You're not imagining it—your French press tastes worse in a hotel room or Airbnb. Travel setups lose control. Kettles boil and shut off; there's no thermometer. Your hand grinder might be a budget model that produces a cloud of fine dust alongside the coarse chunks. Water chemistry changes by city. And you're probably rushing, so the steep runs long.

Over-extraction means you've pulled too many bitter compounds out of the beans. The coffee tastes dry, sharp, and hollow—not strong, just harsh. The fix isn't to use less coffee. It's to control the extraction window.