I’ve yet to meet a barista who valued “impressing others with scientific terms and supposed scientific methods” over taste. To the contrary, everyone I’ve interacted with understands that science and careful measurement are simply a means to an end, great tasting coffee.

On rare occasions I HAVE met coffee people who are insecure about their ability to do simple math and/or make simple measurements with accuracy. Sometimes these people try and overcompensate by railing against the science types and bragging about their own golden taste buds.

But no matter; whatever one’s preconceptions, consistency, care, open-mindedness and respect for the coffee will win out over all our coffee delusions.

It seems to me that many of 3W baristas today spend too much time trying to impress others with scientific terms and supposed scientific methods – when all our guests want is something great to drink.  To my mind, taste is the ultimate measure.

In many respects, I liken our craft to that of cooking. There’s definitely a science behind what happens in the pan, and one can take things to the extreme with precise temperature baths and “molecular” techniques, but at the end of the service, we’re just trying to provide something tasty and delicious.

At Spro, we work with many different brew methods on a daily basis, giving us a unique perspective on how these methods (pourover, vac pot, press, eva, clever, aeropress, chemex, cold tower, espresso, viet) affect the flavors of individual coffees.  We also have the interesting journey of seeing how different filters affect each method as well.  One thing I have come to conclusion on is that I don’t much care for metal filters for Chemex, Vac Pot,  and the like.  Of course, I prefer the more traditional approach to the methods (meaning original paper or cloth filters).

Returning to the subject at hand, much of what we do is as instinctual and “artistic” (or craft-based) as a cook. One develops a feel for the craft and the brew and can make minor (or even major) adjustments to the brew mid-cycle as conditions warrant.  To my mind, there’s more to what we do that narrowing it down to exact science.  And while perhaps it’s good to understand that science, I don’t let it overshadow what we do for a living.

While I do follow your theory about how – metal-, paper- and cloth-filtering aside – the coffee shouldn’t taste too different, I simply couldn’t put it into practice on this first run. The three cups tasted vastly different, the differences being what you’d expect from the different methods: sturdy, tasty, dirty French Press; crisp, acidic, clear syphon and obviously awesome all around Aeropress (okay, I may like the Aeropress a bit too much to be objective here).

Bottom line: give it a shot, though… while I couldn’t reproduce the same taste across the different methods, it certainly helped me to nail down the brew-method-specific effects on taste and texture a bit to give me more information to decide in the future which device to put a coffee into if I want to achieve something specific.

Maybe someone more skilled in brewing coffee could get them to taste more similarly, though. I’d be happy if anyone has any pointers on how to re-do this experiment.