Why does your coffee taste bad? 5 ways to improve it


Dany Marquis

Why is coffee bad?

Coffee is part of the happiness equation for me - and for many of us.

I like drinking it with other people, it's my job, I love it. Even when I'm on vacation, I often find myself at the counter of a café to chat.

Above all, I get a particular pleasure from getting up early in the morning and doing my getting ready ritual. It seems like I like doing my routine, half asleep, my senses waking up one after the other: the sound of my manual grinder, the smell of fresh brewed coffee, the sound of the kettle, the waiting the infusion, the silence are an integral part of the day. Then, I sit down, with my tablet to read the news, the hot cup in my hands. And there, life is beautiful.

But, there is nothing worse, once you are settled in, than taking a first sip and finding the coffee disappointing .

To avoid this type of situation, I offer you 5 ways to improve your coffee experience:

Is your coffee too old?

Coffee that is not fresh, that was roasted a long time ago, will have lost its aromas. The aromatic oils will be dried out and the beans will have oxidized, especially if the coffee has been left in the open air. The degradation process occurs even faster on ground coffee.

  • Buy freshly roasted coffee (ideally 1-4 weeks old)

  • Store coffee beans in an airtight container at room temperature

  • Grind as you go

Is your coffee good coffee?

Every coffee seller will tell you that their coffee is the best. If your coffee tastes bad, it's likely that the fault lies solely with the coffee itself. Sure, you may have prepared it incorrectly, but the roasting may also have been sloppy.

Roasts that are too dark are abundant, and there is a lot of charred, burnt, hyper-bitter black coffee on the market. I can tell you that many coffee distributors make this their business; we buy piquette, we roast it to the max, we say that it's Italian roasting - it's a seller - and if the customer finds it bad, we tell him that he probably prepared this coffee incorrectly. Yet it is an excellent coffee…

Roasting coffee is an art , and like in wine, there is vinasse and great vintages. It's too easy for coffee roasters to make poor quality coffee and blame it on the customer's preparation.

Read this other blog post titled: Transparency, coffee roasting date and blend compositions

Was your coffee maker clean?

This is an important detail, especially for fully automatic espresso machines with integrated grinder, or electric filter coffee makers. Maintaining your espresso machines, filters and accessories is basic. Same thing for the filter of a French press coffee maker, or an Italian coffee maker. Often, we rinse them and put them away. You can buy coffee maker cleaner at the grocery store, it's usually in the coffee filter corner. On brulerieduquai.com, you can find a section specially dedicated to maintenance and cleaning products for machines and mills.

Do you drink your coffee freshly brewed?

I had a friend who got up, turned on the automatic filter coffee maker, went to take a shower, dried her hair, got dressed and came back to the kitchen for breakfast. 30 minutes later. 30 minutes on the stove. And for me it was too late, the coffee was bad. Ideally, coffee should be consumed freshly brewed. There are certain models of electric filter coffee makers that have a timer, a type of alarm, you can start it, set a time limit and when you get out of the shower, you will have a fresh coffee. Where you can take 5 minutes to prepare it.

Is the water good?

Last but extremely important point, water! Coffee is 98% water, flavored with soluble elements from ground coffee and aromatic oils.

First of all, how much water did you use? If you use too much water, or not enough, the coffee will not be balanced. For the filter, I recommend going with 16 parts water to one part coffee. For espresso, I like to be at a 40% ratio, 18g of coffee for a 36ml espresso.

Next, are you able to drink the water you put in your coffee maker? If you are used to drinking filtered water, which has been sitting in the fridge to remove the chlorine taste, but you use tap water to make your coffee, there will be a difference.

The water must be fresh, clear, odorless and mineralized . Distilled water makes very bad coffee because you need the minerals to transfer the soluble elements into the water. It is certain that we will never have any accumulation of limescale in the coffee maker but we will never have a good infusion or extraction with distilled water. It's chemistry.

To make good coffee, you must have water with a mineral content of 150 ppm . The ideal is tap water, passed through a softener and left to settle to reduce chlorine odors. Or bottled mineral water, but using bottled water to make coffee is bad for karma, and even more so if it is to prepare it from capsule coffee.

Here are the 5 ways to start your investigation if unfortunately your coffee was not to your taste.

For those who prefer video tips, you can always find some tutorials on our Facebook page . Our second video capsule develops the main points of this article, and other wise advice is also included.

Here is a top 5 of our coffees that are delicious as espresso:

  1. The Bad Boy Espresso
  2. The Inspiri Organic
  3. The Bad Girl Espresso
  4. Organic Italian Espresso
  5. The Special Cream

Here is a top 5 of our coffees that do perfectly well in filter:

  1. The Yemenia
  2. The Typica Jamaica Blue Mountain
  3. The Geisha Panama La Esmeralda
  4. The Yirgacheffe
  5. El Pital Oil

4 comments


  • Dany

    Bonjour Claude, la réponse à ta question est simple, ta cafetière limite ta préparation de café. La Magnifica de Delonghi est une machine complètement automatisé qui utilise un groupe de percolation qui garde la préparation de café dans un spectre très restreint. Avec ce type de machine, tu dois utiliser des cafés qui ont beaucoup de corps et de caractère. Mais comme la machine n’aime pas les torréfactions noires aux grains huileux qui finissent par bloquer le moulin, tu dois utiliser des cafés aux forts caractères mais torréfié avant le 2e crack, donc assez léger. Je te recommande d’essayer des cafés de type naturel ou des assemblages avec ce type de café. Dans notre offre il y a beaucoup de possibilités, l’assemblage Bad Boy espresso est un de nos plus populaires.


  • Claude RAGUENEAU

    Bonjour le 12/12/2017 je vous ai envoyé un message car je suis dans une impasse… J’ai à plusieurs reprise acheté du café cher en grain de différentes marques et même du “bio”… J’utilise une cafetière DELONGHI type MAGNIFICA S … Hélas je n’obtiens qu’un jus noir sans saveur et sans l’odeur délicieuse qui emplissait l’appartement de mes parents… Ma chère mère n’utilisait pourtant que du café des années 60à 90 un moulin à main et une simple cafetière émaillée… SVP n’y a-t-il aucun espoir dans cette époque où tout est faussé par les engrais et autre produits chimiques… J’ai 84 ans et SVP envoyez moi une méthode ou des renseignements digne de confiance, pas du bla bla Vous avez mon adresse Maïl et Tel 05 56 95 00 08 Merci cordiales salutations Ragueneau claude


  • ragueneau claude

    Bonjour. J’ai acheté il y a 2 ans une cafetière DELONGHI type MAGNIFICA S …. J’utilise du café en grain dit d’excellente qualité… J’ai changé de nombreuses fois de marque, étant insatisfait. Mais depuis tout ce temps je bois un “jus” noir sans arôme au goût et ne dégageant pas la bonne odeur qui embaumait le logement de mes parents, de mon enfance… Que faire SVP? Notre époque et donc sans espoir ? Merci pour votre réponse…svp pas de publicités mensongères mais des réponses dignes de confiance Cordiales salutations Ragueneau


  • elyzabeth lavoie

    MERCI :-)
    je suis convaincue… je vais acheter mon café chez vous…
    au cours de mes recherches ou je comparais les prix et tentais de lire entre les lignes pour évaluer la qualité et la fraicheur je suis tombee sur votre article dont l’introduction m’a charmée car J’ai 2 devises qui sont pour moi des Règles D’Or:

    1. << sans un BON café le matin, la vie ne vaut pas la peine d’être vécue… ce serait vraiment trop triste ! >>

    2. << les files d’attente aux caisses ce n’est PAS POUR MOI !!! >>

    je suis une caféinomane assumée, j’ai investi dans une Barista Express Breville et aussi un moulin séparé pour les grains moins frais. j’ai aussi 3 mousseurs à lait et une machine filtre avec moulin et des cafetières manuelles pour pouvoir faire du café sur le feu de foyer en cas de panne de courant… PAS QUESTION DE COMMENCER UNE JOURNÉE SANS CAFÉ !!! :-)

    J’achetais mon café en grains, 7 ou 8 sacs à la fois, chez Costco, il était ’’acceptable’’ mais il y a vraiment trop de monde aux caisses… et jamais de place de stationnement près des portes…

    quelques essais en épicerie m’ont convaincue de chercher une brûlerie qui vend des grains FRAIS RÔTIS par le web… et qui a le souci de la qualité…


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