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Comment by carabiner | Hacker News Reader

I mean 90% of coffee brewing is meaningless rituals. Could you taste the difference between a burr grinder and a blade grinder in the resulting brew? Nope, but endless pages of debate exist on this, grain size distribution, quality of burrs. It has a strong resemblance to the audiophile community.

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Of course you can detect the difference between a blade and a burr grinder: how much sludge is at the bottom of your cup?

That said, is it really meaningless if it gives you personal satisfaction and peace? Is it any different than any other routine or ritual, like going to church on Sunday?

I mean this is pretty easy to test without making unsubstantiated claims. I’ve done this. We have a range of grinders from $700 to $5000 and did an informal blind tasting. No one had tasted coffee from all grinders.

Guesses were revealed simultaneously. 100 percent hit rate.

Huge difference between burr and blade.

>> burr grinder and a blade grinder

Come on over and we can do just this in my half assed home espresso machine.

There will be a difference.

The process, roast and general quality of coffee matter.

Can one make magical claims about all of this. They sure do and charge an arm and a leg for it. But you can get a quality product an a consistent cup at a reasonable price if you shop around.

On blind color difference tests, I score 100% when your average person scores less than 60%.

I laugh when people say two colors are the same.

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