Why We Do Not Run Taste Tests, and What to Read Instead

A taste test records the verdict and loses the variables

A published taste test loses its conditions, whatever the tasters got right. The cup was made with a particular water, a grinder set a particular way, a dose and a temperature that seemed obvious at the time and never made it into the result. A reader gets the ranking without the inputs, and cannot reproduce either the winning cup or the losing one.

This site does not run taste tests for that reason, and it does not borrow other people's. What it can do is read what a maker publishes about the tool itself, because a printed capacity or temperature range is a variable the buyer controls, not a judgment the buyer has to trust. The two tools below each fix one variable in print. Together they let a person make the same cup twice and decide which of the two they preferred, the only taste test that has ever been repeatable.

Capacity: the AeroPress states 10 oz and nothing about taste

AeroPress sells the Original for $54.95 on its Canadian storefront and on Amazon.ca, where AeroPress, Inc. is the seller and Amazon ships. The page states a 10 oz chamber and top-rack dishwasher safety. A chamber with a stated capacity is a batch size that does not drift: the same volume of water goes in tomorrow as today, and a brewer who wants to change one thing at a time has already fixed the first thing.

What the page does not print is a dose in grams or a steep time. It does print a method: its FAQ asks for a medium-fine grind, a shake to level the bed of grounds and a slow pour, and sizes one press at a single 10 oz serving when all the water goes through the grounds. The 2-minute figure on the page covers brewing and cleaning together, so it is not a steep time.

So the grind and the vessel are settled, and the amount of coffee and the time it steeps are not. A household that wants a repeatable cup writes the grams and the minutes beside the 10 oz figure and keeps them. The page promises no flavour.

Temperature: the Stagg turns a guess into a number

Fellow's own spec list for the Stagg EKG family gives 0.9 L and a temperature range of 40 to 100 degrees Celsius, on 110 to 120 V with a plug it names for the U.S. and Canada; the Amazon.ca listing for the Pro prints the 0.9 L but no range, so the range is Fellow's figure, not Amazon's. In Canada it is sold on Amazon.ca at $239.00 by Fellow Industries Inc. and shipped by Amazon, with 30 days from receipt to return it. Water temperature is the variable a taste test most often omits, because the tester filled a kettle and poured; a kettle with a set point makes the omission impossible, since the number sits on the display.

The number is a setting, not a measurement. A selectable temperature does not establish how close the water is to that figure, or how long it holds there, in the unit on your counter; Fellow publishes a range, not a tolerance. What the setting does is let two cups be made at the same displayed temperature, enough to find out whether temperature was the thing that mattered. At $239.00 that is an expensive way to answer one question.

When a taste test is the right thing to want

Skip this reading when the question is about the coffee rather than the tools. Beans differ, roasts differ, and no chamber or kettle changes that; a buyer choosing between two bags is right to want somebody's palate on the record, which is what a taste test is and what these two product pages are not. The tools hold two variables still so that beans can be compared fairly, and that is all they do. Dose and time stay with the household, and a notebook is enough for them.

Skip the tools as well when the routine already works. A person who makes a cup they like every morning without setting a temperature has no variable to fix, and spending $293.95 on both to formalize a habit that was never in doubt answers no question. Fix a variable when a cup has gone wrong and the reason is unknown, starting with the cheaper one: the 10 oz chamber at $54.95 before the $239.00 kettle.