How are your coffee beans lately? Mine are AWFUL!

In the last couple of weeks I've noticed that the flavour of my regular coffee beans tastes like it is a 50/50 blend with tea leaves, which is bloody awful. I buy the dark blend beans from Aldi which I have found to be very good, especially at $12 a kilo.

I use a stainless steel Euroline coffee pot, (have done for ten years) and have only just replaced the previous one two months ago. It took about a week to get a good brew out of it, but since then has been yielding really good coffee. The old one was starting to smell like an ashtray for some reason.

So I figured it must be the beans that were crook. Bought another two different types from Aldi (Brazil and Peru) and they're not really any better. So then I thought maybe it's just all the stuff coming out of the Melbourne roasters that Aldi get supplied form, and I bought a packet of Lavazza Quality Ora this morning. Same thing - no really improvement in the crap flavour. I even brought out the old coffee pot, only to find that it delivered the same poor result.

Now I'm wondering if this is a bean supply problem, given that South America has been ravaged by Covid? I even suspected the milk this morning (newly opened though), so I drank some straight up and it is fine. It must be the beans! I think I have eliminated everything else.

How are your beans going?

Note that even though these beans are only $12 a kilo, I very regularly get favourable comments about the quality of coffee I make, so it's not because these beans are "too cheap to be any good". I wouldn't use them if they were.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

In the last couple of weeks I've noticed that the flavour of my regular coffee beans tastes like it is a 50/50 blend with tea leaves, which is bloody awful. I buy the dark blend beans from Aldi which I have found to be very good, especially at $12 a kilo.

I use a stainless steel Euroline coffee pot, (have done for ten years) and have only just replaced the previous one two months ago. It took about a week to get a good brew out of it, but since then has been yielding really good coffee. The old one was starting to smell like an ashtray for some reason.

So I figured it must be the beans that were crook. Bought another two different types from Aldi (Brazil and Peru) and they're not really any better. So then I thought maybe it's just all the stuff coming out of the Melbourne roasters that Aldi get supplied form, and I bought a packet of Lavazza Quality Ora this morning. Same thing - no really improvement in the crap flavour. I even brought out the old coffee pot, only to find that it delivered the same poor result.

Now I'm wondering if this is a bean supply problem, given that South America has been ravaged by Covid? I even suspected the milk this morning (newly opened though), so I drank some straight up and it is fine. It must be the beans! I think I have eliminated everything else.

How are your beans going?

Note that even though these beans are only $12 a kilo, I very regularly get favourable comments about the quality of coffee I make, so it's not because these beans are "too cheap to be any good". I wouldn't use them if they were.

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Has anyone else done the taste test to remove you as a problem....serious and in no way dig at you Brett.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Has anyone else done the taste test to remove you as a problem....serious and in no way dig at you Brett.

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Yep, Lola agrees - tastes like shight! Everything else tastes ok so it's not like we have Covid screwing up our taste buds (as it can).

Sounds like too much fine wood dust or maybe COVID19?

My coffee beans are fine (but am paying around 4X what you're paying) been purchasing from the same roaster since 1994?.

Interesting hearing about your Aldi beans.

I run a completely manual espresso machine, a Lelit Combo which has an inbuilt grinder, it is around 12-14 years old maybe older. For around the last 8-9 years I have been exclusively using Gigante beans and their mokocino variant. Which I understand had won some pretty nifty awards in various coffee bean competitions some years ago. These were brilliant; at least to my taste.

As we are in stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne, limited to a 5km radius of our domicile and a curfew from 20:00 to 05:00 daily, I can no longer get my sought after coffee beans.

Reluctantly, I had to look elsewhere for my beans. There are only two supermarkets within my 5km radius, one is Aldi, the other Woolworths. Knowing in general how supermarket house brands fair, I opted for Aldi's house branded beans; Lazzio. Actually they're called "Lazzio, medium beans."

My favoured beans ran out yesterday, so I put the Aldi beans in and did a double espresso; extremely good. In fact I thought they were better than the award winning beans I've been using for years. Then I made a cappuccino, smooth as anything, I wondered if it was just me, so this morning I made one for another member of the house who is reasonably difficult to please with regard to coffee.

I didn't tell her what was different, I just asked for feedback. Her immediate impression was the smoothness, followed by the very nice taste. Thinking more, she asked, "are these different beans?". When she found out they were from Aldi, she too was quite impressed. This was today around lunchtime.

The interesting thing is, I've believed for years now, that when it comes to food items, Aldi have some of the best products at very sharp prices; these coffee beans are no exception.

Mick.

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Originally Posted by Optimark

The interesting thing is, I've believed for years now, that when it comes to food items, Aldi have some of the best products at very sharp prices; these coffee beans are no exception.

Mick.

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Yes indeed Mick - chocolate, cheese and coffee at Aldi are unbelievable value.

Have you tasted your tap water lately? The old coffee pot with a bad smell sounds like a clue.

mick

The ALDI beans make good pen blanks after they are stabilised :D

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Originally Posted by Glider

Have you tasted your tap water lately? The old coffee pot with a bad smell sounds like a clue.

mick

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For a few years I was only using filtered water. A few months ago I did an A/B test, and as I thought the coffee liquor is such a strong flavour that there was no discernible difference (and we have a pretty good water supply up here - sometimes over chlorinated).

However, for the various tests this morning I went back to using using filtered water, so it can't be that.

Point to note though is that when I brought out the old pot (thoroughly cleaned before it was put in the cupboard for use as emergency spare parts..... as one does :D) I upended the top part and a stack of carbonised coffee fell out of it (it had finally shrunk after two months of being idle). It tended to gather at the very bottom of the top part in an annulus about 3mm width. More tapping revealed an astonishing amount falling out - I'd never been able to scratch it out before. So before I used it this morning it was completely carbon free. Even the new one has a bit of an ashtray smell.



It seems odd that both machines are producing the same crap flavour, which is what leads me to think it is the beans.

OTOH, the Cooper's Stout going down right now tastes the same as ever!

I use Withams coffee beans, Equatorial Blend. Bought a new batch last Tuesday - good as ever.
I haven’t tried Aldi beans yet but my BIL swears by them. Must give them ago.

I'm a coffee snob, and my coffee was roasted freshly by me a few weekends ago, and is going awesomely :)

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Yep, Lola agrees - tastes like shight! Everything else tastes ok so it's not like we have Covid screwing up our taste buds (as it can).

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so the coffee tastes off
reasons could be
1. both you and Lola have Covid -- don't bother with a test as there's a perhaps 30% chance of a false negative result
2. the coffee itself is off -- difficult to check as multiple batches out of the same factory could easily be compromised by a number of factors. And both you and Lola could have Covid, see point 1.
3. the water, although filtered, is crook -- less likely but still a possibility. Or you and Lola both have Covid, see point 1.
4. the milk -- your self taste test could be compromised by you and Lola both having Covid, see point 1.

Loosing the ability to taste -- Coopers Stout tasting the same is just your memory kicking in. You and Lola could both have Covid. :rolleyes:


I don't think anyone knows enough about the subtleties of Covid and its impact on a person's taste receptors to make a definitive statement about what might or might not be an impact on the person's ability to taste stuff.

Ok, I've just changed the water filter (it was kinda due anyway), although the water from it tastes pretty neutral. Even the tap water is not too bad atm (it varies). I'll run a throwaway batch through the new filter and make a brew this arvo some time.

I'll also go down to one of the local cafes today and have a coffee there - if that tastes ok then it isn't me. Mind you, they're on the same water supply as us, but who knows what the local pipes can do. I had a mouthful of tap water from a house in Camperdown the other day and it was incredibly metallic.

As far as the milk goes, it tasted just like Low Fat Lactose free milk....as it should. Slightly different to normal milk, very slightly sweeter, slightly more complex taste.

If it's Covid then we have a particularly weird strain that is specific to screwing up taste ONLY for coffee, and with no other symptoms....

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Originally Posted by poundy

I'm a coffee snob, and my coffee was roasted freshly by me a few weekends ago, and is going awesomely :)

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Surely there’s an ACTUAL WORD for a “coffee snob”, and if not, someone should think of one. Any neologists on the forum?

Brett,

Someone's got to say it. Buy another brand and see what it tastes like.

As a regular recipient of your hospitality including coffee, I have to be careful what I say here. Next time you hear me say, "I'm driving through Wentworth Falls so put the billy on", I'll be carrying my Bialetti. It's past time our differences about your stainless steel round bottomed jobbies and my aluminium conical Bialetti were put to bed.

When the coffee starts to perk, I turn the heat down very low to slow the infusion time.

mick :)

p.s. Nestle have "coffee sommelier" courses.