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Then you're on your way! I do want to say that I totally understand and respect your skepticism WRT coffee tasting, but I strongly suspect that even with a mediocre palate, if you get into it in any depth you're going to find that there's enough flavor there to draw you in more deeply. The growing caffeine addiction is just bonus points! More seriously, though, regional coffee characteristics are often pretty distinct at the lower levels of roasts and are the gateway for lots of us that have taken the plunge. You'll notice the brightness of African coffees and the earthiness of Southeast Asian coffees, for example, even if you don't get every hint of lemongrass or honeyed almonds promised by a particular bean.
The other thing that I came back to say was that I'd strongly recommend that you stick with buying whole beans and let your Krups grinder do the work. As @srf0638 has said above, the Krups will be fine for pour-overs (and +1,000 for Sweet Maria's, yay!), and getting your beans pre-ground will effectively kill the advantage that you'll get from using fresh beans to begin with. Ideally, you want to grind your beans right before you begin your pour-over.
I'm aware of the importance of whole beans and grinding them fresh. That's why I'm getting a grinder, duh.
I was talking about the time when I don't have a grinder yet. I hadn't yet decided on one to get when I wrote that. And the one I have now ordered will take a while to get here. I might sample some pre-ground coffee if my Chemex gets here first. :)
Do you want to recommend some unique luxurious beans, even if they might be hard to find? Something to look out for in the future. I looked through the beans featured in a great video game, heh. (Persona 5). They've got trivia on coffee. Colombian Nariño, Hawaiiwan Kona, and Panama Esmeralda Geisha caught my interest.
If you like a chocolatey mocha flavor, Yemeni coffee beans (at least, the ones Sweet Maria's sells) tend to just naturally taste like that. The name mocha even comes from Yemen's main port city, Mokha.
Also, our kettle doesn't have a goose-neck and it works fine with our Chemex.
Alright. :)
When you use your Chemex, do you take the filter out when disposing of the soak/pre-heat water? Or just pour the water out through the filter?
I'm afraid I have to admit, we don't preheat or presoak at all. Room-temp Chemex, dry filter, add coffee grounds and slightly-less-than-boiling water. The coffee's still good.
You're drinking tiny bits of paper, then. At least that's what one video told me.
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Funny, of the three that you've listed I've only ever tasted Kona, though I have a Colombian Gesha and another one that I don't remember off the top of my head (don't think it was Panamanian), both waiting for me to clean my roaster and run a couple more batches through it so that I'm sure that my beans are tasting right again. Anyway, I generally steer folks away from the more expensive and rare pedigree coffees and usually recommend starting with trying some Central and South American coffees and some African coffees, but Kona and Gesha are both pedigree coffees for a reason, so if you want to start with one of those, go nuts. A good Nariño should give you an idea of what Colombian coffees can bring to the table: a nice silky body, a complex taste with hints of raw sugar sweetness. See, this is the wine talk stuff here, but I don't think you'll go wrong if you find some that's freshly roasted.
But yeah, if I'm going to name other regional coffees to try, Ethiopian is always high on my list, so if you see an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Sidama, or Guji for sale, they'd be good coffees to try. Sadly, I can't put Harar coffee on that list anymore but it's an old favorite of mine and my first, "yeah, this fresh roasted coffee thing is legit," coffee and was/is infamous for its tangible blueberry note. I've had lots of good Burundi coffees in the last several years, and have liked the coffees that I've gotten from Kenya and Tanzania as well.
Moving to Central/South America, Colombian is nice stuff as I said above, and Guatemalan coffee is another favorite of mine, Huehuetenango in particular has been a coffee region that I keep coming back to, and Antigua has been growing good coffee for hundreds of years. I could go on forever, but will say that more generally, as long as the beans and the roast are good, you're going to get a good coffee. I've also had tasty Costa Rican and Nicaraguan coffees that have worked for me, and I've had a couple of interesting Brazilian coffees as well. I think the only reason I haven't tried more Brazilian coffee is that there just haven't been many Brazilian coffees for sale when I'm buying, which is probably a me thing as much as anything else--there's a particular Christmas espresso blend that I absolutely adore and I invariably buy way too many other coffees to try when buying it so I don't tend to do any buying in the early parts of the year.
Okay, I've already geeked out for way too long on coffee. My suspicion is that you're going to find that there's something to this craft/specialty coffee business and that if you decide to keep at it you'll find plenty of different coffees that you like in your own right. Subjectivity aside, there's a definite superiority to this side of coffee that may well keep you coming back.
Sounds like a meme somehow :P
Making some notes of your remarks here. 'Preciated. I've found Yirgacheffe in a local store. Will probably buy a bag.
Are you familiar with any of the following:
Frinsa Edun (Indonesia)
Kiangoi AB, Kirinyaga (Kenya)
Magarissa Sede (Ethiopia)
Rugori (Rwanda)
Out of all of those, I'm only familiar with the Kenyan. I'm pretty sure that I've had coffee from Kirinyaga and Kiangoi is a good farm, so that one should be exemplary Kenyan coffee. More generally, if you're going with some Yirgacheffe, I'd steer you away from the Magarissa Sede just because you're already looking at an Ethiopian, and maybe even tell you to pick up the Indonesian if you're looking to try a second set of beans that will provide a nice contrast taste-wise to the general similarities that many African coffees share. If not, I'll just add that my understanding of Rwandan coffee is that it used to be pretty hit or miss, but the Rwandan coffee industry has been hard at work for a long time now and I've always liked what I've picked up from there whenever it's been offered for I think at least a decade now so like Kenyan coffee, I'd expect that you'd get a good batch of beans there.
Regardless of what you choose, I hope you enjoy it and come back here to post the results of your experiments!
I'll report back next week!
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These tend to be crowd-pleasers in my experience, I recommend for someone who isn't sure about all this fruit stuff.
Yeah, and I've also had a Yirgacheffe with very distinct key lime notes. These are a little more exotic, but also a good way to start branching out if you currently think that coffee pretty much tastes like...coffee.
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