Why does coffee taste sour? How to understand the acid in coffee?

When a cup of sour coffee is in front of you, can you really taste it? What do we taste? What do we feel?

It is normal that a lot of coffee Xiaobai drinks coffee only with coffee flavor. What I drink is coffee, and all I smell is coffee.

This is the "coffee flavor table" in the eyes of coffee rookies, and it is probably the most intuitive feeling.

For example, we will say that African beans will have a "bright sour taste" and "fruit sour taste". The wonderful sour taste gives people more rich connotations.

Inferior quality: humic acid, sharp acid, high acidity, smack lips, acetic acid

Quality: fruit acid, fresh acid, round acid, soft acid

High-quality coffee often contains a lot of organic acid substances, such as citrus, berries and other rich sour taste, the quality of acid is an important factor in fine coffee.

For example, the Qianjie series of coffee beans have the following acids:

Sidamo: wild ginger flower, bergamot, blackcurrant, a variety of tropical fruit acids

Flower Butterfly (Rosa content 70%): tea, honey, classic jadeite manor Geisha flavor

Sun red mark: berries, flowers, sour grapes, peaches

Begin to accept sour coffee, distinguish all kinds of acids, experience acidity

Many people don't like sour coffee and like coffee that is mellow and even has a strong taste. But if you want to be a coffee taster, the key to getting started is to recognize the acid in coffee. It must be noted that the more sour coffee is, the better. Sweet and sour substances in coffee are components of the complexity of coffee flavor. Some coffee is very acidity, very smack, in the professional cup test can only get a very low score, some coffee although sour, but sweet with sour kind of very comfortable and round acid, will get a higher score.

The acid of coffee

Raw beans contain citric acid, malic acid, quinic acid and phosphoric acid, which are related to sour taste, but these are not the sources of sour taste felt when drinking coffee. The acid caused by baking is the main source of sour taste.

As soon as raw beans are baked, chemical reactions occur in various ingredients, creating new acids. The most representative is the reaction of quinic acid after chlorogenic acid decomposition and the volatile formic acid and acetic acid reaction after oligosaccharide decomposition.

If there is no other taste in a cup of coffee except bitter or sour, then this cup of coffee is very bad. So there is an essential difference between sour and astringency. Acid is regarded as acidity when there is saliva on both sides of the middle and back of the tongue after drinking coffee, while astringency is the spicy and noisy feeling on the surface of the tongue, throat and upper jaw after drinking coffee. It's like drinking a cup of coffee with gauze strips.

Astringency is an undesirable taste in coffee. It represents a defective result from raw beans to roasting and even making. A good cup of coffee should not be bitter.

When we taste coffee, we use the technique of distinguishing taste from aroma.

"the dry aroma of this bean is inclined to the elegant, pleasant and lively sour, sweet and sour balance, which turns sour to sweet.

Blue standard rose summer coffee with sweetness is like a fruit, in the coffee beans contain fructose, sweet potatoes, similar to sucrose, brown sugar, caramel, full of taste.

"this Hui Gan is very good! First there is a bit of passion fruit sour, back sweet is also very enough, and finally the final rhyme has some nutty tonality. "

"I still like the cool taste of rose summer, which is sweeter, the taste of peaches, and the sweetness of sweet potatoes."

Just like tasting wine, in addition to the aroma, you can pay extra attention to whether the "body" or "coffee body" of coffee is full, heavy, light, light as water, or as thick as syrup. The acidity of coffee is dull, lively, or strong. Finally, you can consider the aftertaste of the coffee and the overall complexity.

Learning to taste coffee is a long process. Beginners should not be frustrated by temporary difficulties. Get in touch with coffee more, taste coffee more, and taste coffee with three steps: smell, taste and aftertaste. Slowly you will find the wonders of coffee flavor.