I don t like coffee Can James Hoffmann change that

How do I describe you? Britain's leading expert on coffee? Or Britain's leading YouTuber on coffee? I don't... Oh. Coffee expert? Whatever's fine. Somebody asked me what I do for a living, and I'm like, I don't know. Things. Yeah, I know the feeling. I mean, it's a YouTube... It's a YouTube... Yeah. Just so... We can say coffee person, YouTube weirdo. I don't know! I don't know! I apologise. I'm with James Hoffman, who has just asked me to call him YouTube coffee weirdo, so... It's probably accurate. His words, not mine. Who's going to teach me about coffee, which is something I know... It's not that I don't know anything about coffee. It's that I haven't really tasted coffee since I was a kid. Okay. Now, that was the... Well, that was the setup that was initially interesting, was like, find your perfect coffee. Yeah. And then there were a couple of caveats. You don't like coffee, and sort of not a huge fan of caffeine. So I decided when I was sort of 14, 15, that I did not like coffee because I tried coffee, and I probably tried... I don't think it was instant, but I think it was fairly cheap drip coffee or something like that. I just said, well, I don't... I do not understand why the adults like this. I'm not going to do it. And then I kind of never really got into caffeine. I decided that wasn't for me either. So it was just easier to say, I don't like coffee. But like, socially, it's nice to be able to accept a cup of coffee from someone. It's a thing that clearly a lot of people really enjoy. So I want to re-evaluate this. I want to be able to say... I want to be able to make the decision, is this a thing that adult me in my 30s actually likes? And I think if anyone's going to be able to find me something that is not cheap drip coffee... I would hope so. Yes. So I worked on the idea that caffeine was mostly out. So 90% of what you're going to taste today does not have caffeine in it, which made it a challenge. Yeah, and it will have done. Because I know that's a... Because decaffeinating things, I looked into the process. It's a big deal. I'm okay with having... Like, if there's a bit of caffeine in there, I'm fine with that. Like, if there's more... If I drink more than about one shot of espresso through the course of this, though, that's probably going to... That's... Well, we'll see how we go. We'll see what happens. So what we're going to do today, we're going to do a little guided tasting. Right. Because... I'll tell you why afterwards. We're going to start with one round to assess kind of one aspect of coffee to see how you feel about it. So we've got in front of us three coffees. I'm not going to tell you what they are because it's not important. We're going to do a sort of a base preference test around coffee. So what I'm going to do is do these as what we would call a cupping, which is the very simple way we taste coffee. There's ground coffee in each glass. I'm going to pour boiling water on top. They're going to hang out for about four minutes. Okay. Give them a little stir. Scoop off the stuff that floats. And then that liquid, we can taste. Right. Before I put water on these, just for your interest, have a smell of each glass and just see how you feel. The smell of coffee to most people is quite nice. Yes. I'd be interested to know if one of these smells nicer to you than another. And I'm going to go and boil a kettle. Okay. So number one. Okay. So that, I don't have the words for it, but that's not a pleasant... That feels like there's a lot of kind of earth, wood notes, things like that. I don't have the words to describe what that is, but the word that came to mind was sort of earth. Number two, wood. If number one is earth, number two is wood. Oh, number three is a lot nicer. Number three is... Number three almost has a sweet note on top of it. So yeah. Earth, wood, slightly sweeter, but I don't know what to call it. Which is quite nice, if you like the smell. That's more pleasant to you, right? So boiling water into each of them. So these are freshly ground. Freshly ground. There's a whole process there, which I know you go into great detail about on your channel. Everything can be optimised. Hot coffee is actually really quite hard to taste. And it's a mistake many people kind of make, is that, you know, you drink your coffee hot, you want it for the heat, but if you want it for flavour, you won't get the best out of it. And you'll tend to experience things like bitterness a little bit more intensely when it's hot. That can fade a little as it cools down, and things get just more interesting. And you'll experience that. So I'll tell you now, what you think about these when you first taste them will change. Okay. Right, as you go through. Now, when it comes time to taste, what I don't want to do is just throw a load of flavour and experience at you and be like, how is that? Because that's just too much. The brain is just like, I don't know. And you get into a very much like, I like it, I don't, I don't know what it is. I'm just, no. So what we're going to do when we taste is break down sort of single components and compare them coffee to coffee. Okay. Right. Comparative tasting is the single best way to learn to taste anything. Right. Sitting at home with a glass of wine, trying to work out what does this taste like? How do I describe this? Really hard. You might be like, it's a bit fruity. And that's kind of where you end. Give yourself two glasses. Much more fun. But you can compare the two, right? Which one is fruitier? Which one is more acidic? Which one is sweeter? Which one finishes better? All of those kind of things. That's what we're going to do here. To start off with, we're just going to focus on single aspects of the coffee and compare and contrast those. All right. Okay, I'm just going to clean these up a little bit now. So when you say clean these up. So if we try to drink this now. Yep. That's just ground coffee floating on the top. Okay, let's not do that. Which is, I mean, it's an experience. It's food safe. Yeah, it's just not nice. So what you do is you give them a little stir. And this actually causes most of the ground that we're floating on the top to sink to the bottom. Right. And then we scoop off whatever remains. Ah, okay. Leaving behind, let me throw this in here. I assume that the stuff, so the stuff on top, I feel like is a thing I've seen in a lot of coffees. Right, like the, what the, how do you mean? Like the foamy stuff? Yeah, or is that a different, bear in mind, complete novice here. Right, okay. I'll give you the very short answer, which is foam happens in coffee because when you roast coffee, a bunch of the byproducts from the chemistry of roasting is CO2. It gets trapped inside the coffee. Oh, okay. About a kilo of coffee will produce in its roasting process about 10 liters of CO2 as an anchor. Right. A lot of that gets trapped in the coffee and certain brew methods sort of bring it out. So espresso is the most famous. 1948, a guy invents a high pressure espresso machine and everyone's like, what is the disgusting scum on the coffee now? And he's like, no, it's natural coffee cream. Which is a beautiful piece of marketing that has, I think, transported espresso's kind of brand around the world. What we're going to do, what we used to do was get a spoonful and slurp very loudly from the spoon, aerate the coffee in the mouth and sort of turn up the volume. But then what we would do is kind of give it a quick rinse in hot water and put that same spoon that had been in our mouths back in another bowl. Oh, let's not do that. Right, so that's not what we do anymore. So that's why you have a little cup and what we'll do is take a spoonful, throw it in the little cup and then slurp as roughly as you'd like from the little cup. All I want you to do as you taste through these is compare the bitterness of one to the bitterness of two. The bitterness of two to the bitterness of three. Right, and ignore everything else. Ignore everything else right now. I just want you to focus on bitterness to start with. Take your time, don't feel rushed by me anyway. Spoonful. Into the cup. A little swirl, cool it down a touch, it'll make it easier. Cool it down a touch. I'll have another little go on this. And then have a sip. Now, your brain's going to be like, you've got no benchmark yet. No, I don't. Have a sip, think about the bitterness. Okay. And then... I mean, already compared to, you know, 14-year-old me spitting this out immediately and going, like, clearly my palate has changed, because... That's not... you're not upset? That's not unpleasant. It's not pleasant yet, because I haven't got used to it, but it's a... yeah, that's a thing. All right. And two. So it's a bit soft. That's less bitter, I think? Or is it just warmer? No, it's less bitter. Okay, I've worked that out. Yeah, that's it. There is a less bitterness in two than one. No, that's almost... My brain almost briefly thought that was sweet. Well, we'll think about sweetness in a second. Have a compare, so benchmark that bitterness in your brain. Yeah. Number three? Number three. Swirl it round, let it cool down a moment. Now, I don't know whether my taste buds have just been blown out by those first two, but that barely tastes bitter at all, to me. It is pretty barely bitter, yeah. Right. And people have an expectation of coffee's flavour, that it is this big, harsh, mean thing. And so most people reach for milk or they reach for sugar because they want to temper that bitterness. And milk is an amazing thing. It's one of the few natural bitter blockers out there. Most coffee needs milk and sugar, right? Most coffee that you will drink in the world, I would recommend tempering it because most coffee isn't very good compared to how good coffee can be. Now, you said sweetness, so let's go the other way again. So let's go three, two, one. Yes. Sweetness comparison, right? How does the sweetness of three compare to the sweetness of two? Okay, right. So focus on that. And the spoon does not touch the cup. There is an air gap there. That's it. Let's get a little bit for me. Oh, spot the person who used to do computer security. Air gap. Right, so we'll look for sweetness. I only know what that means because I watch Mr Robot. Now, sweetness is a tricky word, right? Because you will have coffees that taste sweet but do not taste sweetened, right? So the moment that I added a sprinkle of sugar to that, you'd be like, oh no, that's sweetened. And instead, you're looking for a kind of pleasant characteristic, a kind of natural sweetness, but not a sugary sweetness. Right. And I feel like there's a bit of that in there. But I'm being very non-committal on that, just because I don't know what to compare it to. All right, number two. It's hard to taste above the bitter note there. Well, so taking yourself back then to the first thing you tasted that you were surprised by, how does that now stack up now that you've got a benchmark? I feel like there's a sweet note in there, but I only got on, like, the last... I'm second-guessing myself here. I feel like there was a sweet note in there towards the end, when it was starting to get cooler. All right, let's do number one. So this was bitter. This was the most bitter of the three. So does it also have that sweet note in it? So I don't think it does. I don't think it does either. Okay, that's... I keep... I feel like I'm guessing. I feel like an imposter here. Who is magically guessing the correct things, because I don't know... If I were to rate them, I'm not sure about these two. That one's definitely not got a sweet note here. I feel like two might have had more of that. Interesting. But I'm not sure about that choice. I think they're pretty close in terms of sweetness. I think... I feel like I'm at the opticians and somebody's going, one or two, one or two. I absent-mindedly finished off that one. You know, there was more in the cup. I just kind of sipped. That was really pleasant. Well, that's it. We're gonna go. One more sort of characteristic at this stage, right? Which is, I want you to pay attention to acidity, just quickly. Just taste each one, and tell me which one you feel has the most acidity to it. All right. Number one. Number two. Ooh. Definitely more in two than one. Because I know what I'm looking for here. More than anything, I know what flavour I'm trying... what profile I'm trying to match in my head there. Three. But only... Two definitely has some. But I feel like... Three definitely has more of that sort of vinegar, citrus bite to it. Do you like it? Yes. And so I would say, I would infer then, that this is probably your preference of these three from a sort of tastes perspective. It's got a hint of sweetness to it, and less bitterness, but it's also got that acid bite. Right. So from this, I now have a good benchmark of kind of what you're into. What we're going to do now is refine that through another round of tasting. Okay. Round two is no longer about sort of taste. So the first round was really about, you know, bitter, sweet, acidity. How do you feel about those? How do you perceive those? How do you enjoy those? Here, we're going to focus much more on flavour, which is a little bit more challenging, because then you're into sort of finding the words in the wine tasting, and the hints of wisteria, or all of that sort of stuff. Don't worry too much about that. We'll pick it apart a little bit more in a second. But that's what we're going to do. So if you want to have a little smell, again, just compare and contrast. Number one. See how you feel. Don't have the words, you're right. No, it's okay. I'll give you some words later, and they'll be hopefully satisfying. I don't want to say floral. Floral is the wrong... But plants. Yes. Which is an obvious thing. It's coffee. It's a plant. That's not a helpful word, but... Woodbark. Oh, oh, what's that? That is... That's a memory from something. I almost want to say berries. I don't know what berry, but that's the note. You're saying, mm-hmm, and I can't tell if that's thinking I'm mad, or thinking that... I can't skew you too far one way or the other. Oh! Spice. Specifically, almost like the vinegary thing you get from kimchi, or something like that. A kind of fermented note. Yes, yes, that's the word, fermented. All right. You are scoring big points. Am I? You're scoring big points? I'm going to get a kettle. You're scoring... You're doing very well. I found a skill. This is good. So far, doing things where I'm outside my comfort zone, I haven't found skills. And now... Your coffee tasting language is very good. Okay. Right. Flavor. Right. It's hard. Yes. And that's okay, right? So don't beat yourself up about those kind of things. So you start initially, do that kind of initial assessment. Okay, how does this feel? How's the sweetness? How's the bitterness? How's the acidity? Swallow, and then sort of think about what's left filling your head. What kind of flavors? Yes, that's the sort of easiest time. Number one. Number one, not pleasant for me. Okay. There's some note in that. I would go with earthy. Not sure it's the right word, but I'm going to go with earthy. Doesn't work for me there. But that as a flavor is quite appealing to a number of people in coffee, right? So that is quite a desirable characteristic. It's a bit of a marmite flavor. Yeah. Not literally, but... Not literally, thankfully. Number two does not have that... I'm trying to work out if it just feels like they're... Hang on. That feels like number one, but missing that note. Okay, interesting. I'm not sure there's anything there to replace it. Number one tasted like coffee to me. Yep. Number two tastes a little bit more like someone has introduced something to some hot water and infused it a bit, and there's not enough flavor. That almost felt weak to me. Now, it is in part because it's really hot. That's true. So this will improve in flavor as you go down. Oh, what's that? Number three has a definite note to it that... It's not vinegar. It's something close to that. It's something... I need... I'm going to try number three again there. There's something in that I need to place. It's not citrus. It's something like that there is. Right, this is sort of acid-dominant, quite sort of fruit-acid flavor. Yes, I remember smelling that and saying berries. Okay. All right. And number four was the one... I don't want to preempt what my brain's going to say here, but number four was the one where I was thinking fermented notes. Yes, but that's too hot. Hang on. It's all right. Yes, that is... That's the same thing. I know it's not kimchi, and it's not going to be the same exact flavor. But that's the same note. Definitely. I'm not sure... So one I would write off as just an unpleasant note. That earthy note is not for me. Of those, I think I prefer number four. If you gave me a choice, I'd go for that. But both three and four are very pleasant in different ways. There's no sweetness in there that I can detect, or at least quite little. Three has a bit of it. Yep. Four replaces that with that kind of fermented... Yeah, it's sort of more of a... You get a kimchi, my brain would really go more into the world of kombucha and those kind of ferments. Right, which is not something I'm familiar with. That explains why. Okay. Whereas kimchi... Kimchi often has a kind of lactic acid quality to it. I think it's a lactic ferment, which is a different sort of acidity to me than that, which is a little bit more sort of citric still. Like, it's still a fruit acid in there, but it's sort of a fermented fruit quality to it. The water almost tasted sweet for a moment there. Now, this is, for me, wonderful. Because one, you've clearly tasted the differences. Yes, absolutely. You've accurately tasted the differences. You've expressed preference quite easily, which is definitely useful. I was a bit mean. How would this compare to, say, the one you liked in the first round? So number three in the first round and this. Do you have a preference between the two? You're going to reveal they're the same one, or... Yeah, they are. Of course they are. Interesting. Because that feels weak to me now. That feels like you watered it down. It's context. Right. So the flaw in how we taste in some ways is that we are very much contextual. Right. And so when you produce something very big, very heavy, you compare it. Now, there's a fun little game. Go backwards. So start here, go to here, and go to here. So number four. Right, very strong fermented flavour off that now. Oh, wow. Okay, now I can definitely taste fruit acid in that. Wow. Okay. That way round, I prefer the second one as well. Interesting. Going that way, prefer the fourth. Going that way, prefer the third. And this, which of course I now know is the one from earlier, which is going to change my perception as well. But... Oh! Does not feel weak anymore. Right, so you've gone from actually quite a light-bodied but high acidity thing to a little less acid but a bit more texture, and suddenly it's there. Now, if you go to here again... Oh, this is going to just... This is going to be very strong now, isn't it? Yeah, no. Whatever that flavour is, whatever that note is that some people like, I do not. This is one I don't particularly enjoy coffee that tastes like this. Some people really prize that heaviness, that earthiness, that lack of acid. Those kind of flavours, they really enjoy them. This is the one from the first round, so we've talked about it. It's very nice. I think it's just a very enjoyable... Going that way, that's the one I enjoy the most. Interesting. But it's not the most interesting, it's just very friendly. Yes. Number four is interesting. Yeah. Number three is... It's okay, but going either way, I feel like there's not... Compared to these two, those two stand out to me. And this is kind of somewhere in the middle. In the middle. That one's interesting. That one is just pleasant. But I am so aware that a lot of that is based on me now knowing that that's the one from the third round, that's what I'm looking for, and going this way into it. Right. A lot of it's context. And you can mess with people, and it's quite fun to mess with people. This one here, people get very confused when they drink coffees like this, because they're like, that's not really coffee anymore. Like, that is a fruity, hot thing. If it turns out one of these is actually ground tea, I'm going to be really frustrated. None of them are ground tea, it's all coffee or fries. So what is number two? I'm going to just check, because I feel like this is the one, which, given I wrote it off as being weak earlier, is a really strange thing to say. It's not. I mean, that was one where you were sort of tripped up by what was around it, semi-intentionally, because I think that contrast is really interesting to sort of understand what you're tasting. But I think of these, yep, definitely that one. Would you say, do you like the taste? I think this... I do not dislike the taste, but my immediate thought is that it would be better tempered with a little bit of some sort of dairy or equivalent, and a little bit of sugar. It's absent of defects, in a way. It doesn't have any harshness, there's no bitterness, there's no unpleasant flavours there. There's a kind of core, kind of coffeyness to it. It is the basic person's coffee. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. Like, it is, I think, probably my preference on the table too, if I was to be like, what am I drinking right now? I mean, I lean towards this a little bit, but I like that a lot too. It is just very drinkable. It's nice and sweet. It feels nice to drink. What is it, then? It's a coffee from Colombia. Right. This is a good example of the style of coffee that you would buy in most modern coffee shops, actually. So, you know, the kind of wave of sort of modern specialty coffees we talk about it, that's a very good example of the kind of coffees that we've been trying to get people excited about. All that's left for you to do now is taste this some more. So what we're going to do is we're going to make this as an espresso. Right. As a cappuccino. Okay. Or a little milk drink of some sort. And as a filter coffee. Okay. And you can sort of understand a bit more about how you like to drink. Now you understand what you like to drink. Yeah. Now we can do how you like to drink it. And then you'll end up with your kind of drink should you want to go to a coffee shop and order something. So after a break, where the baristas upstairs have made some things. They've made some things. I know that's espresso. That is espresso. Because it's a tiny shot in a tiny glass. It is. I'm going to guess flat white. A cappuccino, a little bit more texture, a little bit more foam. Yep. And then I was going to do just a brew of the decaf, but I thought because you seem a little bit more open to caffeine. I can take it, yeah, I can take it. I've added something of a similar style with caffeine to the list. Okay. Right, and it's not really a blind tasting anymore. Okay, but it won't be difficult. A chance for you just to kind of assess how you like your coffee made. All right. So I would say, here's your espresso. Give it a stir first. See the foam's dissipated. It's dissipated. Stir the foam back in. Well, it's actually at the bottom of the drink, there's more dense liquid than at the top. So as you sip it, the drink would change. But if you're going to have one sip, forget it, mix it all up, it's a little easier. So this is decaf espresso with the coffee I chose. Pretty intense. Oh, oh wow, okay. So... I can see why people like this. And as someone who likes, like, strong flavours, I can, suddenly I see why people like this. Yeah, good, it's good. Would happily... I won't, we've got a lot to go through. Right. And I'll probably want to come back to that to compare. But I'm really, it's surprising to me, many people are like, okay, that's, I get it, but it's too much, like that. It's a lot. There's specific times when I would want that. But I have no objection to that as, like, decaf. Decaf espresso is now absolutely on drinks that I will go, yes, yeah, if you're offering, I'll have one of those. Have a little taste of this. You can give it a stir too, just to mix in that foam and... I'd quite like, can I just try the foam on top first? There's no, there's no... Because I can always mix the foam in later. So this is, cappuccino is foamed milk on top of an espresso, right? So you're going to use this as a sort of shot of flavouring. Right. And then we're going to dilute it back to a more normal strength, with sweet and delicious... And this is basically all milk with a shot of espresso in there? Yep. Okay. Oh. Huh. Okay. The foam's nice. Huh. I mean, that just tastes like a coffee milkshake to me now, which I don't think it would have done before today. I think I'd have been so overwhelmed with the bitter notes and the coffee notes. But that's... It's a great breakfast drink. Yeah, it is. Ah, I like coffee now. I'll take it. I'll take that as a win. Yep. That's so nice. You can see where people... That's lovely. That is so nice. All right, so the other two here we have... Now here, I'll show you a little bit of each. One of these is caffeinated. One of these you've tasted before. And one of them is a sort of similar-ish coffee in style, but caffeinated. So you shouldn't, in theory... Now, I can notice a difference there, and it's going to be really difficult to tell. I don't know if this is a brew process. I don't know if the camera can pick this up. The top of this is very smooth. There is no imperfection or anything on top of it. The top of this one has a little bit of clouding. A little bit of some sort of thing on top. Almost like there's a little bit of an oil slick or something there. So let's see. So this is the one without that oil, that little bit of oil. Hmm. That doesn't do much for me. It's not unpleasant. It's... Well, again, you're coming from a... Yes. You started very strong, then you went to very rich and sweet, and in contrast, this will suddenly feel lacking in comparison. Yes. But it has a little juiciness to it, a little acidity to it that's quite pleasant. Yeah, that's fair. Let's try the other one. Different taste, definitely. Don't know what the note is. What's interesting to me is I picked this as a coffee that's relatively similar to the decaf one that you liked, right? But coffee is extremely diverse. Coffees from neighboring farms taste different the same way that neighboring chateaus produce different wines. So I can't replicate it exactly. I can just get the stylistic ballpark. So it's a similar-ish level of acidity, similar-ish level of texture and sweetness. This one I prefer. I think that is a very enjoyable coffee. I think this is enjoyable coffee. I think this is... I can't taste it, but I would presume intense, fun, almost overwhelming, but, like, you can understand the appeal of wanting to stand up in a bar in Rome and have a little espresso and move on with your day. Yeah, 100%. Oh yeah, if I ever go to somewhere that's known for good coffee, that's what I'd order. Even if it's decaf, that's what I'd order. Because this feels like an experience. It is like ordering... The best comparison I've got is hot sauce or something like that. It is like ordering something with a lot of hot sauce in because there is so much flavor and so much going on. Whereas, yeah, this, I will happily just have this. This is really nice. That's lovely. I just like the idea of taking you from, I don't like coffee, to espresso. Thank you, James. You've taught me to like coffee. That was the goal for today, so I feel like I ticked that box. I'm kind of relieved. I was genuinely nervous that you were just like, this is all disgusting. I don't like anything. So was I. To be fair, that would have probably been more entertaining for the audience. Yeah. No, I got a new thing I like. Thank you very much. My pleasure.