Do these friends have Italian ancestry? 
Jokes aside, you never see people putting a whole tube of concentrated tomato in their pasta, because nobody has ever trained them to do so. With coffee things are a bit different. I hope you’re making them pay more because you lose more weight.
You already understand that I do love analogies more than anything. There are food stores that sell the ugly and damaged produce, and I can tell you that ugly and damaged things, more often than not, taste better. In the coffee world, there are these “experts” that can’t stop talking about the “clean cup”, while the best scoring coffees are usually naturals. Fermented naturals, or honey, to be precise. I like my cup as dirty as it can be. I want natural coffee, or any other fruit or vegetable, flavors, not something processed and sorted in OCD style because it’s a “cleaner cup”. These things are subjective, and clients have no idea what they’re buying or drinking. Once you’ve sorted or not, the best reaction you can hope for is good or bad. It is very hard to believe that all coffee drinkers would notice a difference between 84 and 90. Let alone between 89 and 91. Unless you’re catering high-brow know-it-alls, there’s really no need to waste good coffee. Waste is a huge problem, so I really avoid creating any. To add just a little something to the mix (pun intended). I was buying speakers in a high-end audio store many years ago. I was there because they had something I wanted at a very low price. While I was there, I had a chance to hear a lot of speakers and amps. You know, those that go for 100K and beyond. And I asked the guy there who buys those things. He said that it’s usually rich guys that don’t really listen to music but just buy them for show. Like cars. Now, I have a pretty modest system, but I can vouch that a pricier one would not make any difference. Yeah, people do believe, and belief is very important here, that they have the ear to distinguish between Sonus Faber, Monitor Audio, Goldmund, just to name a few, and Fyne or Wharfedale, but the truth is much different. My friend is a Concertmaster, or first violin if you prefer, in a very decent Philharmonic orchestra, and he does not hear anything different. Once we move away from classical, I hear more than him, because I know the songs and I know what to look for, while he does not. Like I said, this is all very subjective, but this is my POV. It might seem that I’m trying to influence someone, but I’m just stating my opinion. There’s also the option to ignore it.
As I’ve said, I love fermented naturals. That being said, as all Brazilians, this one lacks in acidity, but makes up for it in sweetness. I love high acidity coffees so, while it is excellent, and I do enjoy drinking it, it is not my favorite. You know, the coffee that stuck with me for a very long time was the Juan Calani red catuai. The first time I bought it he had just 1ha of land. Now he has 20ha in just a couple of years. It’s a coffee that scores very highly, but that really depends on many factors. Some years are just better than others. As for fermentation, I don’t know what to tell you. I would have to cup the same coffee on the farm, fermented vs non fermented, and then say if the difference is really noticeable. I can tell you that I have not tried a fermented coffee that disappointed me. There was even a robusta, fermented natural, that I liked. Not as much as others, but it was very good.
the almighty scoop is undefeated…