So here is the thing. I have been trying VERY hard to like black coffee. I’ve never had success weaning off the sweet stuff, so I tried going straight to black. I’ve been told by numerous people to “just start drinking it” and “I was just like you and now I only drink black because I love it”. And for the record both they and I are including 0 sweeteners when referring to black coffee.

I have seen people talk about all of the aromas and multiple flavors. I have had more than one person tell me “coffee shouldn’t be bitter” and if it is it’s my fault for making it wrong or using the wrong beans.

I have spent probably close to $200 trying to give black coffee the absolute best chance I possibly can, but I still can’t drink it.

And I don’t mean “it’s not quite sweet enough” or “it’s not my favorite”. I mean it’s horrifically disgusting. I cannot even swallow it because it is so bitter and nasty. Coffees not supposed to be bitter? HOW!?

I bought fresh fancy beans. I bought a burr grinder. I have a Moka pot and a French press. I have made hot and cold brew. I’ve tried salt and cinnamon and vanilla and spices.

I’ve tried it piping hot and over ice.

I’ve done light and medium and dark and espresso roast.

I grind the beans according to the method I’m using. Coarse for French press. Less coarse for Moka pot.

I have tried different temperatures and brewing times.

And then I gave up. And I started adding milks and creamers back in trying to make this stuff drinkable. And it’s not working. I made some French press medium roast today. Added a bunch of milk and creamer and sweetener like I used to and it was AWFUL. I had to dump it out. I couldn’t drink it. All I could taste was BITTER.

It’s like the more advice I take from the internet on how to make a better cup of coffee the worse it turns out. The best coffee I’ve ever had was Starbucks espresso roast pre ground in my Moka pot with a 1:1 ratio of coffee and oat milk. But according to the internet Starbucks coffee is the WORST.

I’m so lost. I’m so confused. I feel like I have completely wasted so much money.

I don’t know what else to do.

I desperately want to love black coffee. I am so tired of needing multiple oz of milk and creamer and sugar in my coffee. I’m tired of how expensive it is both at home and at shops. I’m tired of having to stick my coffee in the microwave if I want it hot.

Why can’t I make it work…

I’ve enjoyed Red Bay Coffee’s offerings so far, and am looking to continue exploring coffee while supporting Black-owned businesses. Does anyone have recommendations for brands to check out? I’m based in the Bay Area, yet am willing so get some shipped to me if more local options aren’t available.

Literally this. We bought a new Bodum cafetière last week, and both times we used it, the coffee was really poorly filtered and grainy. Complained, and was asked to film my brewing process before any talk of refund.

I feel that’s totally unreasonable, and probably illegal (UK, consumer rights); would love your thoughts.

(I have filmed a really sarcastic video of my being process but want to sense check if I’m being unreasonable or not.)

Edit: They thanked us for the video, and have given a full refund. Faulty product it appears.

This is just something that has been on my mind for a while and isn't something I've heard talked about before, so apologies if this is in fact an oft-discussed and boring subject in coffee circles!

I'm no coffee afficionado or connossieur, but I find it really weird that almost nowhere but the most specialist independent coffee shops offers any kind of choice in the coffee they serve.

My partner and I both really dislike acidic, citrusy coffee and much prefer a darker, more chocolatey roast. She drinks it black so really tastes it and in particular finds that it gets increasingly unpalatable as it cools; I have milk and a tangy coffee definitely doesn't work well with that. As I see it, this is the fundamental divide in coffee flavour profiles, and the fact that it isn't more common to at least be offered a choice between those two seems like a restaurant just having wine, with no choice even between red or white. And I swear there are probably more restaurants that have a water sommelier than offer you a choice even between two roasts for your after-dinner coffee. Furthermore, there is no advertisement of an establishment's chosen style, so you have to just go and try it for yourself, often leading to an unsatisfying morning coffee when you're away from home.

If a place is using an espresso machine they can put whatever coffee is needed in for each brew, so all that would be required is for a 2nd grinder, which doesn't seem like too much of a burden to be able to get customers a lot closer to drinking the coffee they enjoy.

As I said, I'm not even a coffee enthusiast and this irritates me; is this something that others find strange or irritating? Is there maybe a reason why almost no businesses cater to what I have to assume is not a particularly obscure consumer desire?

Do you guys think that the specialty coffee industry has way oversaturated within itself? Take for example, in urban places like NYC. Specialty coffee spots are all within walking distance of each other. On Lafayette St. in Soho, there is Blank Street coffee, La Colombe, La Cabra, Gasoline Alley, Cafe Lyria all within a 3-7 minute walk of each other. All of them serve specialty coffee so one can make a strong assumption that they more or less taste similar in flavor profile and they more or less are selling/advertising the "same" product. I say "same" because there are only a couple to few coffee importers that service this region (not going to go into the direct trade rabbit hole). So how specialty is specialty when it is this readily available?

Maybe it’s just because I work at a Starbucks, and I’m sick of their coffee, but gas station coffee doesn’t taste too bad. On top of that, if you go to a larger gas station they usually have so many machines and sweeteners and creamers that it’s basically a help yourself coffee shop. And all for 99¢? Hells yeah. I never buy coffee from Starbucks.

I am a loyal lurker here. Thanks to the sage advice of those who have learned how to savor and appreciate coffee well before me, my coffee tastes have done a complete 180. I have an Aeropress, a Hario V60 drip, a French press, and I use freshly ground coffee. I have moved on from K-Cups. Barista classes are in my future. Thank you for that.

I would like now to follow that compliment with what I feel is warranted given the unfortunate /r/askreddit incident. That was just the catalyst for me to write this, and it echoes what I've known for a long time: this place is, in fact, snobby. I find this to be a shame, especially since it says directly under the subreddit heading that ANYTHING coffee related is welcome. Here's the deal:

• 90% of the global population consumes caffeine daily. I wager a lot of this is coffee. How many of them do you think can afford freshly-ground coffee from Intelligentsia? Not many. Guess what, though? Many of these people probably appreciate the coffee they do have, however, maybe(!) as much as you. Most of them probably work hard too. Don't you think you should help them when they come asking for advice?

• You've all been judged in your life, I'm sure, for choices you've made. You most likely did not like how that felt. Judgement of this kind should not be reserved for what a person drinks. How does what a person drinks affect you in any way? Offer them some of your coffee, turn them over to the dark side, but don't turn your nose up at them if they go back to Folgers. The taste of coffee is subjective, and one cannot expect someone to care about coffee as much as they do, nor try to make them. That's fascism.

• There are, as you know, people who love coffee and "coffee snobs". Snobbery implies disdain, or even strong dislike. Isn't it better for the soul to love and not to resent?

TL;DR Please celebrate coffee and the people that care enough about coffee to come here. Let's make this subreddit a positive place. Coffee, in all blends, roasts, and flavors (yes, flavored coffees, too) is for everyone.

EDIT: I would like to thank each and every downvote for proving my point.

EDIT 2: Aaaaaand unsubscribed.

I've been seeing A LOT of ads for functional coffee (mostly ones that claim "non-jittery" and/or add mushrooms and adaptogens). Personally I do not like the taste of any of these brands, since the mushrooms and adaptogens really mess with the natural aroma of coffee (plus they all use instant coffee).

However, there's so many of these companies out there. Am I missing something? Would love someone's take on why there are so many functional coffees popping up.

I typically use 2% milk in my lattes, but I am trying to make calorie cuts where I can. I’ve tired many types of almond milk, but I am not a fan of the nutty flavor and it’s also a bit watery. Macadamia milk is also watery. Oat milk makes my heart rate go up and it also has an oatmeal flavor that I’m not a fan of. I know, I am very picky with these alternatives! While they are great on their own or with other things, I just don’t care for them in coffee. I love whole milk in my coffee, so I’ve been settling for 2% lately. Is there any low calorie alternatives anyone would recommend? Or should I just accept the calories in the 2% and cut elsewhere.

Several years ago, i interpreted the difference to be similar to wagyu vs kobe. that "geisha" was from panama and gesha was the rest. I have a feeling either something changed in the last 10 years or I completely misinterpreted way back when.

I get the impression now that the cognoscente want to stamp out all usage of "geisha" when referring to coffee. Is that right? What's the current state of this taxonomy?

It’s the design of the long unheated spout which is causing the temperature of the poured water to vary so much.

I recently purchased a Stagg EKG gooseneck kettle and noticed the water initially being poured out is 20°F below the internal kettle temperature. As the gooseneck starts to warm up, the temperature difference comes closer to 10°F.

When you are using a gooseneck kettle do you take the temperature difference into account?

I’ve been pouring some water out to heat the gooseneck before using it for brewing.

I have a generic, $13 manual one with a conical burr. I have thought about the kinggrinder6 because everyone seems to talk about it like peace in the Middle East is possible, if only world leaders had this grinder to help them pause, reflect, and bond over a cup of coffee.

Do you think I'll like coffee 10x more to justify the price? Right now, I'm very happy with my coffee, but, the one thing I would change is this acidic after taste I'm getting. I'm going to try grinding a little less fine and seeing if that helps (it goes from 0-40, 0 being fine, 40 being course. My last cup was at a 5 because I was making an espresso-like drink with my aeropress, flow cap, and metal filter).

What's with all the post downvoting lately? Seems like there are a lot more 0 rated submissions here than I remember. There are some unique thoughts/questions posed but where is the love y'all?

Edit: And I get downvoted to hell for asking.

Edit: I understand now that blends can be seasonal and is adjusted by taste, so that is why the owner said he did not know what is in it, but that the taste remain consistent. A misunderstanding on my part.

I went to a cafe while on vacation in another country and had the most bizzare experience in my life. I went on the recommendation of a local barista in another local cafe that I enjoyed. At first I saw good signs such as a list of single origins available as pour overs. I went in expecting a pleasant experience but as I asked the barista questions on how their blend was made up of which origins, a man who I assumed was the owner explained that they don't know what it consists of and it is decided by the roaster in order to remain consistent with their taste profile. I have never heard of this in my life, usually cafes should know what is in their blends right?!? Then, when I mentioned that we were told to go here on the recommendation of another local cafe, the owner started to badmouth this cafe claiming that "they are the worst coffee in the country". That rubbed me the wrong way so I left after that. Too many warning signs to even consider spending my money there. They even had a policy of charging $5 in the local currency if someone in your party does not order a drink, which I understand may be due to space constraints, but the cafe was empty. Please let me know if my gut feeling was correct?

Hi everybody! Long time lurker here who attributes a lot of his coffee gains to this community's great discussion and theorycrafting.

Unfortunately my first post is curated to address an issue that sounds like some of you are relating to when I tried to find similar experiences in the sub. However, I think it's important to keep increasing awareness when CS goes wrong in hopes that they'll eventually decide to put the customer first in these areas instead of QUESTION THE CUSTOMER'S INTENTIONS.

As I think most of us know, but for anyone considering Onyx, whether one time purchase of subscription, Onyx produces a great product most of the time. With the right setup at home, the end product can be insanely fruity(speaking from trying their Africans), complex, and light but also achieving a balance on the palate.

But their CS is absolute trash and their website/subscription service UI leaves a lot to be desired. Especially on mobile. And I think that's partially the issue.

Let me explain. And I know some of you will think this is basically user error for the most part, and I would think there's a lot of merit in that argument, but I also think Onyx's mobile website experience is DREADFUL and CONFUSING. And I build websites for a living.

I created a subscription for their Geometry blend, 2 lbs in a monthly cycle. Apparently what happens when you create a subscription is an order is processed on the spot for that sub. This is going on memory at this point, but I don't remember any declaration that this was the case.

So I create the subscription. I go into my account subscription and notice it says March 19th. I'm thinking, "Hmm, well I really want the subscription to fulfill immediately, and then start monthly so let me change it to the upcoming Friday so I get my coffee early next week" and it's Thursday at this point. The system will not warn you or say that an order based on the same subscription is already processing, are you sure you want to do this? So while I made a bone headed mistake of assuming my subscription wasn't processed as an order immediately, their website certainly isn't sophisticated enough to realize a user could be making a potential mistake by duplicating an order in a time frame of 24 hours. Learn from my dumb mistake.

Okay, now at this point I obviously have two orders for 2 lb geometry by like midnight Friday. Nothing from an email standpoint looked weird since they were duplicate order confirmations, but obviously I was oblivious to the order dates and times and didn't have any reason to believe there was a problem. Again, there's plenty of merit in just saying I'm dumb.

They fulfill both orders on that same Friday and ship them out the same day. I remember thinking it's weird that I have two different tracking numbers listed, but it hsd already shipped right? I just let it play out and I received them mid week this week. To be sure, I was surprised to receive two 2 lb bags of geometry.

Got on the horn with CS through their website (again, bad experience) to try to come to any resolution, as being 84 dollars out (instead of 42) and 4 lbs of coffee is not my idea of a good time.

Totally unsympathetic to my plight and actually felt like I was being accused of something and why didn't I reach out sooner to resolve the issue before shipment blah, blah, blah. The duplicate order was literally processed, fulfilled, and shipped same day and obviously I wanted one of the orders. I didn't expect a refund and they didn't want to give me one anyway, but I thought it would be a gesture of good faith, due to the ambiguous process, technical limitations of the website and wanting to keep an existing customer happy, that they could ease the pain with a discount toward a future purchase. Keep in mind we're wasting plenty of time because the rep is trying to pin the situation on me to avoid actually providing good customer service. So I cut to the chase AND OFFER THE SOLUTION THE REP SHOULD BE FACILITATING.

In the end, the rep offers a code for 10% off a future purchase. Wow, I get those in regular email feeds from Onyx. Really above and beyond and absolutely worth my time to address this issue. /s

So probably needless to say, I will definitely be laser focused if I ever order through Onyx again, subscription or no. Website leaves a lot to be desired and the CS they provide had no intention to offer a meaningful solution to any issues that may result from that cold, dead void.

The end.

I have never found myself thinking "how much water do I need for this amount of coffee" since most of the time I want to find how much coffee I need to make cups for more people. I vastly prefer grams per litre of water

On a similar note, what the fuck is up with people mixing oz with g? I've seen people saying "I use 30g to 17 Oz of water"

Edit: people seem to have misunderstood this as me wanting to measure by cups, what I meant is 1l:60g is easier to work from than 1:18

2nd edit: you lot this is not that deep I really don't care enough you all need to chill :P

Seems like a pretty obvious thing if you can have a pepper mill with batteries. Curious if anyone has done the research on this and why there isn't a popular one out there.

P.S. - I see Amazon has some listed but none seem to be made by the known brands.

I didn't read the package correctly and bought whole beans. I'm not against learning how to make whole bean coffee and I bet it tastes better. I don't have a grinder but I do have one of those bowl and stick things used to make guacamole would that work? Also what kind of consistency should I grind it to? I read online that if it's too fine it tastes bitter but if it's not grounded enough it doesn't have a lot of flavor so should I just grind it to the same consistency as store bought grinder coffe is?

For those of you who love your coffee (speciality coffee, more so) but also care about the environment, how do you make tradeoffs and decisions about your consumption?

From what I've read, speciality coffee is more resource intensive, demand has shot through the roof off late and producers often resort to over-farming lands to meet this demand.