Out of desperation, I recently bought coffee in the supermarket. I had messed up my coffee order and had been without coffee for five days already. To avoid the bad taste of the big producers, I went for an unknown-to-me local coffee. It was an educational experience and none I’d like to repeat even if the alternative is no coffee.
The moment I opened it I was repelled by the stench. Burned. I poured some beans out and saw why: Half of them were charred. Once I removed them the beans went from stinking to smelling kind of bad. I gave up. For the moment.
Until my desperation was great enough to think that any bad coffee in a cafe or bakery would not be worse than that coffee.
So I ground the beans, which released a disgusting smell. At that moment, I wondered if I should waste the paper filter. For educational purposes, I did.
When I poured a little water over the grind it started producing so many air bubbles it became a gooey mass that bubbled and bubbled… I waited until I poured the rest of the water. The smell was so bad I started to feel sick.
At the end of my coffee making procedure, I poured the coffee, rinsed my tools (very thoroughly) and looked at the cup of stinking, brown stuff. Pour it away or drink it? The smell alone was enough to almost make me vomit. It was something between burned and … yak. The rancid coffee I had tossed just a minute ago had smelled nice in comparison.
I still sipped. And tasted nothing. But the smell that went up my nose was horrible. I sipped again.
It tasted horribly acidic. Like drinking bad quality vinegar.
I poured it down the drain. I had had enough.
But I was not prepared for the bitter, burned aftertaste that spread in my mouth and was happy to linger.
This was probably the worst coffee I ever had. And the sad thing is that it is not far from the quality that most coffees have. I just learned to distinguish how good and how bad coffee can actually taste.