Sour coffee frequently means the grind is too coarse for the bean or the coffee is not brewed long enough. Both of those are more common problems when working with lighter roasts.

You might experiment with the same bean and different grind settings to see if that helps with the taste you don’t like. Though age of the beans messes with this too which is maddening. Generally speaking though lighter roasts are more fiddly to brew so get messed up more frequently.

This doesn’t ring true to me. My understanding (and experience) is that coffee beans have abundant flavor components which get burnt away by the roasting process. Brewing issues like grind and proportion of beans/water are a separate class of problems. Is it not possible in your mind that someone just doesn’t like the sharp flavors which are left uncharred in light roasts?

It’s certainly possible people just don’t like light roasts, but _sour_ is a specific flavor profile which frequently has a specific cause, and that cause is more likely with lighter roasts. Which is why I mentioned it.

It’s more simple than that. Acids are sour. Coffee has acids that are transformed by the roasting process. Light roasts do this less. Some people like that taste and others don’t. Those that do like it often act superior and treat the other group as uncultured.

What you say is true, but it is also possible that someone describing the flavor as "sour" isn't experienced enough to have built up the official vocabulary. You see this a lot in tasting cultures of various products, what one person means by X isn't necessarily the same as another person.

> someone just doesn’t like the sharp flavors which are left uncharred in light roasts?

that is always a possibility.

It why you want to have a pro brew up the best cup that is possible from those light roast beans, and test out the flavour.

If you're a self taught brewer, you might find that you've made mistakes, and also mistakenly took those mistakes as the flavour of the bean, thus incorrectly dislike it.

Strong disagree. All light roast coffees are excessively sour to me regardless of how they are brewed.

Ask for medium roast, not light. You might like dark roasts, especially if you drink with milk or fakemilk.

There are two kind of "sourness" in coffee, one is of acidity, which is a (for some highly desirable) feature of the beans, which can be toned down with darker roasting levels. The other is astringency (tea-like) which is a sign of extraction defect and generally not liked by all. This can be controlled with grind settings.

This! Whenever I mention that to me fancy light roasts taste sour, the response is almost always puzzlement, even from those who prefer dark roasts. Nice to know it's not just me.

I don’t know how may of us there are but yes, you’re not alone.

Your IPA analogy is apt. (I love IPAs!)

As an experiment, try Starbucks Kenya. It’s one of the most aggressively citrus-y among the coffees they serve — that sharp flavor even survives the darkish Starbucks “medium” roast.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Starbucks and Peet’s and Red Bay and Equator are all good for me. When I was in Europe I didn’t have a single bad espresso. Here I dislike many of them and stick to espressos from classic roast establishments. I wish it was easier to feed my occasional espresso kick.

Just to be clear, my recommendation is more to confirm what it is that you don't like. :) Kenya might be the most IPA-ish thing Starbucks sells.

it's the terroir, I love light roasts but can't stand sour, stone-fruity coffees, try island coffees or south american (specifically colombian) for nutty, earthy, chocolatey flavours.

Thanks!

Does it taste at all like skunked beer?