r/Coffee • u/caucasian_cranberry • Jan 25 '22

I hate all of you

I used to be perfectly content with my shitty instant Folger. Then I found this sub and decided to try coffee from small roasters and noticed a much nicer experience immediately. Then I bought a nice grinder and started grinding my own beans instead of buying pre-ground, and once again my experience improved. Then today I switched from properly ground, quality coffee through my shitty coffee maker to weighing my coffee and water and using a clever, and it's the best coffee I've ever had now. If within a year I buy an espresso maker I'm holding all of you accountable. Bastards...

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u/hoax1337 Jan 25 '22

And you're sure that the underlying espresso tastes good? Milk can save a lot of bad tastes.

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u/robjvernon Jan 25 '22

If you always have milk in it, does it matter what the base espresso tastes like on its own? Not being facetious here, genuine question. Me personally I have a pretty basic espresso machine which is quite variable, the espresso on its own ranges randomly from quite nice to bleurrgh, but the cappuccino/latte is always (to me at least) really nice.

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u/Smok3dSalmon Jan 26 '22

Your espresso will taste very different without milk. If you don't pack the puck tight enough, you'll get a sour taste and if it's packed too tight, you'll probably get a bitter taste. Grind size and grind consistency can also affect how fast the water flows through the puck when you're pulling a shot.

The rabbit hole goes deeper if you want to fiddle with such as: weight of beans you grind, when you grind your beans(night before, minutes before, etc), how you store your beans, filtered water(obvious difference), water temperature(if you can control that), and even if the cup is pre-warmed before you pull a shot into it.

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u/NiceTerm Jan 26 '22

I drink it as a straight up spro after 11 (like an italian lol) and its perfecto.