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Comment by WilTimSon | Hacker News Reader

Well, you're lucky to not have spoiled your palate, in a way. I learned to love good coffee through my friends and I now only drink regular espressos from a machine if there's no other choice. And I'm not being snobby or anything, I fully understand why people drink it, I used to do it all the time. But my friends had to go and teach me about brewing methods and beans and yadda yadda.

Friend of mine had a similar issue where his parents were wine people and, ever since he could drink, taught him how to pick good wine. Except he realised he does not want to pay that much for alcohol so he now just sticks to beer.

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I was recently discussing this with a colleague and we settled on calling it quality creep - as you become used to better things, the stuff that was previously acceptable becomes unbearable.

e.g. I used to drink any old instand coffee, then I found Douwe Egberts and strongly preferred that for a few years, then I started making pour-overs with pre ground coffee in a v60, then I found a better grind/roast/etc of the beans which is my go-to - now I drink 'real' coffee black and can only tolerate instant if it's adulterated with milk and a little sugar.

I'm trying to avoid making the jump to pulling my own espressos, it looks like way more fuss than the pour-over...

Making espresso with my semi-auto Breville Infuser is almost exactly as much fuss as a pour-over:

- Turn it on to heat up - Grind the beans - Weigh the grounds - Fill, tamp, and attach the portafilter - Start the infusion - Remove and dump the grounds - Clean the portafilter

It's a $600 electronic device, not a simple funnel and filter, but it's not a fussy process.

You still weigh the grounds? The difference with eyeballing it is probably too negligible to be noticed.

I'm not very good at eyeballing it, so it helps me stay consistent.

Can you try and explain the difference? I've tried many brewing methods and quite like Aeropress, but can't say that I won't like anything else because of it. I also quite like the stuff from my automatic espresso maker, especially if it's just been cleaned.

> now just sticks to beer.

Guess he's lucky he hasn't tried good beer ;)

I've been mulling this over since yesterday. The best way I can explain is that I genuinely taste different "notes" in coffee brewed in different ways and from different beans, whereas with most espresso machines the taste feels overpowered by one singular note, usually something nutty, close to peanuts. It's not disgusting or bad, but it' kind of like having a preference in tea or sauces. You could eat your meal with that one sauce you're offered, but you might have a different preference. And coffee is the sauce of my days, heh.

>ever since he could drink, taught him how to pick good wine.

Except that people who think they can "pick good wine" actually can't (there have been studies, too lazy to Google), and for the most part quality and price aren't correlated.

Luxury beliefs and all that.

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