Notes, reflections, corrections & additional links: Hey everyone! This was by far one of the most fun and challenging videos I've made to date. I'm sure there are going to be a ton of questions and comments on this video because the world of coffee is constantly evolving and a lot of what coffee you enjoy does come down to personal preference. Also, let me just get ahead of this question: Q: Why did you use a blade grinder?! A: I only used the blade grinder for the green coffee taste test. Green coffee is extremely hard and dense unlike porous roasted coffee so I didn't want to ruin my burr grinder that was used for all of the other coffees in this video. Now while this is fairly comprehensive video, it is also really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning about coffee. My ultimate goal with this video is to help YOU explore coffee beans you'll love. I think the best way to do that is by explaining the fundamentals from a price and flavor perspective so you can make an informed decision when you are tasting and shopping for coffee. Remember, all of us have our unique human biases when it comes to coffee: 1. Some of us only drink espresso and espresso drinks 2. Some of us use milk and sugar 3. Some of us like coffee black 4. Some of us only drink iced coffee Because of this I decided to focus this video specifically on the beans, because without the beans we don't have coffee, so logically, it makes sense as the first place to start. That being said, I'd love to do a video specifically on the fundamentals of brewing where we dive into: - Water (Ph, mineral content) - Grind size - Bean Ratio - Extraction (refractive index) - Brewing methods (espresso vs filter) So if you want to see that video, we can make it happen (maybe with some other coffee channel's help 👀) Additional learning ➡ ethanchlebowski.notion.site/Coffee-Learning-Resources-e961e8519d04457ba709fc7eea95a1f7?pvs=4 (I'll try to keep this updated as people offer more resources) AeroPress (20% off) ➡ www.aeropress.com/ethan - Another big thank you to AeroPress, without their support I probably would have a made a rushed coffee video just to get one done. So if you want to get 20% off and help support the channel, give them a look!
Good video. The aeropress is a great start to anyone's coffee journey! Want to add for anyone reading that another great reason to buy coffee from your local roaster is that they will roast beans fresh for you. Grocery stores see coffee as a non-perishable good (not as food!) so they will refuse to put a roasted-on date on the bag of coffee. Even if you buy 'specialty-grade' coffee from a grocery store it might have been roasted 5+ months ago and taste quite different to something roasted last week. In general its important to recognize coffee is a food product and getting it fresher is better. Slight note is that its generally considered good to wait a few days to a week after roasting to brew coffee as it needs to release its carbon dioxide buildup from the roasting process, as it might be more bitter to brew it instantly after roasting.
Nice video, quite well done. As someone who roasts his own coffee, it was something else to see your video on a topic I'm familiar with. Although I'd argue that robusta has a worse reputation than it deserves. While it lacks the more floral notes good robusta can have a very nice rich taste reminiscent of grain, nuts, woody and spicy. Part of the issue is that most robusta is used and grown for cheap commercial coffee and not to the standards of specialty arabica.
Thanks for all your time & effort. Great content. As a totally different twist, I've settled on consuming unfiltered Kafa Grande (Serbian brand) Turkish coffee. I just put 1 teaspoon in a large 16oz coffee mug, add water, then microwave for 2:44 (just below the boil-over time). The coffee comes out perfect for such a small amount of this intense powdered coffee. I do (3) coffees per morning and yet each bag lasts ~ (2) months. (6) bags are only $64 on Amazon, so my coffee habit costs only $0.175 per day. For a cappuccino, I recommend steam-frothed heavy cream. The combination comes out like a toasted marshmellow. Thanks again. Cheers!
A funny idea, but from a filming perspective, that sounds really hard to pull off 😆. You'd be racing against the clock sobering up between shots, or needing to re-dose just to stay drunk.
Yes, let's go down the Belgian Trappist rabbit-hole. I spent a few weeks there in the mid-2000s. It was a non-stop bender the entire trip...Belgium is to beer, as France is to wine. Cheers!
Specialty Roaster here to say that you can in fact measure and precisely define roastdegree! A roast degree analyzer is a Small device that measures how much light gets reflected by the roasted coffee beans and gives you a value along the AGTRON scale. 25-45 translates to your typical dark roast, 50-65 would be medium and from 70 upwards you‘d call it a light roast. Of course no two coffees roast the same but when you end the roast at the same temperature at similar roasting times you can get in a fairly narrow AGTRON range. Apart from that, this Video really serves as a exceptionally well crafted entry Point for everyone dabbling into the vast world of coffee, so thanks! And also congrats on the AeroPress sponsorship! (P.S. If this video happens to get new people into coffee… please prioritize good quality coffee over unneccesarily expensive gear 🙏🏻 You‘d be suprised how far a ordinary frenchpress, a plastic V60 Dripper or the advertised AeroPress combined with a decent handgrinder can get you!)
I did come across the AGTRON scale and had several questions regarding it! Do you know how common it is with specialty roasters and when it first started to be used? I think a really cool test would be to get two different green coffees and give them a side by side test at various AGRTON values
I think he did well in the sense that you don't have to buy coffee only based in the roast level label. Since it isn't regulated, you can label whatever you want. I believe that the agtron scale can be popularized since there are more options to get a roast degree analyzer. I think in the future we will have regulations in terms of roast level, that would be great in my opionion
color meters are a good way of ensuring consistency from roast to roast and getting a general idea of roast level, but the Frinsa Collective bean he showcased is a good example of why you can't completely blindly trust them; different processing methods etc. can pretty heavily influence the finished color while the flavor profile in terms of light/dark roast level could be similar, decaf is maybe the most extreme example where the decaffeination process changes the structure/chemistry of the bean so much that you need an entirely different frame of reference for color imo, and anaerobic coffees can taste good at much darker agtron levels than you could prefer for a washed coffee for example
@EthanChlebowski I think the coffee determines the desired roast level. Not all flavors shine in a light roast, but conversely you might not want to lose what's shining in a light roast to a medium roast. Dark roast is for demonologists like Yuban. (My old pal) For me as a coffee person. Light roast means I want to see pith on my beans and in my grinds, I'll be expecting something a bit more unique. Medium roast might have some pith, but might not. I'll be expecting something that tastes like Starbucks. Dark roast can get lost as far as I'm concerned. Stumptown makes some good medium roast. Volcanica has some good med/light roast. But right now I'm bargain shopping Kirkland Ethiopian light roast $19.99/2lbs. It punches above its weight class!
Many years ago, I couldn't place what I didn't like about the taste of Starbucks until someone mentioned “it's burnt”. Took a sip, and was like, “yep, never again”
My family have been growing coffee for more than a hundred years. Currently, we get about 30$ for about 100 lb of dry coffee berry, which after processing turns into 60 lb of green coffee, which gets exported for approx 100$ per 100lb, which eventually gets sold for anywhere between 300$ to 3600$ per 100lb. So, middle men plus processing takes the coffee from 20c/ lb that we get to average of 5$ / lb. Wish my family we in the business of processing/exporting as the hardest part and the riskier part is growing but the least paid is the farmer.
Sounds simple, but if they do that, they won't be able to reach the same consumers as if they sell them to the multinational companies. How will a coffee farmer in Uganda mass roast and export coffee to the masses around the globe?
This channel and video is a PRIME example of why learning via video is so valuable. Large volume of information is compactly, yet digestibly presented with high-quality production value! Perfection! Edit: spelling and grammar.
Ethan you're absolutely killing it this last year with the videos. I love the single topic videos packed with information, comparisons and food porn. These videos have helped me change the way I look at certain foods.
I'm a bit spoiled. One of my really good friends is a café owner who imports, and custom blends different ones, and roasts in house. I'm usually the guinea pig for his different blends, and roasts he is testing, before he will sell it. I usually skip sponsor spots, but I will admit I absolutely love my aeropress, I've had it for about ten years now. I use it all the time, not shilling for them, I honestly just really like it, I even sent one to a friend in Washington state
I treat these deep dive videos like the superbowl 😂 I got TH-cam up on the living room TV, got my cup of coffee, and a spread of snacks. Please keep up these videos dude, hands down your channel is better than cable!
Ethan, do you every worry about the "Pepsi Challenge" effect when sip testing for these videos? Pepsi wins the sip test over Coke, because people prefer the sweeter, more citrus-y cola in an isolated sip, but drinking a full glass is a very different experience where many people far prefer Coke. New Coke was designed to win the Pepsi challenge but it was so cloyingly sweet and citrus-y it was unpalatable to drink a whole can. When I see cupping sip tests I always think of the failure of new coke and wonder if you're really finding your preferred coffee, or if the process is artifically pushing you into the "Pepsi" of the coffee world.
nice point.. kinda like the way I prefer cold brew coffee to the traditional style, because I can't drink a whole mug of the coffee brewed with hot water, the taste is just so .. filling? it's hard to describe, but calling it the pepsi effect sounds easier. :D
I love this video. When I started my coffee journey about two years ago I went full into iced, brasilian, dark chocolate and nutty coffee. After a while I was in love with kenyan, sour and fruity as hell washed coffee and now I am looking for good balance between sours and bitters. 1st of July I am going to try my best in eliminations od Polish Aeropress Championship for the second time - wish me luck guys :D Cant wait for more coffee related videos!
I didn't hear one of the most important factors that can significantly impact the taste of coffee: Grinding! As an espresso and cappuccino enthusiast at home, I noticed a dramatic improvement in the taste of my shots after investing in a good grinder. It's not just about the grind size but also the consistency that a quality grinder provides. Therefore, a high-quality grinding machine is essential for achieving barista-level coffee. Maybe a French press might be more forgiving, I don't use it. Anyway, thank you for the great video.
The finer the grind the more important the grinder is. I started with a cheap ceramic one and my immersion brewing (french press) was still good. The espresso was night and day when I switched to the Kingrinder K2 though. French press was improved by being a little more balanced since there were fewer fines and coarser chunks, but immersion is pretty forgiving. Cold brew is the closest to fool proof because it’s so gentle.
also important to remember: the different ways to make coffee (amount of water, pressure, etc.) also affect the result. so in essence a good tasting coffee is a mix of the bean characteristics, the grinding and the brewing method. a bean that might taste terrible when ground up a certain size using a french press, might taste actually quite decent if ground up to a different grain and used with a mokka pot.
You are right, but this video is not meant for that. The process of brewing coffee or making espresso would be an entirely separate video in and of itself
@@lijkenkist1 Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. Anyway, my additional point was directed towards the title: "Is expensive coffee actually worth it?" Essentially, even if you have the finest beans in the world, without proper treatment and preparation (such as roasting and grinding), it could result in a worst tasting coffee experience.
FRESHNESS!!! Ethan, can't believe you didn't talk about this. It's the one take away I make sure to tell the coffee curious who may not know. It will give them a huge jump in the quality of coffee they're drinking every day. It's a critical component of buying your coffee for home. Make a follow on video. Roasted coffee is best within 2 weeks!!!!
This isn't always the case... Roasted coffee can be good for longer than two weeks. In fact, many light roasts need to be rested for a minimum of two weeks for brewing. This time allows the coffee to release excess CO2 created in the roast. James Hoffmann has an excellent video on the subject if you are interested.
Freshness is a big factor for sure. Light roasts are much more tolerant to (and prefer more) aging so that it can off-gas, but dark (e.g. second crack) roasts should be drank ideally within 1-2 weeks
Within two weeks?? For some roasts, some would say that you want to *wait* two weeks before brewing. Even for dark roasts, this is a really limited window. Most experts seem to say that you should ideally drink your coffee within 4 - 6 weeks of roasting. The specialty roaster I've been buying from says their light to medium roasted coffee is best within two months. And to be honest, it's not like the coffee will instantly turn bad outside that window either. Worrying too much about freshness will only lead you to waste a lot of perfectly good coffee. And if you got it direct from the roaster, you're already doing way better than supermarket coffee which has already been sitting on the shelf pre-ground for a month or two before it ended up in your home.
Not to be a party pooper, but you guys need to realize that most people either never make their own coffee, or they buy what's most convenient, which means either instant or preground. The biggest upgrade possible is having your coffee freshly ground. I've had coffee beans that I'd forgotten in a cupboard somewhere for over a year, I ground them, brewed them and they were still good. Yes, blander than normal, but still more than decent. Back when I was a student and didn't have a grinder, I used to buy ground coffee from a roaster near my house, and it was always the same story. I went to them, bought coffee, returned home and immediately brewed a cup. First one was always amazing. Second day and it was already crap. A week on, I might have just been brewing with soil.
I can see James Hoffmann watching this video and then going into full blown Heisenberg mode, showing up at Ethan's house and uttering "Stay out of my territory..." before backing away into the darkness of the night. Also, I know it's an ad, but I've been using an Aeropress since about 2010. I even just made a cup with mine while starting this video. I hate how fake sponsorships are but honestly, it's my favorite way to brew. The company was created by the guy who made the Aerobee flying disc. He sadly sold the Aeropress and it does seem like the current owner is more interested in maximizing profits, charging about twice these days as in 2010. It's still worth the price of admission, things work amazing and last ages. Also get a good hand grinder! I bought an 1zpresso JX grinder 3 years ago for about $110. The performance is incredible compared to anything electric in a similar price point. Quieter too and it's really not that hard to grind 15-20g of beans by hand. Nothing has really changed in terms of performance and it feels like it will last many more years.
Knowing James, he probably loves seeing new people entering the scene. Every time I've seen a non-coffee creator make a coffee video he's been in the comments encouraging people to get even more nerdy.
Agreed about the aeropress. My favorite coffee is still french press, but my aeropress is second and there's nothing else even close. I use the inverted method with 18 grams of italian espresso beans, ground at 11 on a baratza encore, with 65 grams of water for 45 seconds. Even after all these years I'm still experimenting with water temperature, but my go-to is 15 seconds off boil.
@@BlueDragon1504agreed. he doesn't gatekeep. at worst, he might correct errors or clarify explanations, but he never tries to keep people out, and encourages them to go even deeper
I think you've done a really great job here walking the line between coffee nerds and coffee amateurs, this video serves as a very good 'introduction to coffee' primer for the unwashed (hweh) masses.
I find that light, medium, and dark is more a way of getting a taste profile. Not really how light, medium, or dark, it is. I use that as a starter, but I do not use that as the final reason why I buy it.
It's extremely inconsistent. Starbucks light roast coffee would have a similar taste profile (or in that range) compared to most specialty dark roasts. Also why the large majority of specialty roasters don't ever mention the roast profile on the bag of coffee. They roast it for the best flavour of that particular coffee.
Tasting notes are more accurate. Some light roasts can have almost no acidity and they will have notes like "nuts, graham cracker, cereal". I find those to be extremely boring. Others are bright and zesty with acidity, like "lemon, grapefruit, any citric sorbet, honey", while others may be more funky like "mango, berry jam" etc. All can be light roasts and be extremely different from one another. From haylike bad coffee that just shouldn't be roasted that light because of their inherent properties, to delicate bright coffees like African coffees, and wild naturals that smack you in the face (which I personally prefer as part of a blend moreso than pure). It's why most specialty coffee roasters use tasting notes instead of just saying dark or light or medium.
@@TheRealAstro_ starbucks is the furthest thing from a standard or quality that anybody should consider or account for when it comes to coffee. it shouldn't even warrant a mention. they roast the shit out of their beans. most people i have talked to about it are convinced it is an attempt to cover up the poor quality of beans they use/sell.
@@raifsevrence My espresso machine can't even make them taste worthy of drinking. I tried their coffee and had to throw it away as it was terrible, no matter what I did.
First time watching, been recommended before, I love all the info, thank you for getting so technical! One thing though, could you possibly get some sound deadening? The echo was fairly distracting in this video
I also found the echo and audio distracting but really enjoyed the info, I don’t think most of the channels videos sound like this one but most of them are quite informative and enjoyable.
Seriously, the Aeropress is such a great brewer. One of the rare times where I am in full agreement with the promotion of the sponsor. It can even do espresso-style drinks - not real espresso, but I have gotten very concentrated coffee from it and with a fine mesh metal filter even get some decent body to it. Without the plunger and the right grind, it can be used as a very easy pour-over as well.
You should check out Final Press - the largest ever Kickstarter for a coffee product. It's made from stainless steel and is a fraction of the size of an Aeropress. I replaced my Aeropress with it initially because of microplastic concerns, and now haven't looked back
Great work @EthanChlebowski . As a grower, I think you had a key point with "geisha is whats popular now, who knows what people will like in five years". I'm currently planting out over 20 mind blowing and little known varieries from ethiopian landrace strains like WushWush and Papayo, Sudan Rume, naturally decaf "Laurina Bourbon", Abisinian Java, Yemenese Mocha, chiroso, Venezuelan Monte Claro and criollo, and even some rare and unique Libericas and Canephoras. Im still searching for a few. Namely C. Liberica Excelsa, C. Stenophyla, C. Eugenoides, and the Jember crosses between Liberica and arabica. But not Geisha. Geisha took so long to be "discovered" because nobody liked the flavor until a hype cycle started in Panama around some sort of floral acidity obsession. But real specialty coffee flavor is just getting started. I focus on naturals to exentuate the complex flavors nacent in each variety from our organic regenerative agroforestry project. Anarobic is interesting. Although "anarobic fermentation" is a redundancy. But my take is that coferment is essentially flavored coffee. Still, I may eventually experiment with resting or coprocessing coffee with porcelain and criolle cocoa beans or pulp. its a big world out there. Keep up the good work Ethan! Btw, most coffee your drinking is actually part Robusta, as most comercial crops are now hybrids from the Timor cross. (Usually derived from catimore or Sarchimore) Which are, in my humble opinion, utter crap. Beautiqueen, over productive plants with a profile of cardboard with sawdust and cocoa powder. Its something like 80% of "100% arabica" coffee in the US.
@@NoahDVS I don't like them because they don't ship to Europe. Other than that I'm unsure, maybe there was a controversy? Not that I've heard, though. Maybe it's a general feel of "sponsor bad". Or it's just fun to not see trade because it's so common.
@@CWGminer Roasted beans have air in them, meaning they're brittle and thus easy to break down. Unroasted, or green, coffee beans have no air in them, making them *much* denser, and thus much harder to break down. Burr sets are made to break down roasted coffee beans. While all sharp things dull over time, burrs can dull *much* faster when subject to unroasted coffee beans because of how much denser they are.
I knew this question was going to popup haha, here's my explanation: Q: Why did you use a blade grinder?! A: I only used the blade grinder for the green coffee taste test. Green coffee is extremely hard and dense unlike porous roasted coffee so I didn't want to ruin my burr grinder that was used for all of the other coffees in this video.
Expensive though it really depends who it is. when it comes to coffee usually if it means that the coffee growers, the actual farmers, not Nestle or some other food corporation is getting the money, then it's worth it.
I love my aero press and have used one for nearly 10 years now. It was the best way to make coffee when I was in the army because I could just toss it into my rucksack without worrying about it given it’s durable construction!
You should check out Final Press - the largest ever Kickstarter for a coffee product. It's made from stainless steel and is a fraction of the size of an Aeropress. I replaced my Aeropress with it initially because of microplastic concerns, and now haven't looked back
If you mentioned that shade grown coffee is superior to full sun I missed it. Coffee farms decimate bird habitat and are in full sun. Some farms do plant bananas to provide shade, but not many. Coffee planted in forests are shade grown and preserve bird habitat.
@@ZY1982 Shade grown coffee ripens slower allowing more complexity and flavor to develop. Coffee used to always be shade grown until more sun tolerant varieties were developed.
These videos are so thorough, dynamic, and insightful. Literally a documentary. I love the experiments so much. Seeing them mean more than just being presented numbers and data- though, when you do refer to studies it’s such a treat ❤
I love my Aeropress and my V60... it's wild that the ENTRY level brewers are also the end game brewers... lol it's such an unexpected thing for such a deep hobby (yes, coffee is a hobby... trust me readers)
The real enjoyment in coffee as a hobby is that you can get everything from Aeropress and V60 to french press, moka pot or your average coffee machine (or even espresso machine) and enjoy them all for different reasons. And brewing with all of them is exciting in some way.
@@soupisgood44 Come on man, don't sink down to that idiot's level by just throwing random insults hoping one lands. Just ignore him. I don't even like coffee but recognize it as a perfectly fine hobby, that isn't a contentious statement at all and anyone that thinks it is is so young their opinion doesn't matter or are just intentionally trying to be stupid to get a rise out of others...which also points to being too young (at least mentally) for their opinion to matter.
Hi, i really needed this kind of video when i started to work at a speciality coffee shop, a big sum up of what is going on in coffee industry and i will be recommending this video to new baristas to watch. Thanks
What a great introductory video into coffee! Really well researched and discussed. It's obviously very difficult to go truly in-depth on coffee, since it's such a staggeringly deep rabbit hole but this is exactly what I was hoping it'd be; a great introduction that makes sense for any beginner! Thank you for the great information as always!
Thank you very much for making this video. As a great fan of coffee I'm amazed how complex the production of coffee beans are. Just bought a coffee grinder. From now on I'll focus more on the beans I'm going to buy. ❤
i feel like the script was out of ChatGPT because he also said he would cover decaf “later in the video” and never did. Also he repeated some of the same lines several times
Great vid! I especially loved the concise but thoroughness of the process section. No one ever does this breakdown. That said, so much of the content here is almost entirely useless to vast majority of home brewers, as the differences discussed here all go right out the window for someone who can't get a quality extraction. - WATER - uniform grind - considered brewing methodology to match your specific coffee and brewer These are all necessary in order to get any coffee bean to taste like what it was roasted to taste like. Without them, you'll end up with mostly noise in the cup, and won't be any better off for it... Knowing Ethan's interest for depth, I expect he already knows this and is likely planning a companion brewing vid.
@@PhysicsGamer hahaha... I meant it like a signal:noise ratio. You'll mostly be tasting a mix of over- and under-extracted coffee, with at best only a hint of what it actually has to offer. That experience is all most home brewers know.
Also what I've found out too is the Temp. of the Water and what Water you Do also use with the Beans as it Does make a change it a bit, as i've been brewing a lot as of late and it's great to experiment here and there with Coffee's.
I love these deep dive videos, definitely some of my favorites. If I may give some constructive feedback though, the phrase "We'll get to that shortly" or "We'll get to that later" comes up VERY frequently in all of these deep dive videos. It can be a tad aimless and distracting. I understand the need to acknowledge that undressed concerns will be realized, but it would seem more professional and curated without the large quantity of "as we'll see later" comments unnecessarily padding the information in each section. We're already looking forward to getting to those parts, and know they're coming based on the organizational graphics you present. Please keep making these!
I do agree the videos could be quite a bit shorter if all the delaying to get to topics, and talking about delaying upcoming topics was cut out. Also much less distracting that way for sure
I agree with this. The repeated mentions of content coming later come off as padding. A single summary at the front would be enough and not belabour the point.
The deeper the better, I learn so much from these, I listen several times when needed but cutting out parts would be a disservice, thanks for trusting us with the whole piece! Worst case to satisfy the haters u break it up & release in chunks for the lazies who can’t be bothered with scrolling (tho I feel not necessary if chapter labels)
@@jjjames6894 I don't want parts cut at all either, I love deep dives. It's not about length, it's just about structure and organization, and my view of how to improve on the flow. Definitely not a hater here!
Classic fallacy is that something that is expensive due to rarity and/or demand is also equally better. With common sense it's immediately obvious that is not what guided the price. I always try to buy as light roasted coffee as possible these days, because that often means that 1. there's rich flavour profile that's worth presenting, which indicates good beans 2. the roaster isn't trying to hide the poor quality of beans by roasting them out of all flavour. Not that there aren't good darker roasts, but with them you're just rolling the dice unless you're familiar with the product without any hints. Also prefer, when possible, buying from specialty shops because you get to see the beans before buying the bag, you even get to sniff them if you want and they can recommend you this or that based on your liking, and they rarely overroast beans to hide flavours (instead of roasting them for specific flavours) unlike market brands. The best part about it is their advice though. You can ignore just about everything in choosing coffee and just ask what they recommend you based on what you want, as long as you understand how to brew lighter and darker roasts for their potential. And you can almost guarantee the beans are freshly roasted when you buy from a specialty shop, unlike those market bags that, if they even have roasted date, are at best a month old, often as old as 6 months (even the local roaster coffee bags in the markets can be 6 months old which is sort of infuriating both for the customer and the roaster). When the optimum is somewhere around 1 week to 8 weeks, the last optimal date depending on how much it was roasted. More on the region based coffee flavours: if you just have money and can find coffees of such kind, the more pinpoint accurate the source is on the bag, the better. It might not be your favourite, but you're much more likely to get more ethical coffee and more distinct taste. Because it's not hidden from the consumer, you could investigate the ethical side when you know exactly who the farmer was (so it's more likely to be from a farm that has things in order). Also it's not a mixed bag of different coffees grown for example in Kenya. Even if it's coffee farmed by some community, it's better than vague "Kenya" or "Africa" or something. My favourite coffee was definitely a bag from Ethiopia that had the farmer's name on the bag as source. It was very easy to name different flavour experiences from that cup of coffee, perhaps because all the beans were just about the same. What I've personally noticed in my local coffee shop is that there's definitely regions that have coffee to my taste in that coffee shop, like Ethiopian coffees they have, just in general Ethiopian. Don't know if it's tied to what they like to buy from which area, but they've had similar qualities in some regions I've liked, so I assume the actual farming height and place does play a big role as well (of course it does change the flavour, but so distinctly affect it based on region). Another thing the specialty coffee shops have going for them is that the coffee beans are often very similar in size. This means their roasting was rather homogenous and as a result, your grind setting can control the experience better. To make an exaggerated example: if you grind a very dark roasted bean with a very light roasted bean to very fine grain, your cup will have both the extremely unpleasant bitterness and richness of those two beans. Similarly to grinding them very coarse, you might get a decently balanced and at the same time very underextracted. Making it rather unpredictable and mixed review, not the true nature of that bean any way you grind it. More to Ethan's point about the varieties you get named in specialty coffees, I looked at bags that I saved to remind me in future purchases and you wouldn't get these in market brands ever (all seemed to be single origin): Pacamara, SL28, Ruiru, Batian, Kurume, Welicho, Castillo, Mixed Heirloom. Noteworthy is that all had the farmer's name on the bag, my favourites and least favourites so that's to taste, not to quality. My least favourite (learned from the video, from the variety tree infographic) one was Robusta variety, might be consequential or not. My favourites had either citrusy or red berry, and floral tastes and were from African origin. The least favourites were from South/Central America and had more of a nutty or chocolatey aroma, but not quite the way I enjoy them. As you may have noticed, single origin with a specific farmer can still produce blends (Mixed Heirloom from Ethiopia and one bag had SL28, Ruiru and Batian from Kenya). The Mixed Heirloom was one of my favourites due to almost mandarin like aroma, fresh and fruity/citrusy. The Mixed Heirloom is due to Ethiopia having 6000-10000 coffee varieties (learned this just due to further researching inspired by the video) so almost all of their coffees are blends. Supposedly every village can have its own variety, and unidentified varieties are just marked Mixed Heirloom. Meaning to say blends aren't automatically bad. Truly fascinating that they have already updated the coffee tree infographics on Cafe Imports website since Ethan used it for the video. Ironically I do enjoy those "medium roasted" coffees with chocolate and vanilla, even caramelly hints and whatever. They also go better with milk/cream/sugar in my opinion. I'm just not very confident in buying them from markets. Especially since they're more likely to be stale from the unopened bag. Also here medium roast (or we have 1 to 5 in most bags, so 3) is roasted darker than you might expect elsewhere. In market coffees that's often the quality and range (and also age) where you don't get much more than the roast. Many who have only drunk market coffees could be surprised that coffee has wide range of flavours due to that stale market medium roast just tasting like sort of bitter dark roast coffee. For example I've never ever had fruity or berry or floral like flavours in market coffee, no matter which roast level. At best there's a very minor hint of chocolate or so. The lighter roasts would just be less bitter and more acidic coffee taste. And you need to brew it well to get that minor hint of chocolate out, which might not be a thing in your average household even. But don't despair if you can't reason or afford specialty coffee, I still buy market beans or ground coffee at times and I'm happy with the cups I get, it doesn't ruin the experience of "normal" coffee. In fact the big brands have infinitely superior grinding machines that get so much more homogenous grind than your own grinder, be it hand or automatic grinder, could ever get. And since ground coffee is consumed the most, you can sometimes find quite fresh bags, so win-win. Watching James Hoffmann and trying out more expensive (to give a rough estimate 4x the price since the market coffee is like 6 euros a bag and the specialty is 12, but market has 400…500 grams and specialty has 200 grams. Sounds rough but in the end your regular mug of market coffee costs 10…20 euro cents) specialty coffee shop coffee literally changed my life and I've drunk coffee for +20 years. Only after that I learned that coffee has that before mentioned wide variety of flavours. Even if I'm not a great brewer, I get so much more enjoyment out of my coffees these days, I truly enjoy both the brewing process and flavours I can find. I learned to adjust the brewing first with a familiar bag of coffee until I could tweak it based on the resulting taste and what I was looking for, and then started buying different coffees and using that acquired brewing skill to find what their true flavours were. And it's also a good lesson that the bags of coffee are individual. Even if you buy the same coffee, you might need to adjust the brewing, particularly when you buy a different coffee. So it's worthwhile to learn to adjust the brewing based on what you get in your cup and getting to know what tweaks affect what traits. The most important lesson in that was "even if you think you got a pretty decent cup, push the adjustment one step further. Or a whole range further." Like when I was brewing a bag of somewhat dark roast at 85°C because raising it to 87…89°C made it just more bitter and burnt tasting, I thought "what the heck, this isn't _really_ good" and pushed it to 95°C and found out that somewhere between 92…95°C was the goldilocks zone for that bag and me, richer flavour and less of that bitterness (bit surprisingly and contradictingly, usually the hotter the water, the more likely it starts to get bitter). Apparently the coffee wasn't that dark and higher extraction just helped give it so much more flavour that the bitterness with underextraction got overpowered by good flavours. Or something, you never really know for sure. What's truly fascinating is that there's a lot of coffee plant types, but we almost exclusively drink Arabica. Instant coffee and cheaper coffee might be Robusta, or some espresso I recall. Some brands make a blend of Arabica and Robusta for specific flavour profile. But as the climate changes, we're in risk of all the coffee farming areas moving into completely different areas, which is to begin with an economical disaster for the farmers, but also an issue for the current coffee varieties used for coffee. So people are "frantically" searching for different varieties that might be better fit for being farmed in different climates. I feel like Ethan addressed a lot of these points, but maybe this gives a tiny bit more detail to it for someone who is interested. Btw I really appreciate Ethan doing proper academic work by reporting all his source materials. It makes it so nice to further delve into information. And I approve AeroPress too. I use V60 pour over at the moment, but AeroPress makes brewing and adjusting your own process for whatever you have so much easier than anything else.
I use V60 too. I prefer a light roast that is either anaerobic or honey processed, seek out fruity flavors. Probably the best coffee I ever had was a small batch anaerobic from Ethiopia. I can’t remember now, but there was something else special they did. I wish I kept the bag. I usually order my coffee from Big Shoulders out of Chicago. They have never failed with their single origin and small batch. Even their standard options that they have consistently are very good.
Roasting darker doesn't necessarily mean lower quality bean and that the roaster is trying to mask it. Some beans just have a flavor profile that shines more when it's undergone more caramelization or when it gets a small hint of pyrolosis. It's about roasting the bean to the level where the flavor of the bean is showcased at it's best. Some beans just don't have flavor profiles that show well with a light roasting. While mass-market roasters will usually roast very dark to help reduce variance and make a more homogenized product, very few specialty roasters will roast beans into oblivion just to hide flavors, if the beans aren't worth showcasing they likely won't buy them again. This being said I tend to prefer lighter roasts most of the time myself, as they tend to be slightly more on the acidic side and I find that acidity helps cut through any bitterness and allows you to more easily pick out the flavors.
Good informative video. I don't think it was super practical though for people wondering if they should try that $75 bag. It boils down to taste of course. Most people want "traditional" coffee like "coffee flavor" which usually means a nutty or chocolatey coffee darker roast with some bitterness. When you pay $75 per bag for example, you're getting more exotic notes such as lemongrass, strawberry, raspberry, caramel, etc. Cross-ferments have also been really popular in the specialty scene and a cross ferment with Mango for example yields something resembling mango tea. So really when you're looking to try new coffee it boils down to how flexible are you with your definition of coffee? Most people's minds are blown when they drink a coffee that taste like grape soda, mango juice, or a caramel instead of coffee. Also spending $75 on a bad without buying your own grinder or kettle with thermometer is like driving a BMW twin turbo without Premium gas. The performance and gas milage is significantly degraded. This means that, in my opinion, "finding beans you like" first is not super accurate. I'd perfect one brewing method first and then try different beans as the brewing method and the cup itself can change the flavor drastically. That way you have a blank canvas each time you try new beans. Also Geisha, Java and Typica are Arabica beans so I'm not exactly certain why they are all in the same graphic? It's like putting a "BMW", X3, X2, X1 side-by-side in a graphic.
Gesha is definitely worth the price, however, not as a daily drinker, it's more of an occasional treat, I just vacuum bag doses of whole beans and keep them in the freezer for special occasions. This was a great general overview of actual coffee knowledge, not just what the commercial producers want you to know, but, like you said, despite the length, it's only really scratching the surface.
My love, the Aeropress! I've been using it for years and years, tried all the other methods, and the only thing I like more is espresso. I have the Aeropress XL right now to feed my desire for a bigass cup in the morning. It rocks 🤙
That caught my attention, but not nearly as much as his use of a long 'a' in "arabica". He said the word *so* many times in the video, and I've never heard anyone else pronounce it like that. Given how central it is to the subject, that seems like a serious gaff.
I disagree with that you shouldn't go for light/medium/dark, at least in that regard if you prefer light, dark won't be your favourite and if you prefer dark, light won't be your favourite. at least that should've been mentioned, maybe i did not see it though.
Specialty coffee isn't really roasted "dark" though. Past 2nd crack all coffee starts to taste the same. If you like dark roast that's fine, but then most of the details aren't as important.
The main point is that even if you prefer *a* light roast, you might not like other light roasts, and that just because you found *a* light roast that you like doesn't mean that there aren't medium/dark roasts you might also like.
Im glad you did this video. I watch a lot of coffee videos and not sure I have seen one that goes over these aspects so thoroughly and especially not how significantly all these variables contribute to taste. It's basically a coffee buying 101 video. Side note, green coffee IS coffee. It is actually a thing people do buy and drink, although not well known. I know you were essentially saying "this doesn't taste like what I think of as coffee" but saying "this isn't coffee" is inherently wrong and misinformation. Easy to miss in your research I'm sure. I've literally only heard about it once. Very interesting though.
I have coffee broker friends that sold a lot of coffee to two "major" coffeehouses. The brokers told me that the coffeehouses paid-up for premium coffee but were notorious for rejecting shipments that didn't pass quality control.
The rejected it, but used it. They know they get a knocked off price if they claim a precentage of shipments didn't meet so called quality control. It's a f'ing coffee bean for goodness sake.
@@MrOldclunkerthat’s not how it works. The coffee contract is on SAS/replace, meaning that the contract is “subject to approval of sample” where the sample is not approved, it must be replaced by importer. Only on a super premium lot where there is not an available replacement would the contract price be renegotiated. If the importer is not in agreement that the coffee has had a quality issue, the importer will void the contract and resell it.
Fun coffee tip: adding the tiniest bit of cocoa powder (like 1/8 teaspoon) in with your coffee grinds has a massive impact on the taste. It doesn't taste like chocolate, but it removes a great deal of the bitterness. My own personal theory is that the cocoa particles bind the bitterness causing compounds and trap them in the filter paper, giving you the cleanest cup of coffee you've ever had in your life.
@@pauldaulby260 Great! I'm glad to get this idea out there. Note that I mean adding the cocoa powder to the grounds you're just about to brew. Adding it to the cup after the fact gives an entirely different (and in my opinion, inferior) result. Add too much and you'll clog the filter, or get a noticable chocolate note (not necessarily bad, but not the point here). No need to mix it in, in fact mixing has seemed to increase clogging. Just sprinkle on top of the grounds and brew as usual. Either cocoa mix or unsweetened baking cocoa work, but cocoa mix has a lower risk of clogging in my experience. Cacao nibs might also be an interesting option.
Thanks!!! Between you and @LanceHedrick I have upped my game substantially. Lance taught me about time and weight being the primary variables in the espresso game... And you my good sir have just explained how to find and understand my coffee. Found a local roaster In Ridgewood NJ - REY SOL only one in the area that had the info you talked about Alt, Process, notes.... Well I can never go back to Starbucks now that I know what real coffee can taste like. Keep the knowledge flowing and Thanks AGAIN!!!
Fun video! Thanks!! I searched 20 years for a good coffee and stumbled on it by chance. I drink it everyday but occasionally try something different. Fun to try but every test confirms how great my daily coffee is.
I appreciate the technicality of all your videos. I've been drinking coffee for 64 years (began when I was 12): I choose by just one parameter...how does it smell in the bag. I care about the smell probably more than the taste. My preferred method of preparation is "Cowboy Coffee." When my ulcers were a huge problem many years ago I learned that filtering the coffee inflamed my ulcers but soaking the grounds in my cup never bothered them. I've recently changed to using a small Espresso Machine and having a double-dose every morning. That's basically the same as Cowboy style.
I've just started watching but I'm already so excited to see what will happen in this great video. Because it is Ethan and I strongly believe he made a great content again. Besides I was recently thinking about the topic but was lazy to go over all content over the internet. Luckily, I've discovered this channel thank to TH-cam's algorithm.
if you are on computer download browser extension called "video speed controller", with it you can speed up his blabbering with a hotkey (v is the default) and when he gets to the important part, with the same hotkey (v) it will go back to normal and if you are on the phone just press anywhere in the screen and keep pressing, the video speed will automatically goes to x2 and the sec u let go it goes back to normal
Nah, this is a bad take for coffee. The brewing method has nothing to do with the outcomes of the tests, as long as they are all brewed with the same device. The Aeropress actually works better than something like a V60 or Kalita Wave, etc., because it takes away more of the change the brewing technique can impart on flavor.
Good breakdown, I've been drinking/buying/selling coffee for 30+ years and learned from this. It's left me with some questions for my own tastes, so informative too.
What I learned recently is: With the amount of variables you have to tinker with when going through the last steps of creating the drink, there is so much that can go wrong, that I just don't trust myself with a 70$/lb bag of coffee... yet. There is a cafe here in the city that I sometimes go to and they have an amazing washed Gesha medium roast. Whenever I go there, I just drink that as a pour over brew. One day I bought a small bag of it to make it at home. It tasted completely different. Since then I have purchased a water filter and upgraded my grinder, but still, I don't manage to make it taste as good as the people at the cafe. There are beans that I can create a beautiful cup from at home, but that particular one is not one of them. So I'll just keep this as a treat that I drink at the cafe every now and then and at home I'll stick to other beans that I know come out right at least most of the time. And that cost about half as much, so if I fudge it, I'm not quite as sad about it.
Good over-view of pretty much everything coffee for beginners I think :D The Aeropress IS very versatile and a great little device for not too high price. I'd also suggest a V60 pour over brewer, but you'll only get best results with that with either a drip assist device or a fancier gooseneck kettle. 8:38 Yeah that's some pretty extreme Under roasting! I've done that when I started roasting and my power outlet was providing insufficient power for my roaster, turns out if it's that under-roasted you can get better results re-roasting the coffee. Maybe it's not idea, but better than wasting it anyway! 11:35 Same-ish thing happens when your cooking food, a quarter pounder burger isn't 1/4lb when it's cooked!
what i've learned soo far with my coffee making journey . is a good quality arabica bean is the key to a sweet fruity coffee (more cafe taste ) and the robusta gives a stronger more bitter taste for espresso etc
Love the video Ethan! A lot of really helpful insights. Especially liked the delving into different processing methods, that is a really useful piece of knowledge when trying to select for particular profiles, and before this I had only been familiarized with “ethiopian process” which is the equivalent of natural process I suppose. Would love a sub-topic video with more side by side taste tests of different processing methods, different varieties, and potentially digging more into brewing methods as well. But I really appreciate these investigative style videos that are more oriented toward how these industries function, explaining all the variables in the line of production, etc. I think it’s really helpful as a consumer.
Thank you for all the videos you make!! I’ve been a subscriber for some time now. I don’t get excited for most things, but when I see you have a new video I grab a great snack and enjoy. Length of the videos are great. Please keep it up!!
I'm not a huge coffee fanatic, before I say this: but I own an Aeropress and I love it. I do follow a few groups online and it's honestly interesting to see someone use it in the factory-recommended way and not the "inverted method" that many Aeropress users rave about. I think a channel like yours should do a video to see if there's any actual difference in taste etc. between the two methods.
This is the best video you have ever done mate! Being a coffee person myself, I appreciate the amount of research you have put into this. Thanks for the effort.
Thanks for such a thorough video! Another big decision point for me when choosing coffee is how well the people involved and the environment are treated in the process. I'd love it if you would do a video about that.
Tea drinker here. Was quite entertaining to see your take on the coffee world. I gave up soda 13 years ago so my caffeine intake is through tea. My husband is the coffee drinker and uses various methods to brew. It seems more of the coffee notes have to do with the processing. This is true to a certain degree with tea leaves but the primary source of determining quality is the location of the cultivar. Processing matters more so with red(black) tea, oolong tea, fermented teas (Puer) or aged teas (white, red/black Puer, and another variety known as Anhua) Aged teas (5+years) are a completely different world as this depends on storage methods and various techniques based on regional culture, like fur example storing your teas in bamboo versus wrapping in paper versus storing in clay jars. Once you source your quality of tea leaves, it's them up to you to control how you brew it by controlling the volume of leaves, temp of water, time steeping, and even type of water.
Thanks for very informative and helpful video Ethan! Though I am not a coffee person (I tend to prefer tea), I learned many insights from this video. Nonetheless, in the future could you please do a similar take on high-end teas and see if they are similar to specialty coffee or not?
Alright starting off I enjoyed the deep dive and will agree that the starting point of the bean growth, fermentation, etc. is most important. That said for experienced coffee drinkers I think roast level is an important consideration. I find that medium roast coffees even from quality producers almost never reach the enjoyment of light roasts for my desired flavor preferences. I almost always will taste more notes from the roasting in the "medium" roast which I do not enjoy. I've had a some enjoyable medium roasts but every exceptional cup I've ever had out of hundreds of different types was always light roast.
ethan, this channel has easily become my absolute favorite channel to watch-the way you come off as so passionate about these topics and the care you put into these deep dives is so cool and insanely inspiring!! I have become so much more confident in the kitchen and in learning new things because of what I’ve learned from you, thank you so much!!
Its 5:30 pm and this video made me make a pot coffee. Been getting this First Coloney Discoveries Organic Colombian Santa Marta coffee from Publix, seems so be a step above the other commercial beans.
Co-ferments are definitely a fun world to explore! I just started brewing a bag from Black & White that's a blend of four coffees, three of which are co-fermented (lemongrass, lemon, and dragon fruit). The berry note was incredibly prominent, and it was maybe the best cup of coffee I've ever brewed. And now I'm gonna be chasing that high...
Notes, reflections, corrections & additional links:
Hey everyone! This was by far one of the most fun and challenging videos I've made to date. I'm sure there are going to be a ton of questions and comments on this video because the world of coffee is constantly evolving and a lot of what coffee you enjoy does come down to personal preference.
Also, let me just get ahead of this question:
Q: Why did you use a blade grinder?!
A: I only used the blade grinder for the green coffee taste test. Green coffee is extremely hard and dense unlike porous roasted coffee so I didn't want to ruin my burr grinder that was used for all of the other coffees in this video.
Now while this is fairly comprehensive video, it is also really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning about coffee. My ultimate goal with this video is to help YOU explore coffee beans you'll love. I think the best way to do that is by explaining the fundamentals from a price and flavor perspective so you can make an informed decision when you are tasting and shopping for coffee. Remember, all of us have our unique human biases when it comes to coffee:
1. Some of us only drink espresso and espresso drinks
2. Some of us use milk and sugar
3. Some of us like coffee black
4. Some of us only drink iced coffee
Because of this I decided to focus this video specifically on the beans, because without the beans we don't have coffee, so logically, it makes sense as the first place to start.
That being said, I'd love to do a video specifically on the fundamentals of brewing where we dive into:
- Water (Ph, mineral content)
- Grind size
- Bean Ratio
- Extraction (refractive index)
- Brewing methods (espresso vs filter)
So if you want to see that video, we can make it happen (maybe with some other coffee channel's help 👀)
Additional learning ➡ ethanchlebowski.notion.site/Coffee-Learning-Resources-e961e8519d04457ba709fc7eea95a1f7?pvs=4 (I'll try to keep this updated as people offer more resources)
AeroPress (20% off) ➡ www.aeropress.com/ethan - Another big thank you to AeroPress, without their support I probably would have a made a rushed coffee video just to get one done. So if you want to get 20% off and help support the channel, give them a look!
Good video. The aeropress is a great start to anyone's coffee journey!
Want to add for anyone reading that another great reason to buy coffee from your local roaster is that they will roast beans fresh for you. Grocery stores see coffee as a non-perishable good (not as food!) so they will refuse to put a roasted-on date on the bag of coffee. Even if you buy 'specialty-grade' coffee from a grocery store it might have been roasted 5+ months ago and taste quite different to something roasted last week.
In general its important to recognize coffee is a food product and getting it fresher is better.
Slight note is that its generally considered good to wait a few days to a week after roasting to brew coffee as it needs to release its carbon dioxide buildup from the roasting process, as it might be more bitter to brew it instantly after roasting.
Yes on all those videos. We all know and love James Hoffman's perspective, I'd love yours as well.
Nice video, quite well done. As someone who roasts his own coffee, it was something else to see your video on a topic I'm familiar with.
Although I'd argue that robusta has a worse reputation than it deserves. While it lacks the more floral notes good robusta can have a very nice rich taste reminiscent of grain, nuts, woody and spicy.
Part of the issue is that most robusta is used and grown for cheap commercial coffee and not to the standards of specialty arabica.
Thanks for all your time & effort. Great content.
As a totally different twist, I've settled on consuming unfiltered Kafa Grande (Serbian brand) Turkish coffee. I just put 1 teaspoon in a large 16oz coffee mug, add water, then microwave for 2:44 (just below the boil-over time). The coffee comes out perfect for such a small amount of this intense powdered coffee. I do (3) coffees per morning and yet each bag lasts ~ (2) months. (6) bags are only $64 on Amazon, so my coffee habit costs only $0.175 per day. For a cappuccino, I recommend steam-frothed heavy cream. The combination comes out like a toasted marshmellow. Thanks again. Cheers!
There is this James Hoffmann guy, kinda into coffee. would be a great collab :)
My friends want you to do an "Is expensive beer actually worth it?" video where you get progressively more drunk as filming goes on lol.
🤦🏻♀️
That would be a better video and i don't drink, but love to watch alcoholics make fools of themselves.
A funny idea, but from a filming perspective, that sounds really hard to pull off 😆. You'd be racing against the clock sobering up between shots, or needing to re-dose just to stay drunk.
Yes, let's go down the Belgian Trappist rabbit-hole. I spent a few weeks there in the mid-2000s. It was a non-stop bender the entire trip...Belgium is to beer, as France is to wine. Cheers!
And 🇵🇱 polish people are watching you Ethan 😋make us proud hahah ❤❤
Stoked to see you covered coffee! Excited to watch!
Lance the GOAT!
A legend appears! Glad to see you supporting Ethan, always nice to see some positive vibes here.
Ayyy our Brother Lance is here!
The Burr-father blesses this video
THE LEGEND IS IN THE COMMENTS
Specialty Roaster here to say that you can in fact measure and precisely define roastdegree!
A roast degree analyzer is a Small device that measures how much light gets reflected by the roasted coffee beans and gives you a value along the AGTRON scale.
25-45 translates to your typical dark roast, 50-65 would be medium and from 70 upwards you‘d call it a light roast.
Of course no two coffees roast the same but when you end the roast at the same temperature at similar roasting times you can get in a fairly narrow AGTRON range.
Apart from that, this Video really serves as a exceptionally well crafted entry Point for everyone dabbling into the vast world of coffee, so thanks!
And also congrats on the AeroPress sponsorship!
(P.S. If this video happens to get new people into coffee… please prioritize good quality coffee over unneccesarily expensive gear 🙏🏻
You‘d be suprised how far a ordinary frenchpress, a plastic V60 Dripper or the advertised AeroPress combined with a decent handgrinder can get you!)
I did come across the AGTRON scale and had several questions regarding it! Do you know how common it is with specialty roasters and when it first started to be used?
I think a really cool test would be to get two different green coffees and give them a side by side test at various AGRTON values
I think he did well in the sense that you don't have to buy coffee only based in the roast level label. Since it isn't regulated, you can label whatever you want. I believe that the agtron scale can be popularized since there are more options to get a roast degree analyzer. I think in the future we will have regulations in terms of roast level, that would be great in my opionion
color meters are a good way of ensuring consistency from roast to roast and getting a general idea of roast level, but the Frinsa Collective bean he showcased is a good example of why you can't completely blindly trust them; different processing methods etc. can pretty heavily influence the finished color while the flavor profile in terms of light/dark roast level could be similar, decaf is maybe the most extreme example where the decaffeination process changes the structure/chemistry of the bean so much that you need an entirely different frame of reference for color imo, and anaerobic coffees can taste good at much darker agtron levels than you could prefer for a washed coffee for example
@@EthanChlebowski I know onyx uses it but it’s not common
@EthanChlebowski I think the coffee determines the desired roast level. Not all flavors shine in a light roast, but conversely you might not want to lose what's shining in a light roast to a medium roast. Dark roast is for demonologists like Yuban. (My old pal)
For me as a coffee person. Light roast means I want to see pith on my beans and in my grinds, I'll be expecting something a bit more unique. Medium roast might have some pith, but might not. I'll be expecting something that tastes like Starbucks. Dark roast can get lost as far as I'm concerned.
Stumptown makes some good medium roast. Volcanica has some good med/light roast. But right now I'm bargain shopping Kirkland Ethiopian light roast $19.99/2lbs. It punches above its weight class!
Starbucks over-roasts their beans. They do it on purpose because people mistake it for being “deeper.”
Many years ago, I couldn't place what I didn't like about the taste of Starbucks until someone mentioned “it's burnt”. Took a sip, and was like, “yep, never again”
My family have been growing coffee for more than a hundred years.
Currently, we get about 30$ for about 100 lb of dry coffee berry, which after processing turns into 60 lb of green coffee, which gets exported for approx 100$ per 100lb, which eventually gets sold for anywhere between 300$ to 3600$ per 100lb.
So, middle men plus processing takes the coffee from 20c/ lb that we get to average of 5$ / lb.
Wish my family we in the business of processing/exporting as the hardest part and the riskier part is growing but the least paid is the farmer.
This is why I really dig some specialty coffee shops buying directly from the farmers and a section of consumers starting to gravitate towards that.
Is there a way we can buy from you directly?
So roast and sell directly.
Sounds simple, but if they do that, they won't be able to reach the same consumers as if they sell them to the multinational companies. How will a coffee farmer in Uganda mass roast and export coffee to the masses around the globe?
@@Kewkky Excuses are easy.
This channel and video is a PRIME example of why learning via video is so valuable. Large volume of information is compactly, yet digestibly presented with high-quality production value! Perfection!
Edit: spelling and grammar.
Right perfectly annoying way
I feel like everyone here needs to meet James Hoffmann
His channel is AMAZING and wildly nerdy in the best way possible.
Ethan you're absolutely killing it this last year with the videos. I love the single topic videos packed with information, comparisons and food porn. These videos have helped me change the way I look at certain foods.
I'm a bit spoiled. One of my really good friends is a café owner who imports, and custom blends different ones, and roasts in house. I'm usually the guinea pig for his different blends, and roasts he is testing, before he will sell it. I usually skip sponsor spots, but I will admit I absolutely love my aeropress, I've had it for about ten years now. I use it all the time, not shilling for them, I honestly just really like it, I even sent one to a friend in Washington state
I treat these deep dive videos like the superbowl 😂 I got TH-cam up on the living room TV, got my cup of coffee, and a spread of snacks. Please keep up these videos dude, hands down your channel is better than cable!
💯
Absolutely, the fact that these quality videos are freely watchable is out of this world
I do the exact same thing lol. always get so excited to increase my weird and rarely used knowledge
It is just show, entertaining stuff... but nothing to actually gain...
Ethan, do you every worry about the "Pepsi Challenge" effect when sip testing for these videos? Pepsi wins the sip test over Coke, because people prefer the sweeter, more citrus-y cola in an isolated sip, but drinking a full glass is a very different experience where many people far prefer Coke. New Coke was designed to win the Pepsi challenge but it was so cloyingly sweet and citrus-y it was unpalatable to drink a whole can. When I see cupping sip tests I always think of the failure of new coke and wonder if you're really finding your preferred coffee, or if the process is artifically pushing you into the "Pepsi" of the coffee world.
Interesting, I definitely have this problem with beer.
Very interesting insight
Very interesting. First time heard of that
nice point.. kinda like the way I prefer cold brew coffee to the traditional style, because I can't drink a whole mug of the coffee brewed with hot water, the taste is just so .. filling? it's hard to describe, but calling it the pepsi effect sounds easier. :D
I love this video. When I started my coffee journey about two years ago I went full into iced, brasilian, dark chocolate and nutty coffee. After a while I was in love with kenyan, sour and fruity as hell washed coffee and now I am looking for good balance between sours and bitters. 1st of July I am going to try my best in eliminations od Polish Aeropress Championship for the second time - wish me luck guys :D
Cant wait for more coffee related videos!
I didn't hear one of the most important factors that can significantly impact the taste of coffee: Grinding! As an espresso and cappuccino enthusiast at home, I noticed a dramatic improvement in the taste of my shots after investing in a good grinder. It's not just about the grind size but also the consistency that a quality grinder provides. Therefore, a high-quality grinding machine is essential for achieving barista-level coffee. Maybe a French press might be more forgiving, I don't use it. Anyway, thank you for the great video.
The finer the grind the more important the grinder is. I started with a cheap ceramic one and my immersion brewing (french press) was still good. The espresso was night and day when I switched to the Kingrinder K2 though. French press was improved by being a little more balanced since there were fewer fines and coarser chunks, but immersion is pretty forgiving. Cold brew is the closest to fool proof because it’s so gentle.
also important to remember: the different ways to make coffee (amount of water, pressure, etc.) also affect the result. so in essence a good tasting coffee is a mix of the bean characteristics, the grinding and the brewing method. a bean that might taste terrible when ground up a certain size using a french press, might taste actually quite decent if ground up to a different grain and used with a mokka pot.
French press is very forgiving, yes. Any immersion process (French press, aeropress) is more forgiving than drip, espresso, etc.
You are right, but this video is not meant for that. The process of brewing coffee or making espresso would be an entirely separate video in and of itself
@@lijkenkist1 Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. Anyway, my additional point was directed towards the title: "Is expensive coffee actually worth it?" Essentially, even if you have the finest beans in the world, without proper treatment and preparation (such as roasting and grinding), it could result in a worst tasting coffee experience.
James Hoffman help me
Jesus ☕️ Christ
James Hoffmann BTW, he has two 'n's in his name.
@@ElvenSpellmaker he obviously doesn't as he's credited twice in the decription as James Hoffman.
@@TheGaymo it's with two n's. Ethan dropped the ball there
yeah but who gives a shit
FRESHNESS!!! Ethan, can't believe you didn't talk about this. It's the one take away I make sure to tell the coffee curious who may not know. It will give them a huge jump in the quality of coffee they're drinking every day. It's a critical component of buying your coffee for home. Make a follow on video. Roasted coffee is best within 2 weeks!!!!
You mean the jar of instant coffee that's been in my pantry for years isn't nectar of the gods?
This isn't always the case...
Roasted coffee can be good for longer than two weeks. In fact, many light roasts need to be rested for a minimum of two weeks for brewing. This time allows the coffee to release excess CO2 created in the roast. James Hoffmann has an excellent video on the subject if you are interested.
Freshness is a big factor for sure. Light roasts are much more tolerant to (and prefer more) aging so that it can off-gas, but dark (e.g. second crack) roasts should be drank ideally within 1-2 weeks
Within two weeks?? For some roasts, some would say that you want to *wait* two weeks before brewing. Even for dark roasts, this is a really limited window. Most experts seem to say that you should ideally drink your coffee within 4 - 6 weeks of roasting. The specialty roaster I've been buying from says their light to medium roasted coffee is best within two months. And to be honest, it's not like the coffee will instantly turn bad outside that window either. Worrying too much about freshness will only lead you to waste a lot of perfectly good coffee. And if you got it direct from the roaster, you're already doing way better than supermarket coffee which has already been sitting on the shelf pre-ground for a month or two before it ended up in your home.
Not to be a party pooper, but you guys need to realize that most people either never make their own coffee, or they buy what's most convenient, which means either instant or preground. The biggest upgrade possible is having your coffee freshly ground. I've had coffee beans that I'd forgotten in a cupboard somewhere for over a year, I ground them, brewed them and they were still good. Yes, blander than normal, but still more than decent. Back when I was a student and didn't have a grinder, I used to buy ground coffee from a roaster near my house, and it was always the same story. I went to them, bought coffee, returned home and immediately brewed a cup. First one was always amazing. Second day and it was already crap. A week on, I might have just been brewing with soil.
I can see James Hoffmann watching this video and then going into full blown Heisenberg mode, showing up at Ethan's house and uttering "Stay out of my territory..." before backing away into the darkness of the night.
Also, I know it's an ad, but I've been using an Aeropress since about 2010. I even just made a cup with mine while starting this video. I hate how fake sponsorships are but honestly, it's my favorite way to brew. The company was created by the guy who made the Aerobee flying disc. He sadly sold the Aeropress and it does seem like the current owner is more interested in maximizing profits, charging about twice these days as in 2010. It's still worth the price of admission, things work amazing and last ages.
Also get a good hand grinder! I bought an 1zpresso JX grinder 3 years ago for about $110. The performance is incredible compared to anything electric in a similar price point. Quieter too and it's really not that hard to grind 15-20g of beans by hand. Nothing has really changed in terms of performance and it feels like it will last many more years.
Knowing James, he probably loves seeing new people entering the scene. Every time I've seen a non-coffee creator make a coffee video he's been in the comments encouraging people to get even more nerdy.
James Hoffmann is interesting/brilliant but he also likes to show off
Agreed about the aeropress. My favorite coffee is still french press, but my aeropress is second and there's nothing else even close. I use the inverted method with 18 grams of italian espresso beans, ground at 11 on a baratza encore, with 65 grams of water for 45 seconds. Even after all these years I'm still experimenting with water temperature, but my go-to is 15 seconds off boil.
@@JohnHaussershowing off how, exactly? I've yet to see a video of his that gives me that vibe....
@@BlueDragon1504agreed. he doesn't gatekeep. at worst, he might correct errors or clarify explanations, but he never tries to keep people out, and encourages them to go even deeper
The moment I saw a blade grinder, I saw lance hendrick and James Hoffman astral projections in the back of my mind nodding in disappointment.
I think you've done a really great job here walking the line between coffee nerds and coffee amateurs, this video serves as a very good 'introduction to coffee' primer for the unwashed (hweh) masses.
Never heard anyone mispronounce “Folgers” before. Well done, Ethan.
So it wasn’t just me.
Came looking for this comment! 😀
I find that light, medium, and dark is more a way of getting a taste profile. Not really how light, medium, or dark, it is. I use that as a starter, but I do not use that as the final reason why I buy it.
This exactly. I take those terms "under advisement".
It's extremely inconsistent. Starbucks light roast coffee would have a similar taste profile (or in that range) compared to most specialty dark roasts. Also why the large majority of specialty roasters don't ever mention the roast profile on the bag of coffee. They roast it for the best flavour of that particular coffee.
Tasting notes are more accurate. Some light roasts can have almost no acidity and they will have notes like "nuts, graham cracker, cereal". I find those to be extremely boring. Others are bright and zesty with acidity, like "lemon, grapefruit, any citric sorbet, honey", while others may be more funky like "mango, berry jam" etc. All can be light roasts and be extremely different from one another. From haylike bad coffee that just shouldn't be roasted that light because of their inherent properties, to delicate bright coffees like African coffees, and wild naturals that smack you in the face (which I personally prefer as part of a blend moreso than pure).
It's why most specialty coffee roasters use tasting notes instead of just saying dark or light or medium.
@@TheRealAstro_ starbucks is the furthest thing from a standard or quality that anybody should consider or account for when it comes to coffee.
it shouldn't even warrant a mention. they roast the shit out of their beans. most people i have talked to about it are convinced it is an attempt to cover up the poor quality of beans they use/sell.
@@raifsevrence My espresso machine can't even make them taste worthy of drinking. I tried their coffee and had to throw it away as it was terrible, no matter what I did.
The conclusion going over what you went over in detail as a summary was really appreciated!!!
Water, beans, grinding and brewing method are all quite important.
I love my aeropress and pour overs.
water is super important , filtered definitely is best
As somebody with an Aeropress already, it really IS a great vessel to start enjoying and understanding coffee.
Dude, yes! Medici! Thanks for representing us. Love seeing you at the shop!
First time watching, been recommended before, I love all the info, thank you for getting so technical! One thing though, could you possibly get some sound deadening? The echo was fairly distracting in this video
I also found the echo and audio distracting but really enjoyed the info, I don’t think most of the channels videos sound like this one but most of them are quite informative and enjoyable.
Seriously, the Aeropress is such a great brewer. One of the rare times where I am in full agreement with the promotion of the sponsor. It can even do espresso-style drinks - not real espresso, but I have gotten very concentrated coffee from it and with a fine mesh metal filter even get some decent body to it. Without the plunger and the right grind, it can be used as a very easy pour-over as well.
Micro plastics though?
It seems nice, but no plastic is safe when heated so high. I would like the glass version.
You should check out Final Press - the largest ever Kickstarter for a coffee product. It's made from stainless steel and is a fraction of the size of an Aeropress. I replaced my Aeropress with it initially because of microplastic concerns, and now haven't looked back
@@adambrown7895 the reviews on it show lots of negative reviews.
@@adambrown7895 many people said it didnt taste like good coffee.
Great work @EthanChlebowski . As a grower, I think you had a key point with "geisha is whats popular now, who knows what people will like in five years". I'm currently planting out over 20 mind blowing and little known varieries from ethiopian landrace strains like WushWush and Papayo, Sudan Rume, naturally decaf "Laurina Bourbon", Abisinian Java, Yemenese Mocha, chiroso, Venezuelan Monte Claro and criollo, and even some rare and unique Libericas and Canephoras. Im still searching for a few. Namely C. Liberica Excelsa, C. Stenophyla, C. Eugenoides, and the Jember crosses between Liberica and arabica. But not Geisha. Geisha took so long to be "discovered" because nobody liked the flavor until a hype cycle started in Panama around some sort of floral acidity obsession. But real specialty coffee flavor is just getting started. I focus on naturals to exentuate the complex flavors nacent in each variety from our organic regenerative agroforestry project. Anarobic is interesting. Although "anarobic fermentation" is a redundancy. But my take is that coferment is essentially flavored coffee. Still, I may eventually experiment with resting or coprocessing coffee with porcelain and criolle cocoa beans or pulp. its a big world out there. Keep up the good work Ethan! Btw, most coffee your drinking is actually part Robusta, as most comercial crops are now hybrids from the Timor cross. (Usually derived from catimore or Sarchimore) Which are, in my humble opinion, utter crap. Beautiqueen, over productive plants with a profile of cardboard with sawdust and cocoa powder. Its something like 80% of "100% arabica" coffee in the US.
I was absolutely clenching expecting a Trade ad, only to be pleasantly surprised that the Aeropress one
I know, right??
Yeah being sponsored by a coffee maker company instead of a coffee company is a lot more ethical
aeropress has been taken over by a money grubbing investment group. Our old aeropress is dead.
Aeropress is a cool sponsor, but what's wrong with Trade?
@@NoahDVS I don't like them because they don't ship to Europe. Other than that I'm unsure, maybe there was a controversy? Not that I've heard, though. Maybe it's a general feel of "sponsor bad". Or it's just fun to not see trade because it's so common.
Easily my favorite channel! The way you science the shit out of a particular subject has inspired me to do these sorts of experiments at home!
Also, I'll be the one to say smart move on using a blade grinder for the green beans. I wouldn't ruin a burr set on those, either.
Why would green beans ruin a burr set?
@@CWGminer Roasted beans have air in them, meaning they're brittle and thus easy to break down.
Unroasted, or green, coffee beans have no air in them, making them *much* denser, and thus much harder to break down.
Burr sets are made to break down roasted coffee beans. While all sharp things dull over time, burrs can dull *much* faster when subject to unroasted coffee beans because of how much denser they are.
a grinders ability to grind green beans and not choke/stall is a good way to show it has ample torque to grind any roasted beans from light upwards.
Thank you Ethan for so much info out of a bean! Awesome the world needs more of you. Keep going!
17:28 Is that a blade grinder? You're going to upset a lot of the coffee nerds online by doing that
He mentioned on another comment that he only used it for the green bean test so he doesn't ruin his burr grinder.
I knew this question was going to popup haha, here's my explanation:
Q: Why did you use a blade grinder?!
A: I only used the blade grinder for the green coffee taste test. Green coffee is extremely hard and dense unlike porous roasted coffee so I didn't want to ruin my burr grinder that was used for all of the other coffees in this video.
I wouldn't put green coffee in my expensive burr grinder, too. I doubt thats the primary grinder of someone trying >100$/kg coffee.
I wonder if Pestle and Mortars are considered "best" for green coffee beans.
@@EthanChlebowskishouldn’t grind size be a variable in the experimentation, though, if you are talking about extraction?
Thank you so much for your hard work, researching and making this video. I really enjoy watching your "deep-dive" videos!
Expensive though it really depends who it is. when it comes to coffee usually if it means that the coffee growers, the actual farmers, not Nestle or some other food corporation is getting the money, then it's worth it.
I love my aero press and have used one for nearly 10 years now. It was the best way to make coffee when I was in the army because I could just toss it into my rucksack without worrying about it given it’s durable construction!
You should check out Final Press - the largest ever Kickstarter for a coffee product. It's made from stainless steel and is a fraction of the size of an Aeropress. I replaced my Aeropress with it initially because of microplastic concerns, and now haven't looked back
If you mentioned that shade grown coffee is superior to full sun I missed it.
Coffee farms decimate bird habitat and are in full sun. Some farms do plant bananas to provide shade, but not many. Coffee planted in forests are shade grown and preserve bird habitat.
Wait. How is shade grown coffee superior, apart from its being more environmentally friendly?
@@ZY1982 Shade grown coffee ripens slower allowing more complexity and flavor to develop. Coffee used to always be shade grown until more sun tolerant varieties were developed.
Ethan Chlebowski I can't tell you how much I love your approach to these foods. Very scientific and as unbiased as possible please don't ever stop.
As a coffee nerd myself I appreciate this video
These videos are so thorough, dynamic, and insightful. Literally a documentary. I love the experiments so much. Seeing them mean more than just being presented numbers and data- though, when you do refer to studies it’s such a treat ❤
I love my Aeropress and my V60... it's wild that the ENTRY level brewers are also the end game brewers... lol it's such an unexpected thing for such a deep hobby (yes, coffee is a hobby... trust me readers)
Thats until you start considering grinders… Thats where the end game money goes.
I guess it's a hobby if you have no life, but it impresses Momma that you have a hobby!
@@MrOldclunker you talk like you're the kind of dude who thinks Dunkin Donuts coffee is gourmet and drinks whatever his mom keeps in the cupboard
The real enjoyment in coffee as a hobby is that you can get everything from Aeropress and V60 to french press, moka pot or your average coffee machine (or even espresso machine) and enjoy them all for different reasons. And brewing with all of them is exciting in some way.
@@soupisgood44 Come on man, don't sink down to that idiot's level by just throwing random insults hoping one lands. Just ignore him. I don't even like coffee but recognize it as a perfectly fine hobby, that isn't a contentious statement at all and anyone that thinks it is is so young their opinion doesn't matter or are just intentionally trying to be stupid to get a rise out of others...which also points to being too young (at least mentally) for their opinion to matter.
Hi, i really needed this kind of video when i started to work at a speciality coffee shop, a big sum up of what is going on in coffee industry and i will be recommending this video to new baristas to watch. Thanks
What a great introductory video into coffee! Really well researched and discussed. It's obviously very difficult to go truly in-depth on coffee, since it's such a staggeringly deep rabbit hole but this is exactly what I was hoping it'd be; a great introduction that makes sense for any beginner! Thank you for the great information as always!
Thank you very much for making this video. As a great fan of coffee I'm amazed how complex the production of coffee beans are. Just bought a coffee grinder. From now on I'll focus more on the beans I'm going to buy. ❤
Guess you didn't get a lot of sleep making this video.
This is a great video to cover the entire end to end about coffee. Definitely a great bootcamp
Wait, so which was his favorite? Must have missed it
Yes. What was your favourite Ethan?
Medici in black
i feel like the script was out of ChatGPT because he also said he would cover decaf “later in the video” and never did. Also he repeated some of the same lines several times
@@mikaelwink2217
Totally agree. Lots of "you're probably wondering" "well get to later" etc fluff
Great video thanks, I appreciate the time you took to film this and include all the information 👍
Great vid! I especially loved the concise but thoroughness of the process section. No one ever does this breakdown.
That said, so much of the content here is almost entirely useless to vast majority of home brewers, as the differences discussed here all go right out the window for someone who can't get a quality extraction.
- WATER
- uniform grind
- considered brewing methodology to match your specific coffee and brewer
These are all necessary in order to get any coffee bean to taste like what it was roasted to taste like. Without them, you'll end up with mostly noise in the cup, and won't be any better off for it... Knowing Ethan's interest for depth, I expect he already knows this and is likely planning a companion brewing vid.
I have to ask - what does "noise in the cup" even mean?
@@PhysicsGamer hahaha... I meant it like a signal:noise ratio. You'll mostly be tasting a mix of over- and under-extracted coffee, with at best only a hint of what it actually has to offer. That experience is all most home brewers know.
Also what I've found out too is the Temp. of the Water and what Water you Do also use with the Beans as it Does make a change it a bit, as i've been brewing a lot as of late and it's great to experiment here and there with Coffee's.
I love these deep dive videos, definitely some of my favorites.
If I may give some constructive feedback though, the phrase "We'll get to that shortly" or "We'll get to that later" comes up VERY frequently in all of these deep dive videos. It can be a tad aimless and distracting. I understand the need to acknowledge that undressed concerns will be realized, but it would seem more professional and curated without the large quantity of "as we'll see later" comments unnecessarily padding the information in each section. We're already looking forward to getting to those parts, and know they're coming based on the organizational graphics you present.
Please keep making these!
I do agree the videos could be quite a bit shorter if all the delaying to get to topics, and talking about delaying upcoming topics was cut out. Also much less distracting that way for sure
I'll work on it, thanks for watching!
I agree with this. The repeated mentions of content coming later come off as padding. A single summary at the front would be enough and not belabour the point.
The deeper the better, I learn so much from these, I listen several times when needed but cutting out parts would be a disservice, thanks for trusting us with the whole piece! Worst case to satisfy the haters u break it up & release in chunks for the lazies who can’t be bothered with scrolling (tho I feel not necessary if chapter labels)
@@jjjames6894 I don't want parts cut at all either, I love deep dives. It's not about length, it's just about structure and organization, and my view of how to improve on the flow.
Definitely not a hater here!
I love your thought process and dedication to dissemination of information. So interesting!
Classic fallacy is that something that is expensive due to rarity and/or demand is also equally better. With common sense it's immediately obvious that is not what guided the price.
I always try to buy as light roasted coffee as possible these days, because that often means that 1. there's rich flavour profile that's worth presenting, which indicates good beans 2. the roaster isn't trying to hide the poor quality of beans by roasting them out of all flavour. Not that there aren't good darker roasts, but with them you're just rolling the dice unless you're familiar with the product without any hints. Also prefer, when possible, buying from specialty shops because you get to see the beans before buying the bag, you even get to sniff them if you want and they can recommend you this or that based on your liking, and they rarely overroast beans to hide flavours (instead of roasting them for specific flavours) unlike market brands. The best part about it is their advice though. You can ignore just about everything in choosing coffee and just ask what they recommend you based on what you want, as long as you understand how to brew lighter and darker roasts for their potential. And you can almost guarantee the beans are freshly roasted when you buy from a specialty shop, unlike those market bags that, if they even have roasted date, are at best a month old, often as old as 6 months (even the local roaster coffee bags in the markets can be 6 months old which is sort of infuriating both for the customer and the roaster). When the optimum is somewhere around 1 week to 8 weeks, the last optimal date depending on how much it was roasted.
More on the region based coffee flavours: if you just have money and can find coffees of such kind, the more pinpoint accurate the source is on the bag, the better. It might not be your favourite, but you're much more likely to get more ethical coffee and more distinct taste. Because it's not hidden from the consumer, you could investigate the ethical side when you know exactly who the farmer was (so it's more likely to be from a farm that has things in order). Also it's not a mixed bag of different coffees grown for example in Kenya. Even if it's coffee farmed by some community, it's better than vague "Kenya" or "Africa" or something. My favourite coffee was definitely a bag from Ethiopia that had the farmer's name on the bag as source. It was very easy to name different flavour experiences from that cup of coffee, perhaps because all the beans were just about the same. What I've personally noticed in my local coffee shop is that there's definitely regions that have coffee to my taste in that coffee shop, like Ethiopian coffees they have, just in general Ethiopian. Don't know if it's tied to what they like to buy from which area, but they've had similar qualities in some regions I've liked, so I assume the actual farming height and place does play a big role as well (of course it does change the flavour, but so distinctly affect it based on region).
Another thing the specialty coffee shops have going for them is that the coffee beans are often very similar in size. This means their roasting was rather homogenous and as a result, your grind setting can control the experience better. To make an exaggerated example: if you grind a very dark roasted bean with a very light roasted bean to very fine grain, your cup will have both the extremely unpleasant bitterness and richness of those two beans. Similarly to grinding them very coarse, you might get a decently balanced and at the same time very underextracted. Making it rather unpredictable and mixed review, not the true nature of that bean any way you grind it.
More to Ethan's point about the varieties you get named in specialty coffees, I looked at bags that I saved to remind me in future purchases and you wouldn't get these in market brands ever (all seemed to be single origin): Pacamara, SL28, Ruiru, Batian, Kurume, Welicho, Castillo, Mixed Heirloom. Noteworthy is that all had the farmer's name on the bag, my favourites and least favourites so that's to taste, not to quality. My least favourite (learned from the video, from the variety tree infographic) one was Robusta variety, might be consequential or not. My favourites had either citrusy or red berry, and floral tastes and were from African origin. The least favourites were from South/Central America and had more of a nutty or chocolatey aroma, but not quite the way I enjoy them. As you may have noticed, single origin with a specific farmer can still produce blends (Mixed Heirloom from Ethiopia and one bag had SL28, Ruiru and Batian from Kenya). The Mixed Heirloom was one of my favourites due to almost mandarin like aroma, fresh and fruity/citrusy. The Mixed Heirloom is due to Ethiopia having 6000-10000 coffee varieties (learned this just due to further researching inspired by the video) so almost all of their coffees are blends. Supposedly every village can have its own variety, and unidentified varieties are just marked Mixed Heirloom. Meaning to say blends aren't automatically bad. Truly fascinating that they have already updated the coffee tree infographics on Cafe Imports website since Ethan used it for the video.
Ironically I do enjoy those "medium roasted" coffees with chocolate and vanilla, even caramelly hints and whatever. They also go better with milk/cream/sugar in my opinion. I'm just not very confident in buying them from markets. Especially since they're more likely to be stale from the unopened bag. Also here medium roast (or we have 1 to 5 in most bags, so 3) is roasted darker than you might expect elsewhere. In market coffees that's often the quality and range (and also age) where you don't get much more than the roast. Many who have only drunk market coffees could be surprised that coffee has wide range of flavours due to that stale market medium roast just tasting like sort of bitter dark roast coffee. For example I've never ever had fruity or berry or floral like flavours in market coffee, no matter which roast level. At best there's a very minor hint of chocolate or so. The lighter roasts would just be less bitter and more acidic coffee taste. And you need to brew it well to get that minor hint of chocolate out, which might not be a thing in your average household even.
But don't despair if you can't reason or afford specialty coffee, I still buy market beans or ground coffee at times and I'm happy with the cups I get, it doesn't ruin the experience of "normal" coffee. In fact the big brands have infinitely superior grinding machines that get so much more homogenous grind than your own grinder, be it hand or automatic grinder, could ever get. And since ground coffee is consumed the most, you can sometimes find quite fresh bags, so win-win.
Watching James Hoffmann and trying out more expensive (to give a rough estimate 4x the price since the market coffee is like 6 euros a bag and the specialty is 12, but market has 400…500 grams and specialty has 200 grams. Sounds rough but in the end your regular mug of market coffee costs 10…20 euro cents) specialty coffee shop coffee literally changed my life and I've drunk coffee for +20 years. Only after that I learned that coffee has that before mentioned wide variety of flavours. Even if I'm not a great brewer, I get so much more enjoyment out of my coffees these days, I truly enjoy both the brewing process and flavours I can find. I learned to adjust the brewing first with a familiar bag of coffee until I could tweak it based on the resulting taste and what I was looking for, and then started buying different coffees and using that acquired brewing skill to find what their true flavours were. And it's also a good lesson that the bags of coffee are individual. Even if you buy the same coffee, you might need to adjust the brewing, particularly when you buy a different coffee. So it's worthwhile to learn to adjust the brewing based on what you get in your cup and getting to know what tweaks affect what traits. The most important lesson in that was "even if you think you got a pretty decent cup, push the adjustment one step further. Or a whole range further." Like when I was brewing a bag of somewhat dark roast at 85°C because raising it to 87…89°C made it just more bitter and burnt tasting, I thought "what the heck, this isn't _really_ good" and pushed it to 95°C and found out that somewhere between 92…95°C was the goldilocks zone for that bag and me, richer flavour and less of that bitterness (bit surprisingly and contradictingly, usually the hotter the water, the more likely it starts to get bitter). Apparently the coffee wasn't that dark and higher extraction just helped give it so much more flavour that the bitterness with underextraction got overpowered by good flavours. Or something, you never really know for sure.
What's truly fascinating is that there's a lot of coffee plant types, but we almost exclusively drink Arabica. Instant coffee and cheaper coffee might be Robusta, or some espresso I recall. Some brands make a blend of Arabica and Robusta for specific flavour profile. But as the climate changes, we're in risk of all the coffee farming areas moving into completely different areas, which is to begin with an economical disaster for the farmers, but also an issue for the current coffee varieties used for coffee. So people are "frantically" searching for different varieties that might be better fit for being farmed in different climates.
I feel like Ethan addressed a lot of these points, but maybe this gives a tiny bit more detail to it for someone who is interested. Btw I really appreciate Ethan doing proper academic work by reporting all his source materials. It makes it so nice to further delve into information. And I approve AeroPress too. I use V60 pour over at the moment, but AeroPress makes brewing and adjusting your own process for whatever you have so much easier than anything else.
I use V60 too. I prefer a light roast that is either anaerobic or honey processed, seek out fruity flavors. Probably the best coffee I ever had was a small batch anaerobic from Ethiopia. I can’t remember now, but there was something else special they did. I wish I kept the bag. I usually order my coffee from Big Shoulders out of Chicago. They have never failed with their single origin and small batch. Even their standard options that they have consistently are very good.
Roasting darker doesn't necessarily mean lower quality bean and that the roaster is trying to mask it. Some beans just have a flavor profile that shines more when it's undergone more caramelization or when it gets a small hint of pyrolosis. It's about roasting the bean to the level where the flavor of the bean is showcased at it's best. Some beans just don't have flavor profiles that show well with a light roasting. While mass-market roasters will usually roast very dark to help reduce variance and make a more homogenized product, very few specialty roasters will roast beans into oblivion just to hide flavors, if the beans aren't worth showcasing they likely won't buy them again. This being said I tend to prefer lighter roasts most of the time myself, as they tend to be slightly more on the acidic side and I find that acidity helps cut through any bitterness and allows you to more easily pick out the flavors.
Eh, maybe, maybe not
Good informative video. I don't think it was super practical though for people wondering if they should try that $75 bag. It boils down to taste of course. Most people want "traditional" coffee like "coffee flavor" which usually means a nutty or chocolatey coffee darker roast with some bitterness. When you pay $75 per bag for example, you're getting more exotic notes such as lemongrass, strawberry, raspberry, caramel, etc. Cross-ferments have also been really popular in the specialty scene and a cross ferment with Mango for example yields something resembling mango tea. So really when you're looking to try new coffee it boils down to how flexible are you with your definition of coffee? Most people's minds are blown when they drink a coffee that taste like grape soda, mango juice, or a caramel instead of coffee. Also spending $75 on a bad without buying your own grinder or kettle with thermometer is like driving a BMW twin turbo without Premium gas. The performance and gas milage is significantly degraded. This means that, in my opinion, "finding beans you like" first is not super accurate. I'd perfect one brewing method first and then try different beans as the brewing method and the cup itself can change the flavor drastically. That way you have a blank canvas each time you try new beans.
Also Geisha, Java and Typica are Arabica beans so I'm not exactly certain why they are all in the same graphic? It's like putting a "BMW", X3, X2, X1 side-by-side in a graphic.
Gesha is definitely worth the price, however, not as a daily drinker, it's more of an occasional treat, I just vacuum bag doses of whole beans and keep them in the freezer for special occasions. This was a great general overview of actual coffee knowledge, not just what the commercial producers want you to know, but, like you said, despite the length, it's only really scratching the surface.
My love, the Aeropress! I've been using it for years and years, tried all the other methods, and the only thing I like more is espresso. I have the Aeropress XL right now to feed my desire for a bigass cup in the morning. It rocks 🤙
Fole-gurs? It's fole-jers. Come on Ethan, didn't you know the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup?
That caught my attention, but not nearly as much as his use of a long 'a' in "arabica". He said the word *so* many times in the video, and I've never heard anyone else pronounce it like that. Given how central it is to the subject, that seems like a serious gaff.
I'm a coffee nerd but still learned some things. Nice job.
I disagree with that you shouldn't go for light/medium/dark, at least in that regard if you prefer light, dark won't be your favourite and if you prefer dark, light won't be your favourite. at least that should've been mentioned, maybe i did not see it though.
Specialty coffee isn't really roasted "dark" though. Past 2nd crack all coffee starts to taste the same. If you like dark roast that's fine, but then most of the details aren't as important.
The main point is that even if you prefer *a* light roast, you might not like other light roasts, and that just because you found *a* light roast that you like doesn't mean that there aren't medium/dark roasts you might also like.
Im glad you did this video. I watch a lot of coffee videos and not sure I have seen one that goes over these aspects so thoroughly and especially not how significantly all these variables contribute to taste. It's basically a coffee buying 101 video.
Side note, green coffee IS coffee. It is actually a thing people do buy and drink, although not well known. I know you were essentially saying "this doesn't taste like what I think of as coffee" but saying "this isn't coffee" is inherently wrong and misinformation. Easy to miss in your research I'm sure. I've literally only heard about it once. Very interesting though.
I have coffee broker friends that sold a lot of coffee to two "major" coffeehouses. The brokers told me that the coffeehouses paid-up for premium coffee but were notorious for rejecting shipments that didn't pass quality control.
The rejected it, but used it. They know they get a knocked off price if they claim a precentage of shipments didn't meet so called quality control. It's a f'ing coffee bean for goodness sake.
@@MrOldclunker There were rejection processes and a lot of money at stake. The brokers weren't just going to leave millions of dollars on the table.
@@MrOldclunkerthat’s not how it works. The coffee contract is on SAS/replace, meaning that the contract is “subject to approval of sample” where the sample is not approved, it must be replaced by importer. Only on a super premium lot where there is not an available replacement would the contract price be renegotiated. If the importer is not in agreement that the coffee has had a quality issue, the importer will void the contract and resell it.
@@MrOldclunker You don't know what you're talking about.
Absolutely the best video I've ever seen covering coffee..... Shows I know very little about something I thought I knew a lot about 😳😳😳
Fun coffee tip: adding the tiniest bit of cocoa powder (like 1/8 teaspoon) in with your coffee grinds has a massive impact on the taste. It doesn't taste like chocolate, but it removes a great deal of the bitterness. My own personal theory is that the cocoa particles bind the bitterness causing compounds and trap them in the filter paper, giving you the cleanest cup of coffee you've ever had in your life.
That is fun it's like the opposite of adding a bit of coffee to a chocolate cake... gonna try it
@@pauldaulby260 Great! I'm glad to get this idea out there. Note that I mean adding the cocoa powder to the grounds you're just about to brew. Adding it to the cup after the fact gives an entirely different (and in my opinion, inferior) result. Add too much and you'll clog the filter, or get a noticable chocolate note (not necessarily bad, but not the point here). No need to mix it in, in fact mixing has seemed to increase clogging. Just sprinkle on top of the grounds and brew as usual. Either cocoa mix or unsweetened baking cocoa work, but cocoa mix has a lower risk of clogging in my experience. Cacao nibs might also be an interesting option.
ooh thanks for the tip! I will try that
I've heard similar with salt as well. I'll give this a try though. Thank you so much!
Didn't really notice much of a difference, though I used a non-bitter coffee to start with
Thanks!!! Between you and @LanceHedrick I have upped my game substantially. Lance taught me about time and weight being the primary variables in the espresso game... And you my good sir have just explained how to find and understand my coffee. Found a local roaster In Ridgewood NJ - REY SOL only one in the area that had the info you talked about Alt, Process, notes.... Well I can never go back to Starbucks now that I know what real coffee can taste like. Keep the knowledge flowing and Thanks AGAIN!!!
Bro said Folgers with a hard G?
Fun video! Thanks!! I searched 20 years for a good coffee and stumbled on it by chance. I drink it everyday but occasionally try something different. Fun to try but every test confirms how great my daily coffee is.
Really great video. Classic Ethan, being so thorough. Felt a little repetitive/verbose at times, so could prob have been shorter, but overall A++.
This video did not need to be 50 minutes long.
I appreciate the technicality of all your videos. I've been drinking coffee for 64 years (began when I was 12): I choose by just one parameter...how does it smell in the bag. I care about the smell probably more than the taste. My preferred method of preparation is "Cowboy Coffee." When my ulcers were a huge problem many years ago I learned that filtering the coffee inflamed my ulcers but soaking the grounds in my cup never bothered them. I've recently changed to using a small Espresso Machine and having a double-dose every morning. That's basically the same as Cowboy style.
You would love the Aeropress!
Your video is 49 minutes, yet you repeat yourself so much, it could be a quarter or less. 15 min into the video, the same info over and over again
I've just started watching but I'm already so excited to see what will happen in this great video. Because it is Ethan and I strongly believe he made a great content again. Besides I was recently thinking about the topic but was lazy to go over all content over the internet. Luckily, I've discovered this channel thank to TH-cam's algorithm.
God damn this guy babbles on forever without saying anything. Jesus! Get. To. The. Point.
Literally did no comparisons either
if you are on computer download browser extension called "video speed controller", with it you can speed up his blabbering with a hotkey (v is the default) and when he gets to the important part, with the same hotkey (v) it will go back to normal and if you are on the phone just press anywhere in the screen and keep pressing, the video speed will automatically goes to x2 and the sec u let go it goes back to normal
Freshness and NOT buying old supermarket coffee can make a bigger difference in flavor than almost anything else.
Please don't sponsor products directly related to the video topic. It makes you less trustworthy
Nah, this is a bad take for coffee. The brewing method has nothing to do with the outcomes of the tests, as long as they are all brewed with the same device. The Aeropress actually works better than something like a V60 or Kalita Wave, etc., because it takes away more of the change the brewing technique can impart on flavor.
Good breakdown, I've been drinking/buying/selling coffee for 30+ years and learned from this. It's left me with some questions for my own tastes, so informative too.
respect for all the work you have put in to make this informative video.
I wasn’t ready for a coffee master class
What I learned recently is: With the amount of variables you have to tinker with when going through the last steps of creating the drink, there is so much that can go wrong, that I just don't trust myself with a 70$/lb bag of coffee... yet.
There is a cafe here in the city that I sometimes go to and they have an amazing washed Gesha medium roast. Whenever I go there, I just drink that as a pour over brew. One day I bought a small bag of it to make it at home. It tasted completely different. Since then I have purchased a water filter and upgraded my grinder, but still, I don't manage to make it taste as good as the people at the cafe.
There are beans that I can create a beautiful cup from at home, but that particular one is not one of them. So I'll just keep this as a treat that I drink at the cafe every now and then and at home I'll stick to other beans that I know come out right at least most of the time. And that cost about half as much, so if I fudge it, I'm not quite as sad about it.
Good over-view of pretty much everything coffee for beginners I think :D The Aeropress IS very versatile and a great little device for not too high price. I'd also suggest a V60 pour over brewer, but you'll only get best results with that with either a drip assist device or a fancier gooseneck kettle.
8:38 Yeah that's some pretty extreme Under roasting! I've done that when I started roasting and my power outlet was providing insufficient power for my roaster, turns out if it's that under-roasted you can get better results re-roasting the coffee. Maybe it's not idea, but better than wasting it anyway!
11:35 Same-ish thing happens when your cooking food, a quarter pounder burger isn't 1/4lb when it's cooked!
Just found your channel.
Love it.
Answering lots of questions most of us have.
Doing it in a serious and good way.
Thank you 👍🏽
what i've learned soo far with my coffee making journey . is a good quality arabica bean is the key to a sweet fruity coffee (more cafe taste ) and the robusta gives a stronger more bitter taste for espresso etc
Love the video Ethan! A lot of really helpful insights. Especially liked the delving into different processing methods, that is a really useful piece of knowledge when trying to select for particular profiles, and before this I had only been familiarized with “ethiopian process” which is the equivalent of natural process I suppose. Would love a sub-topic video with more side by side taste tests of different processing methods, different varieties, and potentially digging more into brewing methods as well. But I really appreciate these investigative style videos that are more oriented toward how these industries function, explaining all the variables in the line of production, etc. I think it’s really helpful as a consumer.
Thank you for all the videos you make!! I’ve been a subscriber for some time now. I don’t get excited for most things, but when I see you have a new video I grab a great snack and enjoy. Length of the videos are great. Please keep it up!!
I'm not a huge coffee fanatic, before I say this: but I own an Aeropress and I love it. I do follow a few groups online and it's honestly interesting to see someone use it in the factory-recommended way and not the "inverted method" that many Aeropress users rave about. I think a channel like yours should do a video to see if there's any actual difference in taste etc. between the two methods.
This is the best video you have ever done mate! Being a coffee person myself, I appreciate the amount of research you have put into this. Thanks for the effort.
Thanks for such a thorough video! Another big decision point for me when choosing coffee is how well the people involved and the environment are treated in the process. I'd love it if you would do a video about that.
Thank you, Ethan.
Enlightening video.
Tea drinker here. Was quite entertaining to see your take on the coffee world. I gave up soda 13 years ago so my caffeine intake is through tea. My husband is the coffee drinker and uses various methods to brew.
It seems more of the coffee notes have to do with the processing. This is true to a certain degree with tea leaves but the primary source of determining quality is the location of the cultivar. Processing matters more so with red(black) tea, oolong tea, fermented teas (Puer) or aged teas (white, red/black Puer, and another variety known as Anhua) Aged teas (5+years) are a completely different world as this depends on storage methods and various techniques based on regional culture, like fur example storing your teas in bamboo versus wrapping in paper versus storing in clay jars.
Once you source your quality of tea leaves, it's them up to you to control how you brew it by controlling the volume of leaves, temp of water, time steeping, and even type of water.
Try Ecuadorian coffee. It has really superb flavor and smell. The smell AND taste are ínstense, rich, velvety. It’s my favorite.
Man, your whole video series is trying to change my breakfast.
Thanks for very informative and helpful video Ethan! Though I am not a coffee person (I tend to prefer tea), I learned many insights from this video. Nonetheless, in the future could you please do a similar take on high-end teas and see if they are similar to specialty coffee or not?
So true, the depth of what is behind the cup of coffee people drink is deep but I have come to learn in my journey, most people don't care about it ‼️
Did you just call it “Fole-grrrrs”? 😂. Best part of waking up, is Folegrrrs in your cup!
Alright starting off I enjoyed the deep dive and will agree that the starting point of the bean growth, fermentation, etc. is most important.
That said for experienced coffee drinkers I think roast level is an important consideration. I find that medium roast coffees even from quality producers almost never reach the enjoyment of light roasts for my desired flavor preferences.
I almost always will taste more notes from the roasting in the "medium" roast which I do not enjoy. I've had a some enjoyable medium roasts but every exceptional cup I've ever had out of hundreds of different types was always light roast.
ethan, this channel has easily become my absolute favorite channel to watch-the way you come off as so passionate about these topics and the care you put into these deep dives is so cool and insanely inspiring!!
I have become so much more confident in the kitchen and in learning new things because of what I’ve learned from you, thank you so much!!
This is a great video! I live in Vietnam and almost all coffee here is Robusta and it’s SOOOO MUCH HARSHER than the Peruvian coffee I am used to.
Its 5:30 pm and this video made me make a pot coffee. Been getting this First Coloney Discoveries Organic Colombian Santa Marta coffee from Publix, seems so be a step above the other commercial beans.
Fantastic video Ethan! As a coffee nerd myself, this video is a proof that we never stop learning new stuff along our coffee journey. Thanks so much!
Great video! Thanks for sharing your coffee knowledge 🤓
Co-ferments are definitely a fun world to explore! I just started brewing a bag from Black & White that's a blend of four coffees, three of which are co-fermented (lemongrass, lemon, and dragon fruit). The berry note was incredibly prominent, and it was maybe the best cup of coffee I've ever brewed. And now I'm gonna be chasing that high...