I am not impressed by gourmands and connoisseurs.
Partly I understand that I do not have a discerning palate. For instance, I can tell a really bad cup of coffee and a really good cup of coffee but I am not sure I can rate the blends in between.
Partly I don’t think that they have discerning palates, either. I think it is more an attempt to sell people on their superiority. It is like a coffee taster’s version of The Kings New Clothes. So much depends on subjective preference rather than objective taste.
Coffee snobs are a good example. I have a pound of Brazilian Fancy Santos beans that I bought at Baltimore Coffee. The bag has a lot of PR on it. At one point it tells the customer, “We do not recommend ‘gold’ filters, as these pass fats & acids that paper holds back.” Sounds good.
But wait a minute. On the box for the French press was the claim that this was the best method because there was nothing to hold back the essential oils the gave the coffee its rich flavor.
Which is it?
And how long do you let the coffee brew in the French Press. When I was learning the method and researching on-line how to use it, the wisdom I found was that brewing over three minutes would begin to make the coffee bitter. I broke my press and bought a new one. The box said let it brew four minutes. Three minutes or four? Which is it? I experimented and found that four minutes made the brew stronger so it was really a matter of taste.
Or in my case, a lack of taste.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.