Why my Nespresso beats my €3000 coffee set up?

[Miguel]

^The start looks pretty fine but channeling starts around 0:27 and the rest of the brew looks blondy and watery. Which grinder do you have?

[oton]

Mahlkonig Vario Home.

With 10 days coffee, if I want to do not get a blond extraction I think I should increase the dose; however, La Spaz double basket max. capacity is around 18gr. and I suspect that 53mm baskets are prone to early blonding (but I don't really know) And on the other hand, when I increase the dosage, the acid/sour increases.

[oton]

Oh well, after this...



I think I have learned some things.

There have been some coffees with no or low acidity, others with medium and others with high acidity. And finally I *think* the problem it's me.

Seems that I don't "understand" the acidity in the espresso. For me (and family & friends) the acidity is too high and not pleasant. The coffee in Spain usually have no acidity; it's sweet or, most of times, bitter, but not sour or acid; so I don't know if my "tongue" is used to taste profile.

Well, in the end, I made a post blend of:

40% Machacamarca (chocolate)
40% Brazil Facenda Inglaterra Acaia Natural (weird taste, but in the cup it tastes like a strong caramel or something like that, very very nice)
And:
20% Malawi-Msese-Geisha-Micro-Lot (for a little acidity which balance the cup)
or:
20% Indonesian-Sidikalang-2009 (gives a nice Banana, which tastes very nice with the machacamarca chocolate!)

As I said ,the blend(s) is very, very sweet, nice cocoa, chocolate, strong caramel, refreshing acidity or banana for the sweet tooth one.

It seems that I have to learn a lot yet...

[Stephen Leighton]

Acidity is probably the hardest thing to get across to people in taste terms as everyone things lemons and limes, which is not correct.

If you need any advice with the lower acidity coffee do drop me an email and I'll happily go into some more (or I can post them here)

[awlred]

An intreging problem.

That blend sounds nice though.

Out of interest, how old are the burrs in your grinder?

Every other idea I can think of you've ruled out, so it may just be that your pallete is trained for coffees with a very low acidity?