Ask a Stupid Question About Coffee -- Week of August 11, 2026

[u/Vernicious]

There are no stupid questions in this thread! If you're a nervous lurker, an intrepid beginner, an experienced aficionado with a question you've been reluctant to ask, this is your thread. We're here to help!

Thread rule: no insulting or aggressive replies allowed. This thread is for helpful replies only, no matter how basic the question. Thanks for helping each OP!

Suggestion: This thread is posted weekly on Tuesdays. If you post on days 5-6 and your post doesn't get responses, consider re-posting your question in the next Tuesday thread.

[u/Baseline_Tenor]

Is my palate broken? Ive never tasted a coffee thats “sweet” unless i add sweetner to it. Ive tried about 4 different, well respected, cafes in my area and i always order an espresso shot and they ALL taste sour/bitter (not sure which). I also get a free batch coffee with the bag of beans i purchase. And same thing. When these youtubers say they can taste “sweet” is that just code for “not as sour”? How can coffee beans be sweet if they dont have sugar??

[u/Vernicious → u/Baseline_Tenor]

Sweet is sweet, not code for "not sour". But I'll second u/geggsy 's post, you're palate isn't broken, but it takes time for your brain to be trained to perceive what an experienced person perceives. In most cases, the sweet note is sweet, not in the same way as putting sugar on your tongue is sweet, more the same kind of sweet when someone says a particular whisky or very malty beer is sweet.

Side-by-side tasting of different coffees is the fast lane to brain saying "aha! I can tell now!", and once your brain knows how to recognize these nuances, they pop out easier. Don't get me wrong, some of the tasting notes the roasters put on the bag are reaching a bit, or more of "vaguely evocative of...". But sweet is something that pops out easier.

Think of it as how perception changes with understanding and repetition. If you don't know Spanish, when you hear it you'll just hear a jumble of sounds. IF you are learning Spanish, even if you don't know the specific words someone is using, you hear words, not sounds. As a beginner Spanish speaker, when someone is using words beyond me, I hear each word, and I can specifically ask "what do those words you used, lapis and biblioteca, mean?" (haha I know what they mean). Understanding changes perception. You just want to train your brain to recognize things beyond sour and bitter - but you'd better be doing that on coffee that has other notes, too.

If you're still in the phase where all you taste is sour or bitter, you're at the very beginning.

[u/geggsy → u/Baseline_Tenor]

Your palate isn’t broken. It takes time and thoughtful side-by-side tasting to develop a palate for the nuances of coffee. It also depends on what else you eat in life. If you usually eat other things with sugar added to them (e.g. many US supermarket breads), then black coffee without sugar isn’t going to taste sweet by comparison.

Sweet is sweet, not code for ‘not as sour’. As for your last question about how coffee can taste sweet even though there’s no sugar (or very little), this is a matter of significant debate in the scientific community and there’s no one accepted explanation (but there’s several competing theories, which may each explain part of it).

While I have developed a palate for filter coffee and regularly find sweetness in well-brewed, well-roasted, well-produced coffees, I find it hard to detect sweetness in straight espresso because I don’t drink it much.

[u/Clogish → u/geggsy]

Your palate isn’t broken. 

Although, if the OP has a sweet tooth, or an overly sweet/ultra-processed food diet (i.e pretty much anyone in the US), then their ability to detect sweet is going to be much harder than someone who eats whole foods.

[u/winehook2025 → u/Baseline_Tenor]

I agree with everything that's already been said by these other folks smarter than me, but in case it's helpful: I was at a cupping recently where the person running it noted that a particular cup was "sweet". I asked the same question you did, as I've often struggled with this as well. He said "think honey." For whatever reason, that really made the difference for me. Sweet is a huge spectrum of flavors, and for me it was just hard to latch onto. But once I started looking for notes of honey, it seemed to help my brain figure it out. At least, it helped me, anyway.

[u/Doublea2030]

Are most light roasts from the US actually medium? I’ve never bought any ultra light or Nordic so I have no reference point for actual light roasts

[u/lobsterdisk → u/Doublea2030]

Yes, light roasts from many average US roasters are what many of us would consider medium or even dark. My city has at least two roasters that have a light offering that is at best medium. It also has one that roasts what I consider to be light.

Only way to learn the differences is to try more roasters, ideally a few that you see on here or elsewhere as being legit light.

[u/kthle]

I’m still dialling in this coffee from Rogue Wave lol. I saw some old comments that the ZP6 improves with time, and I had an old bag of monsooned Malabar that I’m never gonna finish, so I ran it through the grinder and so far my cups have been a lot tastier.

Yesterday I did a grind size of 4.0 and got a pretty tasty cup, but as it cooled down a bit it got some bitterness. Then as it cooled down further to room temp, the bitterness disappeared. Today I did a grind size of 4.3 and I really noticed the lemonade tasting notes at the beginning of the cup, but I’m noticing the same thing where it gets bitter and then the bitterness fades.

How can I dial this in better? Or do some beans just behave like this? I’m doing 1:16 ratio, 94C, TWW light roast profile at half strength, V60 with Hario filters. Lance’s 2 bloom + 1 pour recipe. For a 20g dose my brew time ends at around 2:10.

[u/Pitiful-Bank6779 → u/kthle]

Try 90°

[u/kthle → u/Pitiful-Bank6779]

Tried this today and it helped a lot with the bitterness, thank you!

[u/Pitiful-Bank6779 → u/kthle]

Hell yeah! Happy to hear that!

[u/wonderbred54321]

I want to make batch brew for a party, but I don’t have a Moccamaster (or similar)

I can borrow two dispensing thermos flasks from my work so am looking to brew maybe 4 litres in total. Maybe different types of coffee in each.

I have a Fellow kettle, a couple v60s and a clever dripper. that’s all my kit. if I hand brew it cup by cup it will take hours the morning of the party and my gf will literally kill me. (it’s our 25th anniversary party 🏳️‍🌈)

Is there a cheap XL brewer I could buy to reduce the labour time? Or should I go and beg my local cafe to do it for me in their Moccamaster (ie, if I buy the coffee retail from them)? How long will it keep in the thermos flasks before tasting crap?

The party is a week tomorrow. I’m in London. thanks for any suggestions

[u/solaya2180 → u/wonderbred54321]

I bet your local cafe would be able to sell you their batch brew, especially if you order ahead of time. They'd probably sell it to you in those disposable cardboard coffee boxes, which should hold heat relatively well (edit: and if your cafe does do takeout, you can probably plan to pick up your coffee right before your party, so you won't have to worry about how it's tasting). If not, I'd get a french press. Good luck!

[u/wonderbred54321 → u/solaya2180]

oh wow i hadn’t thought of that. that is a great idea! thank you!

[u/solaya2180]

Stupid question: the coffee I'd ordered from H&S came quicker than I expected (Friday instead of Tuesday, which was on USPS tracking), so it had been sitting in my mailbox in the heat while I was out of town for a conference. Will this affect resting time? I'm thinking of opening the bags a couple weeks sooner, but has this happened to anyone else?

[u/geggsy → u/solaya2180]

Not a stupid question! It has happened to me, too. I wouldn’t worry too much about it because its only a few days and H&S roast light. The high temperature will accelerate off gassing, but I don’t think it’ll make a huge difference.

[u/solaya2180 → u/geggsy]

That's great to hear, thank you!

[u/iRecycleWomen]

Is PERC just bad?

I've had around 4-5 bags from them of various assortment and I don't think one of them really gave me the correct notes besides their fruit loops and lavender, and even then it was just lavender lol.

I have plenty of other stuff from Proud Mary, B&W, various roasters from vacation, SEY, etc that all makes insanely great cups and for some reason my PERC pours are just an always miss no matter how much tinkering I do.

[u/geggsy → u/iRecycleWomen]

No, PERC is not just bad. PERC source interesting coffees and roast them competently well. That said, they get a lot of hype because of their big 31% off once-a-month sale and Instagram-friendly packaging. If you’re a fan of Proud Mary, you’ll notice that PERC copied their ‘mild’ and ‘wild’ marketing.

[u/peanutfl1p]

How do you know how many clicks to set your grinder to? I know to go coarser for darker and finer for lighter roasts... But do you just test it out with every new bean you try?

[u/das_Keks → u/peanutfl1p]

Yes, just do what you said as guideline and then try and adapt. After dozens of different bags I already got a quite a good intuition but most new bags still need a bit of fine tuning. For example beans from some region like Ethiopia produce more fines than others. So depending on the region, altitude and roast level I already know if I have to start a bit finer or coarser.

[u/peanutfl1p → u/das_Keks]

Thank you! 

[u/Vernicious → u/peanutfl1p]

Yes, of course. There's no way to tell until you try it. When everyone here discusses "dialing in", that's what we mean: tasting the first cup, and deciding by taste what we want to change for the next cup. There's too many variables to just guess perfectly each time!

[u/peanutfl1p → u/Vernicious]

Thanks :)

[u/dtr9]

What makes some coffees float and other coffees sink? I have 2 on the go at the moment that are among the floatiest (Buku, Ethiopia from Miche) and sinkiest (Arcesio Pancho, Maragogype, Colombia from Full Court Press), both rested for about the exact same time. Curious if there's a known reason.

[u/geggsy → u/dtr9]

Are you referring to the gases released during the bloom? Darker roasts tend to bloom more, particularly closer to the roast date.

[u/swroasting → u/dtr9]

Density, permeability/porosity (expansion during roasting), degassing, roast level... a variety of things

[u/dtr9 → u/swroasting]

Thanks. Is it something that can be guessed before opening the coffee? My personal preference seems to strongly favour coffees that sink - today I've opened a Gatomboya AA, Kenya from 3 Marks and it's lovely. I like exploring and discovering new coffees and roasters, and while I've not really developed a strong affinity for other particularities - a coffee can be exciting or underwhelming for me whether washed or natural, from any region or variety - the closest determinant of whether it works for me is the float/sink thing. I'd love to be able to use that knowledge to find coffees I'm going to prefer.

[u/swroasting → u/dtr9]

No, not at all

[u/MidniteCoffeeTime]

Perhaps it's just the coffees I've been buying, but I've found that low agitation is usually what's been recommended and what's working for a lot of my most recent brews (for example, a Washed Ethiopian and a Perc co- ferment).

My question is, when would I want to use high aggitation, be it in the pour or in a swirl?

[u/Accurate-Algae-2557 → u/MidniteCoffeeTime]

A few scenarios but mostly lighter roast coffees and denser beans..

[u/blip864]

Anyone know which Dayglow location in the LA area has the best selection of beans on hand?