I ground some of the test coffee (about full city or so) and brewed a couple cups this morning. A far-from-scientific test.
First, cleaned up the burr grinder, so as to not get residue from previous grinds. I ground some and loaded up a couple Keurig inserts (not optimal, but it's what I use a lot, so the comparison would be using same gear).
I brewed 8 oz. cups. Didn't weigh the coffee, but I loaded about the same as I always do. I didn't do any blind testing, just back and forth tasting between a cup of the previous batch and the new test batch. The test coffee turned out much less astringent and some of the warmth returned. Not perfect, but certainly an improvement. Probably some confirmation bias due to this not being a blind triangle test, but the difference was clear to me.
I had my wife try a few sips. Her taste is very sensitive to astringency, and she always thought my coffee left a dry taste. She liked the new cup better.
Later I'll try some of the test batch in a French press.
Next test batch I'll use the same variety and keep the heat backed off all the way to the start of 1C, just to see if that improves it more. Then, try some other varieties (I have a bunch of Guatemala).
First, cleaned up the burr grinder, so as to not get residue from previous grinds. I ground some and loaded up a couple Keurig inserts (not optimal, but it's what I use a lot, so the comparison would be using same gear).
I brewed 8 oz. cups. Didn't weigh the coffee, but I loaded about the same as I always do. I didn't do any blind testing, just back and forth tasting between a cup of the previous batch and the new test batch. The test coffee turned out much less astringent and some of the warmth returned. Not perfect, but certainly an improvement. Probably some confirmation bias due to this not being a blind triangle test, but the difference was clear to me.
I had my wife try a few sips. Her taste is very sensitive to astringency, and she always thought my coffee left a dry taste. She liked the new cup better.
Later I'll try some of the test batch in a French press.
Next test batch I'll use the same variety and keep the heat backed off all the way to the start of 1C, just to see if that improves it more. Then, try some other varieties (I have a bunch of Guatemala).