Did you ever have Covid? A lot of people lost a certain percentage of their taste and smell and some of that never came back. I had covid 4 times due to being around school kids, and my smell and taste never went away, but I did get long term covid the last bout and that damn thing messed with my blood pressure, so now it runs a tad higher than it did before. I had a complete heart and lung workup done and they told me I the heart of a 35 year old...except I'm 73. So it all came back excellent, but now I have to take blood pressure meds.
Also as you age you naturally loose some smell and taste, it's why a lot of old people in their 80s and beyond get bored with food because they can't smell it or taste it, and they slack off on eating which isn't good.
However, after some research, it's not entirely due to aging, here's what I found, in the 1950s:
Coffee beans were typically roasted longer and at higher temperatures, which intensified the flavor and aroma.
Many households used percolators to brew coffee, which can over-extract the beans, leading to a stronger, sometimes bitter taste.
Coffee was often ground fresh at home or in local stores, preserving more of its natural oils and flavors.
The beans themselves were often of higher quality, with more robust flavor profiles.
So those 4 things did indeed contribute to the more intense smell and taste we got back then, but as with all things modern money is king, so they do things cheaper now to make more money and as a result we get more and more crap.
Percolators are tricky to use, I never used one, but my mom did, and she would watch it like a hawk, whereas other parents I knew the mom would just walk away doing other things. Having tasted the coffee made that way, the moms that walked away had bitter coffee, but for some reason they didn't care, they drank it like that day in and day out! My mom's coffee was not bitter, so guess which one I preferred? I can't recall how she used the percolator so I doubt I could make good coffee with it, at least not without a great deal of practice.
Moka Pot does come the closest to a percolator, but the moka pot makes the coffee better. I've had percolator coffee at my church, I don't care for it, but again not sure if the person making it is watching it well enough. But I love Moka pot coffee...as long as it comes out of my Bialetti Brikka, the regular Express moka pot I use to have I got inconsistent coffee, the Brikka is very consistent.
Most Percolators are large for making coffee for a lot of people, but if all you need is to make 1 to 3 cups, don't use a large one and think reducing the water will work, no it doesn't, buy a perc for the number of cups you will be making. The smaller 1 to 3 cup size percs are only made by GSI Outdoors called the Glacier, it's made of stainless steel, the smallest one on Amazon was 4 to 6 cups, but GSI also makes a 6 cup.
One of the comments here mentioned that back in the 50s they used Robusta beans, not sure where he heard that but my sources said it's not true. Even going back further into the 1800s coffee made in America was primarily Arabica beans, Robusta beans were not widely cultivated or used for coffee production at that time. Arabica beans were favored for their smoother, more balanced flavor compared to the stronger, more bitter taste of Robusta beans.
Today in the our wonderful modern world of schit, we will never get that experience back that we had in the 50s, if any thing as time goes by even more it will get worse. Even Starbucks coffee is a lot weaker than it was just 15 years ago.
