Well there you go Kevo. Unfortunately, there are too many people out their with self-proclaimed expert status that in reality have insufficient industry knowledge or experience. They make statements about all sorts of coffee related "rules" that end up growing legs and turning into urban myths. Sometimes, it can be just an interpretation issue. I used to see a lot of it on forums (not so much on Crema) and these days I just don't have the time or patience to debate. The facts about coffee aging are very simple. The varietal of the bean (or beans in a blend), the way in which it was roasted (method and profile) and the depth of the roast all combine together to govern the critical post-roast development and "best usage window" periods. Some coffees need 9 or more days. Some up to 14. The single biggest issue our industry suffers is the lack of control over extraction/brew. This leads to opinions about coffees, reputation of roasters and baristas, etc. and the whole thing just snow-balls into a series of premature conclusions about who (or what) is good or not. Almost always, it is a "moment of truth" when things are not aligned correctly - or a critical skill is lacking limiting the ability to re-engineer a dynamic solution that compensates for the issue. A great barista can adapt to most conditions - either by adjusting machine temperature, grind, dose and flow of the shot dynamics to improve adverse situations. Of course, you need time to do this and there are moments when you simply cannot "mess" with the settings of your kit because getting the orders done is the most critical aspect and any sort of fine adjustments will only make the situation worse. That old chessnut of coffee age is something I personally run every single day - without fail. It's one of my pet hates. Someone, somewhere is trying to do something with one of my coffees before it has properly developed. Of course, I can provide an elaborate explanation as to why.......some get it, others don't (because they close their mind, or they refuse to believe coffee can require 9 or 10 days development). In my experience, Indian coffees (excluding MM) typically have'nt needed long development periods - in fact I would class them similar to South Americans as most Plantation A's tend to have a relative medium density and the cell structure is not what I would call complex - so you should see usability improve from day 7 or 8 onwards, unless your beans are not developing correctly during roasting - splitting beans and examining under a microscope will give you more clues - as will grinding and comparing the shade of color for ground versus whole bean. You may well find with your Indians that you could have a case of under-developed roast profile (time between 1st and 2nd crack too short) or limited airflow that is affecting the bean development, or you may need to take the Indians darker (which some can handle quite well). As to VST baskets and the Strega - I'm sorry I cannot help you there as I don't have direct experience with the Strega. Although, I can suggest you might want to try Synesso baskets as an alternative simply because I find they are fractionally more forgiving than VST's. I still prefer VST's when it comes to the science of analyzing espresso coffee. My shots are all about quality evaluation rather than production of a customer's beverage order - so I can waste as much as I want or take as long as it needs to get it right.
