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I bought a bag of pre-ground coffee the other day, thinking I could save some money by getting one of my cups of coffee per day from a much cheaper source. I'm not sure if this was a particularly bad one (a search didn't reveal any customer/reviewer dissatisfaction with it) or my palate has just fully adjusted to the experience of whole beans that I grind myself, but I had a remarkably bad experience with it. The coffee was fucking soulless. It didn't even have the classic smell of coffee. The taste had no appeal or depth at all. I don't know what they did to it when they processed those poor beans, but it was almost unsuitable for human consumption. Jfc. I've thrown the bag in the trash now.
@Muninn
letthehateflowthroughyou.jpg
Soulless is a good word for how pre-ground coffee tastes once one's palate has become accustomed to fresh beans. It's more like coffee flavored water than actual coffee! Once coffee is ground, all of that fresh coffee flavor locked into the bean is now exposed to oxygen and that flavor unique to that particular batch of beans is literally evaporating by the minute. Even if the beans were ground right at the store when you bought them, you'd have to rush right home and make coffee with the grinds to have a shot at a decent-to-good cup of coffee from them before the staleness started setting into the taste.
When I have to travel, I can subsist on the drek that's offered up at hotels and such, but it's never my preference. One of the joys of the craft coffee revolution is that there's a decent chance that I'll be able to try out some local coffee shop even in BFE and if not, I can try to fall back to a Starbucks for some Blonde Espresso ('bout time they started going down that road, a smart move IMAO) or decent drip coffee at the worst.
Yeah. But I'm now convinced that this bag was worse than average, because I remember trying a different brand of pre-ground coffee not that long ago and it was "okay" and smelled like average Arabica beans. This one definitely didn't. I can't imagine my snobbery has rocketed that much and changed my nose that much in just a couple of months. I'm leaning towards being unlucky with the new bag of cheap stuff.
I think some of the disagreement around the discernment and snobbery in coffee and other food/drink comes from seeking enjoyment vs getting [active ingredient delivery system].
The cheapest coffee, wine or pizza can deliver their caffeine, alcohol or tasty calories, and serve their purpose in that way, and at low cost due to all the cutting of corners, which has some value to many consumers, but that's just one dimension inside the category. If you want enjoyment you want a product that represents some of the better raw ingredients prepared in a less destructive way.
Probably true! My reply was totally tongue in cheek and at least a little hyperbolic in that particular sense.
I agree with all of this as well. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong or inferior with mass market coffee, it's that I quite enjoy the ritual of sipping a nice fresh shot of good espresso or cup of pourover coffee and discovering the flavors that said shot or cup contains, which is not something I can do with the mass market stuff. In fact, I'd say that it's highly impressive how brands from Folger's and Eight O' Clock to Starbucks can crank out a specific taste profile for their coffee year in and year out given the inherent variability of the beans themselves!
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