Why does coffee taste sour? Why does the coffee taste sour?

Went into a coffee shop, ordered a cup of coffee, so far feel OK, but a drink, found, huh? There seemed to be something wrong, but he couldn't tell…Take another sip. This isn't coffee! Sour, not bitter or fragrant at all, asked the barista, the barista smiled and said, this cup of coffee has citrus, passion fruit and so on. He looked confused. He really wanted to ask the barista what acid he was talking about!

In fact, what we usually call acid is not like eating a lemon, but a fruit-like sour fragrance, or a soft and round sour feeling; while the acid that customers think is mostly irritating and unpleasant sour feeling, or the green acid of immature fruit.

Coffee beans are actually the fruits of the coffee tree, each fruit with natural fruit acid characteristics. Coffee "acid" is also affected by roasting and extraction, how roasters roast, how baristas brew, these will affect the flavor of a cup of coffee.

But the acid in a cup of coffee is also good and bad. For example:

Good sour flavor can bring more rich connotation to sour taste. The aroma is clearly refreshing, fruity, or soft, rounded acidity, which means that this cup is "good sour" coffee. For example, citrus acid in rose summer, citric acid fragrance in washed yejia, etc.

Poor quality coffee acid, on the other hand, is caused by improper roasting and brewing of planting treatment, which brings about an unpleasant sour feeling, usually accompanied by a nasal flush, resulting in a feeling such as "sharp", which is generally called acid.

Whether coffee is sour,"good" or "bad," depends on the type of coffee bean, the degree of roasting, and the parameters of brewing.

How to avoid bad caffeine?

| defective bean

Among the defective beans is something called Full Sour.Partial Sour. Beans that are yellow-brown or reddish-brown in color are considered sour beans, which are contaminated with bacteria during harvesting and handling.

That's why we pick beans when we brew! Pick beans! Pick beans! After all, a defective bean can ruin a cup of coffee!

| baking

Coffee beans contain acidic organic compounds that can be synthesized by plants themselves and contain weak acid aromas of carbon molecules. Organic acids include chlorogenic acid, quinic acid, acetic acid, citric acid, malic acid, lactic acid, etc., and these organic acids have an increasing or decreasing effect before and after baking.

If it's not developed enough or dehydrated enough during baking, it's acidic.

Of course, it also depends on the degree of baking. The lighter the roast, the lower the degree of caramelization, when the beans still retain organic acids, so it is easy to produce sour, conversely, the deeper the roast, the less likely to have sour, because the extension of the roasting time will easily wear off the coffee beans in the floral aroma.

| brewing

If the water temperature is too low or the powder is too coarse when brewing, etc., which leads to insufficient extraction, there will also be sharp acid. So to avoid this situation, we need to adjust the brewing parameters repeatedly to find the right brewing parameters.

Coffee world rich and colorful taste, from a cup of coffee inside to taste a variety of different flavors is not exactly where the fun lies ~ and fruit acid is one of these essential members, because it is these sour, so that the coffee flavor level becomes full up, creating each bean has its own personality.