Having trouble with a blend

One of the weird things with coffee is that you can get a pound of coffee and not really have any luck brewing it. I am not so sure if this is because you get a bum batch of coffee that was maybe taken out of the roaster a minute or two late/early or if it's the air, but this is my current problem. I have been brewing Velton's Bonsai blend the past few days and cannot seem to hit that sweet spot.

Just to review I have made two pots of coffee that have turned out decent, but nothing great. The taste profile that I got from drip was like a muted bright coffee, I could taste the Ethiopian in background. However, there was not a chocolate taste or even really a sweet taste that balances the flavor nor was there anything really dominating by the taste. It just wasn't to my liking.

However, with that being said there have been espresso blends in the past that I have really loved as an espresso, but as brewed coffee have had middling results with. So now that I have hit day four and five of the coffee I have been pulling a few shots with it, 6 to be exact. The first shot doesn't really count since it was too fast, but after that I have got them in the ballpark of brew time, but nothing really great.

I have played around with a bit ranging from 15 to 17 grams and adjusting grinds accordingly and nothing really that I love about it. The taste that I get from these shots is a lot like the above brewed and when I up the dose and grind larger I am getting a very flat shot. I am thinking of actually lowering the dose to a 14 and grinding super fine to try and get as much flavor as possible from the beans.

As far as the temp, been keeping it at the medium side of temp surfing tech, letting the Gaggia heat up 5 long seconds on the steam before pulling the shot.

Anyway if anyone could give me a tip about the blend I would be in your debt because I have heard a lot about this coffee and it has all been good.

This to me is one of the fun things about coffee that you can get something and you have to toy around with it so much to get good results out of it. Normally it just happens to be something that is so easy once you figure it out, but each coffee is unique and maybe a day of rest more will do it good. Anyway, please do not let this post disuade anyone from getting this coffee because I cannot imagine everyone else being wrong out there.