Vero Beach Podcast - Meet Your Neighbors. Support Local. ™
Welcome to the Vero Beach Podcast—where we share the stories behind the businesses, makers, and dreamers shaping our community.
Each week, we’ll sit down with local business owners and community leaders to hear their journeys—the highs, the lows, and everything in between. From family-owned shops to bold startups, you’ll get to “meet your neighbors” and discover what makes Vero Beach such a vibrant place to live, work, and visit.
Because when we know the stories, it changes how we shop, connect and care for our community,
Meet Your Neighbors. Support Local. ™
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Vero Beach Podcast - Meet Your Neighbors. Support Local. ™
Tribe Coffee - BONUS EP: Why Your Coffee Tastes Burnt & How To Fix It
Ever wonder why your coffee swings from watery to bitter when you swear you followed the same steps? Join us as Sean, from Tribe Coffee, breaks down the science that separates a forgettable cup from a balanced, sweet, and aromatic brew—no jargon storms, just clear rules you can use today.
We start with roast profiles and what they really mean for taste. Light roasts are fibrous and lively, built for longer contact to unlock delicate sugars and acids; dark roasts are carbon-heavy and need quicker extractions to avoid ash and smoke. Freshness is non-negotiable: once a roast creeps past the twelve-week window, oxidation steals the aroma and turns nuance into paper. That history explains why many palates grew up loving “bold” coffees—dark profiles often masked staleness in long supply chains—but specialty coffee is changing that by highlighting origin flavors, from Brazil’s chocolate and nuts to African fruit and florals.
Then we get practical with the core framework: dose, contact, and yield. For espresso, think 18 grams in, 36 grams out, in about 27 seconds. For drip, watch the grind: too fine and water pools, scorching grounds and extracting bitterness; too coarse and it rushes through, leaving a flat, weak cup. We share how to choose grind size by method—French press, drip, moka pot, and cold brew—and why light and medium roasts shine in long steeps, while dark roasts need shorter contact. You’ll also hear how modifiers and sugar shape expectations, and how to slowly dial them back so the coffee’s natural sweetness and texture take the stage.
Finally, we offer a simple French press routine you can repeat tomorrow: medium grind, thorough saturation, five to seven minutes of patience, then a slow plunge. Want more body? Steep longer. Brewing a lighter coffee? Let it cool slightly before plunging to reveal layered sweetness. Whether you love chocolate-heavy Brazilian lots or fruit-forward African coffees, small, precise tweaks open a bigger world in your cup.
If this helped you brew better, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves coffee, and leave a quick review telling us your favorite roast and method.
Presented by Killer Bee Marketing
Helping local businesses in Vero Beach connect with their neighbors.
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This is Ashton and welcome to the Tribe Coffee Bonus episode. We highly recommend listening to episode one and two before this episode. Enjoy some more science behind the brew.
SPEAKER_01:Again, I I didn't make it a share. I think I didn't get a share what I was drinking. I had an Americano and absolutely loved it. And I got in a medium cup. You said you get in a smaller cup, it's a boulder.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's more it's more concentrated because what happens coffee is a science. So what happens is from the roast, the select beans roasted to a certain profile, light, medium, medium, dark, or dark, all right? Those different roast profiles create different um methods for extraction. But what we do, because I was explaining to you that the darker a bean is roasted, the less contact time you want to have with the bean in the solvent. The solvent is water. So when you're extracting coffee from whichever bean that you have, if you have a light bean, a light bean is very fibrous. So that means that you can spend more time in the solvent extracting the flavors. And because light beans are not heavily carbonized, a dark bean is like a blump of charcoal. People from northern latitudes love bold, intense coffees, okay, that are dark roasted for a lot of interesting reasons. What happens with it is that coffee was never roasted in the in the States. Coffee used to be roasted in Italy, it still is. There's not a single coffee tree in Italy, but that's where a lot of roasting took place. Now, coffee has a shelf life. We don't after 12 weeks, if you're drinking coffee that's older than 12 weeks, it's a sorry story. If you look on a bag of coffee and you see a roast date, and that roast date is longer than is further away than 12 weeks, know that what you're drinking is no longer coffee because it's it's oxidized. Coffee that has been uh it stales, it rusts. When it's exposed to air, it's just like anything. It oxidized like a loaf of bread. It it it it you know, it's like a piece of metal. If you leave it out, it will rust. And the same thing happens with coffee, it stales. So when you're drinking coffee which is freshly roasted, you're drinking at optimum flavor profile. Now, what happens with it is if you're drinking very dark coffee, very dark coffee has been so nuked that if you love bold, intense, smoky, deep roast flavors because you're from a northern latitude, it's because the coffee that has been sailed into your city that you've been accustomed to and your palate has been taken to was stale. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:It makes perfect sense.
SPEAKER_00:If you're drinking a light, a medium roast coffee that's full of flavor that hasn't been nuked out of it, that's fresh, and has been extracted in like a French press, whatever, you're gonna get a full-bodied flavor experience of what that coffee is all about. You know, there's so many amazing flavors in coffee, especially light and medium roasted coffees. That's what we use for making cold brew. You soak it for 24 hours. You can't soak a dark coffee for a long period of time because it takes all the carbon uh flavors into it. I mean, you know, some people they like that. They like a bold, intense, deep roasted, smoky-flavored um cold brew because that's what their palate is used to. When you're at that, you can't bring somebody back. What we do at Tribe is we bring people back. Bring you back from the dark and by dark.
SPEAKER_02:Bring you into the light. By dark you mean Starbucks.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you've got to understand that the with the how Starbucks got so successful is not necessarily through coffee. They've got successful through modifiers. I mean, how many people go into Starbucks and order an espresso?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's so true.
SPEAKER_00:Does anyone go to Starbucks and order an espresso?
SPEAKER_02:No, I haven't met any.
SPEAKER_00:I don't wouldn't go to Starbucks and order espresso, but the the reason you the only reason you know what you're drinking, and I'm not going to knock Starbucks, they're a very, very successful company, yeah, but they're very successful because of the modifiers, not because of the coffee.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's good.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, honestly, is is it's a great when you when you're when you scale your business to how big uh Starbucks is, you you when you're scaling like that, you're dealing for a range of pallets. You're dealing with uh youngsters who are who whose palates are not mature and who are instantly hooked on acidic sugar sweetness. Yeah. And when you're when you you nothing can compete with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's so true.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it is, and and what happens with it is when there's money lying on the pavement, you pick it up. And incredibly, you know, you Starbucks fills that gap. And they do a good job of it. And and I say that what I mean is is that with what they produce, when you look at their menu, there are 30 or 40 drinks that you can design yourself on there that are delicious, and they really, really are, you know, uh they they have got it down to an art. They their research, they their science, the sensory science research is remarkable. Um it, you know, it's just a remarkable business, global.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Now, what happens with that really is the greatest growing sector, coffee sector in the United States at the moment is specialty coffee. And they're not necessarily pursuing a 20-ounce Dunkin Donuts, deep roast, burnt bitter flavored drink. All right, that the only way that you know there's coffee in it is by putting in a really bold, intense, smoky, deep roasted coffee into that. Otherwise, you wouldn't know there's coffee in it. You wouldn't even taste it. Yeah, exactly. Because honestly, you look at some of these drinks, they have 17 teaspoons of sugar in them. Oh my goodness. So the what happens with that is within coffee, specialty coffee, there are natural sugars, chlorogenic acid, quinic acid, antioxidants. There are amazing the you know uh uh um qualities to specialty coffee. If you get the roast correct, what I'm saying is that you know, you you you you either going light, medium, medium dark, which is what our espresso roast is, or dark, but you're extracting to those roast profiles. So if you have a dark coffee, your solvent exposure needs to be short, otherwise you start pulling in all the carbon and it's like a little lump of charcoal. Whereas if you've got a medium dark coffee, you've got that little bit of the smoky, deep roast um uh uh notes in there, but you also preserve some of the flavors, which are the chocolate and the nuts. We do with with with the Brazilian coffee that we do, or you can do any of the African coffees which are very fruity, so and and some of them fermented, you know, depending on where they've been uh been processed. Or if you go medium and lighter coffees, it's more people would call them and look at them more like teas. It's more like a tea. But the thing with it obviously is that you, you know, if you steep them long enough, if you leave a medium coffee in a French press long enough, you know, four minutes, five minutes in a in a double walled so that stays hot, yeah, you'll get incredibly uh um incredible range of of flavors out of these coffees that are not nuked. And so what we do, uh what our task here is to bring people out of the dark and into the light.
SPEAKER_02:I like it.
SPEAKER_00:No, object. This is good. No, everybody has their own, you know, but palettes are so subjective. And we it's the same thing as here, you come and get a cup of coffee here. Is like I always say to somebody, you don't walk out that door until you get what you want. If somebody wants it, comes in here and says, I want a cappuccino, they get a cappuccino, and it's like it's not what they like, it's either too bitter, like for their palate, sweeten it. If we we we extract to perfection here, we know that this is a top quality machine. This is the the the the this machinery is really you can get super scientific with it. And and extraction of coffee is a science, it's about dose, contact, and yield. The porter filters are full to a certain dose, uh governed by the grind, a very coarse grind, you know it the water will just flow through it. If the grind is too fine, the water gets blocked and you won't yield. The yield is twice the mass of the dose. And the contact time, the hot water on espresso is 27 seconds. Every time a coconut, we have timers on these. You have 27 seconds of contact, you get 36 fluid grams of espresso from 18 grams of coffee in the porta filter. And any barista in in here, nobody works behind this until they learn that dose contact yield. If you don't know that science, you're not allowed behind here. So that is a that is that's the thing about coffee. Coffee is a science. And when you work by the science, there's obviously craft involved. You'll see the girls when they do the latte art and they microfilm the milk. There's craft in there as well. It's a skill to be a barista. Yeah, okay. So we train them up here and and and but the thing with it really is um is specialty coffee is the group the largest growing sector in the coffee market in the United States. Is that people enjoy good coffee, good, well roasted and extracted coffee, and that's why we're here.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna ask you before we wrap up this episode, like when it comes to like when you buy beans from here, when we grind our own coffee, like what are some key points that we should consider? Like you're talking about coarse or fine, and what's the difference in that?
SPEAKER_00:So the variables on it are governed by what roast profile you have, first of all. And then secondly, is how are you extracting? Do you have a mocker pot? Do you have French press? Do you have drip, or do you have an espresso machine? Ah, okay. So we have a drip. You have drip. Very good. So what you what you with with with a drip, whatever. So let's say, for example, you buy our Brazil medium dark coffee. Now, what happens with that is if you overgrind and you and you end up with a very fine grind, so you set your grind so it's very fine, you'll notice in the in the uh in in basically in the in the filter, on the the drip filter, that you get a buildup of water. All right. Now, what happens with that buildup of water is that that water going in there is hot. Now, when it sits inside there, if it's hot and it sits there and it doesn't leach through, percolate through the grinds, it actually burns the coffee. So what happens with that? You see, it'll drip, it'll drip gradually, but the hot water is sitting over the grinds. And what it's doing literally as the solvent is it's burning. Um and and what you'll find then is it you know you're not getting any extract. It's not passing over the grinds, it's not taking the oils out, the compounds, the flavonoids, all the benefits of the coffee. It's not drawing them off the off the grinds, the literal grinds. If your coffee is ground too coarse, the water runs through the grinds and into the receptacle, and you get a big volume of really weak coffee. And what happens is you end up with a filter that's full of coffee that hasn't been properly extracted. So, yeah, and what you end up with is a yield of low concentrate coffee, a big volume, right? That you know is flavorless. So the the the the concept of the concept of of of uh of of of extraction is a journey, it's a discovery. You and it doesn't take much with a certain rose profile. Say, for example, you did exactly that same grind, but with a lighter coffee, the water sat over a lighter coffee that was finely ground and dripped slowly, it wouldn't be so bad because the the the coffee is more fibrous, it's lighter ground, it takes more to extract the the oils and the compounds, and it will grab it will it will drip into the receptacle fairly quickly, I mean fairly slowly, but what'll happen with it is that you'll end up with a with a with a yield which doesn't taste burnt or bitter. So depending on what the rose profile is of the coffee, if it's light, you can extract for longer. Okay. If it's dark, you want to extract for a shorter time, your contact must be quicker. So you don't end up with all the carbon in the in and the deeper, and unless that's what you want, because everybody's palate's different. And if you come from Massachusetts or Cincinnati, I'll bet you I they'll people from New York, they like bold, intense, dark coffees. Yeah, it's cold, you want to taste that coffee, you know, you want that spoon to stand up in there. Yeah, it's like you know, so so the thing with it is the the it's about that journey of of discovering how you like your coffee if you're making it at home. Is you know, it's it's about learning learning the science of it. You know, we can we we have commercial grinders here, proper commercial grinders that can grind to any grind. If you know what coarse, we use very coarse grind for cold brew, and we use very fine um uh um uh for Turkish coffee or maca pots. You know the maca pot. Yes, that's also it makes a you get a really, really deep extraction from a cop from a maca pot.
SPEAKER_02:We had Turkish coffee at the um oh yeah, that the Lebanese restaurant.
SPEAKER_00:So good. It was so good. Yeah, that's so good. Now, what happens is you see with all these places is that doing it day in, day out. And so you you know, you the the concept of extraction is one is a journey. You know, you can go to an in an airport in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, all right? The lady sits there with green beans, she fries them in a pan, all right, she roasts the beans in a in a pan, crushes them and grinds them right there, puts them into a tall uh pour over uh sits the beans, and you can sit and have a cup, a beautiful cup of black coffee in the airport that's roasted, brown, brewed right there in front of you. And they've got it down to an art. You know, if you were to if any of us were to do that, it would take you a bag of coffee or two or three bags of coffee to learn to do that.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:So it's just it's it's the journey of of discovering what works for you and what you like in your palate. You know, people's habits are hard to change. Sure. And we say to people, listen, come in here, you don't walk out of here without getting the coffee you want. Because if you want a bold coffee that's intense and bitter, we can make it for you. Every don't just get given what somebody says to you, look, this is the menu item, we don't make it any different. We don't accept that because everybody's palate's different. Yeah. Some have got bold palates, some have got sensitive palettes, mature palettes, some like sweet, some like sour. Tastes sourness on the front of your tongue, bitterness and burntness on the back of your tongue. So it's, you know, it coffee is a wonderful thing for that. They're beautiful natural sugars um in coffee. What coffee do you like? Do you like dark coffee or do you like lighter coffees?
SPEAKER_01:I like lighter coffees. I would I would say I probably like darker, but I think that the darker, like if like uh what was it from here? We got the Brazilian, right? Yes, I like that. Right. Uh but I don't think I've tried the light from here. So I think you have to I'm gonna try to come over to the light side. We'll we'll see what happens. Yeah, you need a fringe press. Okay, yes, we have a fringe.
SPEAKER_00:If you get a fringe press, you get it, get a uh um the medium Honduras uh um or any of the medium roast coffees, ground that drown the dip, put that into your French press, put your solvent, your hot water over it, leave it for five minutes or seven minutes patiently, don't touch it. Just you stir it stir it before, put your your your uh plunger on it, leave it for five or seven minutes. If it's a lighter coffee, leave it for a long time. Let it even cool. Then do a slow plunge and you see what that coffee does. Full body flavour. We'll try and really really love that.
SPEAKER_01:My son's gonna love that. He's a big coffee person, he loves making coffee too. And he loves French fresh stuff, so he's gonna enjoy these episodes for sure.
SPEAKER_02:He will, he's gonna love it.
