Starbucks colombia k cups

Mpanga: grind size 6, 5-pour V60, 1:15 (8:120), water purified by reverse osmosis, roasted 2/27, brewed 3/24.
La Garita: grind size 6, 5-pour V60, 1:16 (8:130), water purified by reverse osmosis, roasted 2/27, brewed 3/24.
I'm continuing to explore the effects of using water purified by reverse osmosis, and I'd also be curious as to the flavor of coffee made with distilled water. I normally don't make brews so small with a V60, but I do want to explore all brew methods with this water, and besides, I like the Mpanga much better as a pourover than as an immersion.
Again, these brews just heighten my conviction that the water makes more of a difference than the brew method. The Mpanga tasted mostly light, fruity, and refreshing. I'm not quite sure what sorts of fruits I'd use to describe it--apples? white grape? apple cider?--but it's all very clean and sweet, without a hint of the banana or mango flavors that I hate. There was a bit more heft than a very light cup like the Colombia Pink Bourbon, enough that I think about apple cider rather than apple juice, but it's nothing like a Kenyan.
As for the brown sugar--yes, this brew was very sweet, and I guess it did taste like brown sugar. But it was very, very smooth, so it reminded me of a brown sugar syrup, or brown sugar mixed into milk tea. I didn't taste much that reminded me of milk chocolate or malt.
And let's talk about that. Although I didn't make a V60 this small with filtered tap water, when I brewed a larger pourover before, I tasted a definite roughness around the edges. Like licking brown sugar off my fingers after packing it into the measuring cup. Like the way that the chestnut topping of a Mont Blanc is never going to be perfectly smooth. Like the way that Hershey's is rougher than Cadbury, or the way a malted chocolate shake is rougher than a plain chocolate one.
It's this roughness that I didn't taste at all. It was smooth and clear-tasting and sweet without a hint of roughness.
This is actually consistent with the other coffees which I brewed both with regular water and purified water: the purified water coffee is always very silky smooth. In the case of the Kenya, I didn't mind the roughness and depth I got with regular water--in fact, I think my regular water brings a really great molasses flavor to the last Kenyas I brewed. In the last of the Cattleya Excelso, my regular water brought a chalky roughness as well as a heightened bitterness that made the florality taste like soap or cardboard, whereas when brewed with purified water, it was silky smooth and tasted like good semisweet chocolate and violets. And with this Mpanga, with tap water, I get a malty milk-chocolate flavor which plays alongside all the fruit, whereas with purified water, the fruit dominates, with only a hint of brown sugar.
In short, with this Mpanga, I really like the flavor that I get when brewing with tap water. Even if it isn't as silky smooth, the combination of the alkalinity and the TDS bring out a quality I quite enjoy with the Mpanga. It's almost embarrassing--like going to an expensive restaurant and finding that the sauce that I particularly enjoyed came from a bottle!
I almost wonder if I shouldn't make any of my reviews public, since this here is an example of brewing with water which the roaster doesn't recommend to bring out aspects of the flavor that he doesn't like. At this point, I can't blame the coffee at all if I brew something that isn't good.
Anyway, the difference with the La Garita was even more shocking. I would not have recognized it as the same coffee at all. I struggled to find a brew method before, but here, just using a fairly random setting, I got coffee that was quite delicious: medium thick, dark like semisweet chocolate and a hint of molasses, toasted almonds, a little fruity apple brightness, even a little bit of baking spices. There wasn't any trace of the awkwardness or harshness that I normally get--perhaps a tiny bit of a smoky flavor, but overall, this was a smooth, rich, and completely pleasant cup, and I would be happy to serve this to anyone as an example of Guatemalan coffee.
Again, I'm not sure if I would describe it as having apricot and rose flavor, but I can see why someone might come up with those words: it's sweet and mellow and rich like apricots.
I guess the moral of the story here is that the kind of water you use really is just as important as the type of coffee you use. And I might just get the Mpanga again and happily brew it with tap water.

Back in 1993, when France suffered a shock loss to Bulgaria 2-3, a loss which confirmed France's shock second consecutive World Cup missout, the manager of France at the time, Gerard Houllier, who presided France with one of the best known talented group of players, comprising of Jean-Pierre Papin and Eric Cantona, realised he failed his fans. And he stepped down, a real pain he had to endure after his country conquered the 1984 European Championship and finished third in the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. France already missed the earlier 1990 FIFA World Cup.
A similar instance was repeated with Uruguay in 1997. After missing the 1994 edition due to defeats to Brazil and Bolivia, Uruguay made constant changes with the aims to revive Uruguay's status as a football hegemon - Uruguay won two World Cup in the past. Hector Nunez was put in charge of the Charruas and he did a great job as coach of Uruguay - winning the 1995 Copa America, qualifying Uruguay to the 1997. However, the 1998 World Cup qualification didn't go the Uruguayan way, as Uruguay suffered numerous shock defeats to the likes of Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador in process. These defeats were so cruel that Nunez stepped down as coach (during his late span, his assistant Juan Ahuntchain was placed in charge), following Uruguay's failure to reach France 1998.
These instances have long stood as the evidences that one talented man could not do enough. Gerard Houllier and Hector Nunez had achieved triumphs at club and senior level, but their final tasks had crashed out in the most cruel style. France and Uruguay were always filled with brilliant coaches who could change the game, but if they failed, they knew they had to quit. For so far, France and Uruguay had originally been the only two nations of failing to qualify for two consecutive World Cups... until what happened in 2022.
I take this story as one of the alarming signs to the story of Italy, the third nation to have joined France and Uruguay in this unwanted list of shame. In fact, despite Roberto Mancini's recruitment and original success of Euro 2020, the 2022 World Cup qualification was a total disaster to many Italians, who were again forced to watch TV with their national side absent for the second times in a row.
Yet for Mancini's shameful failure, the Italian officials, instead of sacking Mancini, offered him a chance until 2024, which had been made worse by one of Italy's most humiliating defeats since 2022: first-ever competitive defeat to England at home soil in Naples, something not even occurred in the past, even when Italy had some of the far weaker squads; and to make it worse, Italy lost at home in a game where England was expelled of one player. This, coupled with Italy being drawn with an energetic, determined Ukrainian side and its 2022 executioner North Macedonia (though North Macedonia has been depleted since March 2022 shock win), Italy may face a potential Euro 2024 missout, a real danger as long as Mancini continues to remain as coach due to Mancini's reckless all-out attacking tactics.
However, this is not the only problem. Italy stands different from France and Uruguay in another way of development in football. Throughout the existence of France and Uruguay national teams, French and Uruguayan football makers, in some points of their inconfidence with the national sides, had appointed foreign managers to improve their sides.

• For France, three foreign managers were appointed: England's Sid Kimpton (1934-36), Spain's Jose Arribas (1966) and Romania's Stefan Kovacs (1973-75), both proved crucial in improving France's international football connection; in fact, it was Stefan Kovacs who inspired the idea of football training schools, which France later adapted into establishing a series of Clairefontaine in late 1990s, which helped France to shine and become a football power.
• For Uruguay, during its crisis time, one of Uruguay's crucial appointment was with Daniel Passarella from neighbouring Argentina. Passarella did a quite okay job as coach of Argentina in the 1998 FIFA World Cup, even though Argentina could only reach the quarter-finals. Passarella came to Uruguay when the side was in a crisis in confidence, and while he could not stay on with the Charruas in the qualification process (sacked in early 2001), Passarella was able to identify new talents into the Uruguayan team like Sebastian Abreu and Alvaro Recoba, ultimately they would play a role in Uruguay's resurgence since 2010.

Italy, on the other hand, has never appointed a foreign manager throughout its history. If not include countries from former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, whose modern football histories are about to be established, Italy stands with Germany as the only countries in the world to still not appoint a foreign manager (Brazil, despite its successes, has appointed two foreign managers in the past).
But the lack of foreign coaches may have now become the problem for Italy. Unlike France and Uruguay, whose foreign experiments allowed them to realise the lack to fix, Italy's lack of foreign experiments have left the teams vulnerable in decisive moments. In France and Uruguay's historical records, their foreign managers have contributed greatly to the rejuvenation of both national sides as they discovered some missing elements that domestic coaches tend to fail to target out. However, Italy does not have the same quality managers the same way Germany has to identify their mistakes, a reason why Italy cannot sustain consistent World Cup appearances the same way Germany does.
Now don't take it wrong. Italy still has talented managers like Carlo Ancelotti or Domenico Tedesco (a dual German-Italian). Unfortunately, there is a growing fear that the team is in a gradual decline and that Italian coaches are now failling to address the problems. A solution offered to Italy is they must sack Roberto Mancini, who is responsible for the failure of the team, and a new, non-Italian manager, must be in charge. Someone akin to Tite in Brazil, or Jurgen Klopp, or at least visionists like Laurent Blanc and Didier Deschamps, have to be in charge of Azzurri. Mancini failed with his task as a manager and he has to go, for the better.
Italy has been able to see plenty of youth successes in recent years, with both U-20 and U-17 sides being able to qualify for youth tournaments, a result of massive improvement in Italian youth football level and a clear confidence of the country's new breed of talents in younger age level. But without a capable coach for the senior level, Italy has led itself into the position France and Uruguay failed to avoid. If Mancini still being allowed to stay as coach, further calamities will follow to the Italian side.
Italy needs not just only a total senior change, but they need a new, completely non-Italian coach, to refurbish and rebuild the team. A French coach, even a German or a Brazilian, Argentina, will be the likeliest choice to save Italy's status as a major power of the beautiful game.