Becoming a Weird Coffee Person

I received a very nice coffee grinder for Christmas this year. Specifically, Santa brought me a Fellow Ode Gen 2 which does a really good job grinding beans for filter coffee brewing like AeroPress, moka pot, V60, and French press. It doesn't grind fine enough for espresso, but I also don't own an espresso machine so a grinder that is aimed at the type of brewing I'm doing is a better choice.

The first few cups with the Ode revealed that your grinder has a lot to do with how your cup of coffee tastes. I ground the same coffee beans I've been enjoying for the last few months (Detour Decaf Gaurapo) and made a cup of coffee with the same ratio of 12gms coffee to 240gms water in the AeroPress. I ground at 3.1 on the Ode Gen 2.

The result? There was a distinct sweetness in the cup with the Ode grinder compared to the grinder I was using before (a cheap and annoying piece of junk from Amazon). The tasting notes on the bag suggested red grape, salted caramel and almond. With the old grinder, there was no taste of the grape and a faint suggestion of caramel in the cup.

With the Ode, the sweet and tangy grape was very evident and there was a big difference in what I'll call the "brightness" of the cup. It was such a different cup of coffee and far more interesting and delicious.

It will be fun to play with grind fineness, time, dose and all the other things that add up to create a good cup of coffee. Still on my "wish list" is a better scale, a precision kettle and perhaps a Hario V60 Switch.