a coffee like something to conquer, and about the mornings it wins and I am still thinking about it at dinner. Somewhere in there I stopped hearing a different tasting note as a mistake and started hearing it as information about the person.
What you will get out of listening is a different way to hold your own palate. I make the case that your palate is not a piece of equipment somebody handed you with the bag. It is built out of everything you have tasted, everything you gave up on, and the food that was around you growing up, which is why one person reaches for baker's chocolate and I reach for dark chocolate on the same cup, and why my descriptors for acidity came out of eating apples with my son. I get into when calibration genuinely matters, why it is not the same thing as being right, and the morning my wife called a coffee extremely fruity through a cup of creamer, which is the moment that took the last of my certainty away. If you have ever second-guessed yourself out loud because your note did not match the bag, this one is for you.
Go deeper than the episode, in the newsletter: https://itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com
For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans
For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com