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As someone who drinks quite a few of these incredibly weird coffees: I don’t agree. You can get some of the way there, but there are flavors and experiences tha

As someone who drinks quite a few of these incredibly weird coffees: I don’t agree. You can get some of the way there, but there are flavors and experiences that you won’t recreate with cheaper coffee. There just is no way to get as clear of flavor separation and striking flavors as you can get with some highly specialized coffee. Gesha coffee is well known, but you can also spend a lot on expensive processing techniques such as fermented coffees. As an example, there was a coffee I had for a period of time that tasted like cherries. Not just “hint of cherry”, I had multiple people tell me this coffee tasted like candy. Not coffee flavored cherry, just cherry. I’m currently drinking a coffee right now that tastes like red wine. Can you get a lot of the way there? Absolutely. A nice Ethiopian coffee naturally processed can be half or a third of the price of a Gesha and still have lots of fruity flavors. It’s true that some expensive coffee doesn’t live up to the hype much like expensive wine, but it’s unfair to say that the only thing expensive coffee is buying you is uniqueness.

brailsafe 2y ago
> but it’s unfair to say that the only thing expensive coffee is buying you is uniqueness I don't mean to be intentionally obtuse, but it does seem like you just described that what you get primarily is uniqueness or degrees of uniqueness. What I was intending to say is that you can absolutely get within a negligible margin for far less than half the price of say, 85 euro per 250g, which is comically expensive, all equipment and other ingredients kept more or less the same in terms of investment. Not all fermented coffees run that high either, and a lot of the cost comes from rarer varietals that may or may not be unique, but just aren't inherently higher quality than high specialty grades of others. For example https://www.prototypecoffee.ca/shop/oxaofizuq8la2g7m9ercvtxvewwdpw https://www.prototypecoffee.ca/shop/oxaofizuq8la2g7m9ercvtxv... That's not to say they aren't worthwhile or in-appropriately priced novel occasional experiences, but in a similar fashion to what you said, there are various high-grade less expensive beans to be had from Ethiopia, Indonesia, Colombia, etc.. that can distinctly taste like watermelon, starburst, blueberry, cherry; they're still very expensive relative to even quite good blends from a local roaster, but they're not that high. Incidentally, if I wanted just cherry, actual cherries at their already high price would be wildly less expensive, but that's besides the point. Ultimately they're still subject to variation in brew consistency, palate, etc.. to the point that I'd prefer to get on average 98% of the way to the same cup with 1/2 the spend considering how likely it is that some of it won't turn out that great anyway, especially without a multi-thousand dollar grinder or custom recipe water. The exception to my comments may depend on market too, I don't know how expensive some of the extremely fruity Indonesian beans may be in EU for example, or how much a Pink Bourbon might be in Aus. For all of the best specialty coffee I've had, there's been at least one cup at the same price-point, same roaster, same cafe, that just wasn't anything amazing, and it's a silly amount of money to chase an occasional unique novelty as a regular thing imo. I'd rather have very good most of the time for much less than half as much.
- Kirby64 2y ago
  > What I was intending to say is that you can absolutely get within a negligible margin for far less than half the price of say, 85 euro per 250g, which is comically expensive, all equipment and other ingredients kept more or less the same in terms of investment. Not all fermented coffees run that high either, and a lot of the cost comes from rarer varietals that may or may not be unique, but just aren't inherently higher quality than high specialty grades of others. Fully agree. There's plenty of good coffee you can have that isn't stratopherically priced. That said, there's a certain price bracket where you just cannot get some of these flavors. Anyone buying $10/lb coffee will never get those flavors. If you want lightly roasted coffee with fruity or floral flavors, you have to spend a certain amount. I'm not suggesting you have to spend the "$500 champagne" equivalent to get good coffee; I'm just saying that coffee isn't a percentage goodness thing. For certain types of coffee flavors, there isn't any way around spending money to get them. Certain flavors are a lot easier to achieve with lower cost coffee, though. Any sort of chocolate or nutty flavor is generally easier to achieve with cheaper coffee, so if that's what you like drinking... then you probably don't need to spend as much.

brailsafe 2y ago

> but it’s unfair to say that the only thing expensive coffee is buying you is uniqueness I don't mean to be intentionally obtuse, but it does seem like you just described that what you get primarily is uniqueness or degrees of uniqueness. What I was intending to say is that you can absolutely get within a negligible margin for far less than half the price of say, 85 euro per 250g, which is comically expensive, all equipment and other ingredients kept more or less the same in terms of investment. Not all fermented coffees run that high either, and a lot of the cost comes from rarer varietals that may or may not be unique, but just aren't inherently higher quality than high specialty grades of others. For example https://www.prototypecoffee.ca/shop/oxaofizuq8la2g7m9ercvtxvewwdpw https://www.prototypecoffee.ca/shop/oxaofizuq8la2g7m9ercvtxv... That's not to say they aren't worthwhile or in-appropriately priced novel occasional experiences, but in a similar fashion to what you said, there are various high-grade less expensive beans to be had from Ethiopia, Indonesia, Colombia, etc.. that can distinctly taste like watermelon, starburst, blueberry, cherry; they're still very expensive relative to even quite good blends from a local roaster, but they're not that high. Incidentally, if I wanted just cherry, actual cherries at their already high price would be wildly less expensive, but that's besides the point. Ultimately they're still subject to variation in brew consistency, palate, etc.. to the point that I'd prefer to get on average 98% of the way to the same cup with 1/2 the spend considering how likely it is that some of it won't turn out that great anyway, especially without a multi-thousand dollar grinder or custom recipe water. The exception to my comments may depend on market too, I don't know how expensive some of the extremely fruity Indonesian beans may be in EU for example, or how much a Pink Bourbon might be in Aus. For all of the best specialty coffee I've had, there's been at least one cup at the same price-point, same roaster, same cafe, that just wasn't anything amazing, and it's a silly amount of money to chase an occasional unique novelty as a regular thing imo. I'd rather have very good most of the time for much less than half as much.

Kirby64 2y ago
> What I was intending to say is that you can absolutely get within a negligible margin for far less than half the price of say, 85 euro per 250g, which is comically expensive, all equipment and other ingredients kept more or less the same in terms of investment. Not all fermented coffees run that high either, and a lot of the cost comes from rarer varietals that may or may not be unique, but just aren't inherently higher quality than high specialty grades of others. Fully agree. There's plenty of good coffee you can have that isn't stratopherically priced. That said, there's a certain price bracket where you just cannot get some of these flavors. Anyone buying $10/lb coffee will never get those flavors. If you want lightly roasted coffee with fruity or floral flavors, you have to spend a certain amount. I'm not suggesting you have to spend the "$500 champagne" equivalent to get good coffee; I'm just saying that coffee isn't a percentage goodness thing. For certain types of coffee flavors, there isn't any way around spending money to get them. Certain flavors are a lot easier to achieve with lower cost coffee, though. Any sort of chocolate or nutty flavor is generally easier to achieve with cheaper coffee, so if that's what you like drinking... then you probably don't need to spend as much.