My Taste Buds had an Ephiphany!

I’ve been trying to pay attention to the taste of coffee. This conscious awareness is my preliminary training before embarking on some serious coffee cupping. My 8 O’ Clock coffee is my baseline in taste. It’s not bad – not bitter, not watery – but nothing to hoot or holler about.

A few of my coworkers like to go to Caribou Coffee in the morning. Since I’ve begun to pay attention to the coffee taste, I’ve had the realization one morning that the Caribou light roast was “brighter” than my 8 O’ Clock I had on the bus. Maybe that’s what the coffee people call acidity.

Today after my first sip of Caribou’s Organic Blend light roast, I had the sensation of a bouquet of flowers! This my taste bud’s epiphany! I felt like a kindergartener realizing that I just read a real word for the first time.

Second Chance for 8 O’Clock Coffee

After being so critical of 8 O’ Clock coffee in my previous posts, I decided to give it another chance. At least the dark roast. So I made myself a cup this morning using my friend’s French Press.

It wasn’t bad. A little chocolaty. Not bitter. Kind of smooth. Not as “dirty” as the light roast.

Now let’s be fair: What I understand about darker roasts is that the darker you get, the less quality of beans you need. All beans get chocolaty the darker you roast it.

So for a buy one get one free sale on 8 O’ Clock coffee, buy two bags of dark roast.

The French Press — An Unadulterated Cup of Coffe

Thanks to a friend and coworker who let me borrow his Bodum French Press Coffee Maker, I tasted my first cup of coffee as promoted by the book, God in a Cup.

What’s the verdict? The French Press makes a cup of coffee that is unadulterated — it just slaps you in the face! It’s kind of like seeing a closeup shot of a TV personality, who has not gone through makeup, in HD. Get the picture? Your jaw drops, “Oh man, is that what you really look like?” The true character is revealed for better or for worse.

Over the last 6 weeks I have been drinking 8 O’ Clock coffee. I bought whole beans from Giant Eagle. It was on sale “buy one get one free.” So I bought two 2lb bags — one light roast, the other dark roast. I’ve been brewing my coffee in a Cuisinart Grind and Brew Coffee Maker. Well the 8 O’ Clock coffee has had a disgusting chemical after taste.

I decided to try the 8 O’ Clock coffee in the French Press. The good news is that the French Press definitely pulled out the flavor of the coffee beans with an intensity that made me no longer taste the chemical after taste (Do you think 8 O’ Clock coffee comes from China?). The bad news is that one of the flavors that attacked my taste buds was dirt. The coffee actually tasted like the beans had been dried on a dirt floor.

So here is my conclusion: If we were living in the 50’s where all available coffee was bad, then just drink cowboy/percolator coffee that burns the coffee anyway until we’ve got a good cup of black mud filled with a strong dose of caffeine.

The 70’s has allowed us enjoy drip coffee, thanks to Mr. Coffee. Even Maxwell House and Hills Brothers tastes better drip than percolated.

Having lived through the 90’s, Starbucks has shown us that there are better beans than Maxwell House and Hills Brothers. But we’ve got to find a way to keep us that standard without paying $2 a cup.

So here we are in the 21st century. This is post-Starbucks. The French Press has opened my eyes to a new world of coffee. Imagine a world of unadulterated coffee. Unadulterated — for better or for worse. I like the prospect of attacking and at the same time educating my taste buds with the subtleties of coffee. How delicate will my palate become? I don’t know.

Time to begin the adventure.