What is the mellow thickness of coffee? How to improve in baking and cooking?

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What Is Body?

What is alcohol thickness?

You often hear coffee lovers talking about Body, which also appears in the cup test table. So what does Body mean? Body is the taste of coffee on the tip of the tongue and the thickness of alcohol mentioned in our mouths. ScottRao defines it in TheProfessional Barista's Handbook as "the weight of a drink or the fullness felt by the taste buds".

Alcohol thickness is one of the elements of taste, in addition to sticky taste with high alcohol thickness, juicy sometimes can also give high alcohol thickness (imagine drinking soup, fruit juice, good tea). Body is not some kind of iconic taste that we can taste, but a feeling, a sense of weight. Its existence affects the overall taste of a cup of coffee, because the flavor of coffee is a combination of many factors-taste, aroma, texture, and perhaps even sound and vision.

Body is one of the three major parts of coffee that coffee drinkers usually pay most attention to, along with cleanliness and some obvious flavors.

The Insoluble Science of Body

Solubility of Body

If we want to highlight the taste perception of Body, we must discuss extraction, which is also the process of extracting and dissolving compounds rich in flavor and aroma from coffee powder into water.

Substances are roughly divided into soluble and insoluble substances in the process of extraction. Soluble substances are those that can be diluted in water; insoluble substances are solid substances and oils that remain suspended in the liquid and cannot be completely dissolved in water, as well as fibers such as protein molecules and coffee. It is these substances that are not completely soluble in water, especially oils, that increase the thickness of alcohol-the feeling of Body-for this cup of coffee.

Why do some coffee have a stronger sense of Body? In fact, there are many reasons why some coffee has a higher sense of Body than others. From the initial bean seed to the later treatment, roasting treatment, and the final brewing method are all aspects that affect the thickness of coffee bean alcohol.

Green Beans With Great Body

Raw beans with high alcohol thickness

Some coffee beans are naturally endowed with higher alcohol thickness. Like Maracadura Maracaturra of Fairview Manor in Nicaragua (Malakadura: a mixture of elephant bean Maragogype and Katula Caturra, the grain size is similar to that of elephant bean, and the maximum can grow to 22 mesh) it has orange flavor, sweet almond flavor, caramel feeling, and round and full mellow thickness in the mouth.

Then there is Pacamara Pacamara of Polsa Manor in Guatemala (Pacamara is a rare and precious variety developed in El Salvador, derived from elephant beans Maragogype and Pacas Pacas). It has rich fruit aroma, the most important is the flavor of brown sugar, tropical fruit sweet and other variety of taste changes, few coffee varieties can have both bright sour but strong sweet taste, but the relatively rare yield is a rare good product.

Honey treatment and peeling the sun will have more mellow Body, generally speaking, coffee beans dried with more pectin from coffee cherries, coffee can taste more mellow Body. Black honey coffee beans are usually known for their honey syrup-like sweetness, such as Nicaraguan black honey and West Java Edini manor honey treatment.

How to Roast for Body

Bake out a mellow feeling

We can emphasize or dilute the mellow thickness of coffee by roasting raw beans, which is also based on the roaster's knowledge of coffee beans and what kind of coffee they want to roast.

First of all, let's understand that the deeper the roast, the thicker the coffee beanol is. However, the bean surface color and the overall baking development do not always match. Baking is a work that integrates a variety of complex factors, and a good baker will control the firepower throughout the baking process to get the desired flavor.

In the case of correct operation, elongation and explosion can increase the thickness of alcohol. The more carbohydrates are released during an explosion, the more they can stimulate the mellow taste of coffee.

In Modulatingthe Flavor Profile of Coffee, Rob Hoos points out that if the Maillard reaction is lengthened, more melanin-like pigments can be released, which means higher alcohol thickness can be created.

However, if the whole baking process drags on for too long, the roasted coffee beans will lose their flavor, leaving only a hollow taste.

How to Brew for Body

How to cook a mellow feeling

How much grease the cooking utensils and filter paper will eventually seep into the cup has a great impact on Body. Differences in cooking utensils can also lead to differences in Body. Some utensils help us get a high-alcohol but muddy taste, while others have a clear, clean taste but low-alcohol thickness.

For example, the main feature of the kettle is that it can produce coffee with high alcohol thickness; the alcohol thickness of the kettle is due to its metal filter. The filter paper will filter out all the grease, while the metal filter will keep the grease in the coffee. The V60 is the exact opposite of the French kettle, and its filter paper highlights the cleanliness of coffee. But if you have both filter paper and filter, you have the flexibility to choose what kind of coffee you want.

If you like Body,Espresso, which is very mellow and sticky, it is your best choice. First of all, it is because of its powder-to-water ratio, and secondly, it is extracted by pressure, which can extract more compounds than gravity alone. Stress can produce crema, and the golden brown grease layer has a strong flavor but is rich in melanin-like pigments and fibers, which give Italian concentrated alcohol thickness.

If you still prefer hand-brewed coffee, you can adjust the Body by adjusting the ratio of powder to water. But we should also be careful not to extract too little or too much.

There are also some milk coffee, the choice of milk will also have an impact on body, whole or low-fat milk, soy milk or fresh milk, choose the right milk can not only add a smooth taste, but also bring sweetness.

Body (mellow thickness): this may sound like a simple thing, but it's actually a little complicated. But this is one of the many fascinating factors of the third wave of boutique coffee, giving us the ability to understand coffee and explore how to control these variables to get a better flavor.