Whats making these beans flavorless?

[BlueLake]

Hi! I am new to this forum, and pretty new to "good" coffee in general. I live in China and Im helping my friend open an Italian restaurant. I am looking for a bean supplier. The company that we found has had great service, they are willing to roast according to our specifications, and ship us coffee weekly so we can always have fresh roasted. The problem is all the samples they have sent us just arent that great. I would say that the flavor is just not really there. Looking at the beans the color is uneven (some darker then others) I dont know if this is causing the problem or its the green beans that they are importing. The first samples were all from single regions, the seconds were blends and seemed a little better to me, but still not great. Should we keep working with them to try to get it right? Or buy from an overseas roaster?

Thanks for any advice!

[Bon]

Re: Whats making these beans flavorless?

How long is a piece of strong? Who knows without actually being there to see it?

[lucinda]

Re: Whats making these beans flavorless?

Sounds to me that they have not been roasted long enough - especially with the uneven colours of the beans.

[Javaphile]

Re: Whats making these beans flavorless?

Or it could be poor quality beans. Ask the roaster what the source of the beans are and dont settle for generic descriptions like Oh theyre Columbian".


Java "Ya gotta start with good beans to end up with good coffee." phile

[Andy]

Re: Whats making these beans flavorless?


Sounds like you have sampled their "Really cheap Brazil" blend.


Maybe get them to roast 5 single origin beans (they can be numbered 1-5) in 2 different roast depths (medium and dark) and you could blend the 10 in different proportions to find exactly what you are looking for. Try and get some totally different regions so that you can give better feedback to the roaster as to what you are looking for in your coffee.

Also make sure that your own coffee making process is good and the equipment is well maintained. So many variables at the machine and grinder can make good coffee very avarage too.

Most of all... keep working on it. Great coffee is there for the taking if you invest the time to get it right.

[Ray_C]

Re: Whats making these beans flavorless?

If you want something with real depth, flavour and character, really exciting, then I recommend that you source out some african, either ethiopian or kenya AA there are a heap of them to choose from. You just need to be able to trust your supplier that you are actually getting what youre ordering.

You wont be describing them as ordinary or not having much flavour!

The problem with buying from an overseas supplier, if already roasted, is that they may well be stale before you get them, they will only hang in there for about 3 weeks absolute maximum once roasted if kept in perfect storage conditions, which in transit doesnt qualify as perfect conditions for storage.

Have you contacted coffee snobs brown bay re. delivery timeframes and shipping possibilities... worth looking at.

Anyway you cant get gold from crap, if the beans are ordinary then the result in the cup will be the same, if your supplier cant do any better, then you may have to look for another one.

Like Andy said make sure your equipment is up to scratch, try a few blends, document your findings, make a decision based upon that, just remember one thing; "African coffee rules".... Ray.

[Thundergod]

Re: Whats making these beans flavorless?

I agree about finding out the origin of the beans.

You may find they are Chinese.

I know China grows a lot of beans now but have not read anything about the quality of the coffee they make.