Question: how is your sense of smell? My friend has the same opinion about coffee as you (he just drinks cheap diner joe) and his sense of smell is almost nonexistent.

I, on the other hand, have a pretty good nose and I can pick out peach, raspberry, toasted nuts, caramel, marshmallow, chocolate, and blueberry notes from a variety of different coffees I’ve bought. The smell of some of these coffees is mesmerizing, like walking into a high end patisserie.

Without that smell component, the coffees taste either sour or bitter or somewhere in between.