Why is your coffee bitter and astringent? It must have been opened in the wrong way!

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Bitterness has always been an unpleasant term in boutique coffee. Good coffee should be sweet and delicious, well-balanced, maybe sour, and make it taste good without sugar.

Just imagine, but if you expect the mellow taste of a cup of coffee to wake you up every morning, the taste of this cup of coffee is terrible. Not only is it not as mellow as expected, but it is scorched and bitter, and it is hard to swallow with sugar and milk. How terrible it would be!

Today, the editor will tell you why coffee is bitter and how to avoid drinking bitter coffee.

The main culprit of bitter coffee-roasting

When we talk about the bitterness of coffee, we often think of roasting, but in fact some bitterness has something to do with coffee and raw beans. The raw coffee bean itself is not bitter, and the bitterness of coffee is produced in the process of turning raw beans into ripe beans, that is, the roasting of coffee beans. Raw coffee beans contain a component called chlorogenic acid, which is produced by plants in response to environmental changes and is found in many plants. The bitter stool of coffee is related to chlorogenic acid.

Robusta coffee, for example, is more bitter than Arabica because it contains higher levels of chlorogenic acid and caffeine.

During baking, chlorogenic acid is decomposed into quinic acid and caffeic acid, and coffee beans will experience bitterness (from quinic acid) and astringency (from caffeic acid). At this time, if continuous baking, quinic acid into quinic acid lactone (taste bitter), caffeic acid into vinyl catechol vinyl catechol is not only bitter, but also astringent. Generally speaking, the longer and deeper the baking time, the more bitter the beans.

So, the matter is very simple, if we want non-bitter coffee, try to choose light roasted coffee beans (preferably Arabica coffee beans)! As long as the baker doesn't doze off, he usually doesn't step on the mine.

However, why is it that some beans are not bitter when others are not bitter, but only when you are at home? In fact, even if the beans are roasted shallower, there will be a process of decomposition of chlorogenic acid, so there is hardly any coffee with no bitterness at all. Did you make your coffee very bitter? That's because you opened it in the wrong way!

It takes too long to brew coffee.

Excessive brewing of coffee is the most common reason why coffee tastes bitter. Like tea, coffee powder can also be soaked in hot water to slowly soak the taste, but different levels of coffee powder suitable for brewing time is different. If the brewing time is too long, the bitter substances will easily be extracted too much, making the coffee bitter and charred, with a mouthful of wood!

How to save it? Watch the clock!

You need to know how long the brewing method you choose is suitable for brewing, and prepare a timer so that you can know when the coffee tastes best!

2. The water temperature of brewing is too high!

In order to be lazy, many people boil the water directly, or rely on a magical estimation method such as "dry for as long as it takes" to determine the temperature of the boiled water. The result is that the water temperature is often too high, resulting in excessive extraction.

How to save it? Be patient and don't be stingy!

If you insist on using the estimation method, you can make coffee in how many minutes and seconds after boiling the water, then please remember: the hotter the water = the more bitter the coffee; the cooler the water = the weaker the coffee. If you want to make coffee with the right concentration and delicious flavor, it's best not to save money on the thermometer. If you can buy a temperature-controlled kettle or hand brewer, then you can easily avoid the bitter coffee caused by the high water temperature.

3. Do not pay attention to the quality of coffee beans

No matter how much the truth of "every penny is worth a penny", there will always be people who will take chances. Not all coffee beans are of the same grade and quality. Cheap commercial coffee beans can cover up most of the defective flavor caused by low-altitude planting and industrial harvesting as long as they are roasted at high temperatures. If you can only taste bitter and charcoal in your coffee, and there is no pleasant sour or sweet taste of the fruit, it is overbaked. You'd better get rid of this kind of beans. No matter how much sugar and milk you add, you can't save the bitterness of this cup of coffee.

How to save it? Buy the beans!

Even if a bag of beans worth 100 yuan and a half pound can be brewed 15 times, the average cost of each cup of coffee is only 6 or 7 yuan (don't waste the flavor with sugar and milk for such good beans). It is much more affordable than the 20 or 30 cups of coffee in the chain coffee shop outside, and the quality is much better. If you have tasted really good coffee, you will never go back to the world of shoddy beans!

Try more coffee beans from different producing areas and different stores, and you will find that the world of coffee is not just instant and freshly ground. Coffee can be like tea, cocoa, red wine, or a cup of pleasant fruit juice!

4. It's too strong.

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Will it get bitter even if it's too strong? That's right! People's sense of taste has a certain bearing capacity, and when it exceeds the load, it will only feel bitter or miscellaneous. This kind of bitterness can melt after saliva is secreted, as long as the coffee is diluted to the right concentration, you will find that the bitterness magically disappears or is not obvious!

How to save it? Try the water!

First fix your daily ratio of powdered water, and then try to add a little more water when brewing. If you find that it tastes less bitter and tastes better, change your fixed ratio of powdered water. Gold cup extraction can be used for reference, but it is only a reference and there is no need to copy it.

5. Coffee is ground too fine

When your coffee powder is ground too fine, the more likely it is to extract too much bitterness during brewing, the same principle as high water temperature and long soaking time.

How to save it? Find the right degree of grinding!

Sometimes you can't get rid of the bitterness by grinding a little bit. Some bean grinders do not grind evenly enough, and there are too many ultra-fine powder, which can easily bring bitterness. At this time, you need to choose a moderate degree of grinding (or sift out the ultra-fine powder) according to your brewing method, so as to minimize the interference of bitterness while ensuring that the coffee flavor is flushed out.

6. The cooking utensils are too dirty!

This is the most easily overlooked and most likely to hit the board! The bean grinder should be cleaned regularly; the filter cup and container should be cleaned in time; the filter cloth and filter screen should be replaced or decontaminated regularly; the filter element of drinking water filter should be replaced regularly, and the kettle and hand kettle should be removed regularly....

How to save it? Don't be a bum!

It's cool to cook at home for a while, and it's always cool at home. If you want to use tea dirt to keep utensils like Kungfu Tea, I'm afraid you're thinking too much. The dirt of coffee will deteriorate, interfere with the normal taste of coffee, and seriously affect your health. If you want to be lazy, you can try to choose brewing methods that are easy to clean and take care of, such as hand-made coffee or smart cup of coffee.

Well, if you're really lazy and don't want to take out, why don't you try hanging-ear coffee?

The above is a summary of the reasons why some coffee is bitter. Although some people especially like the bitter taste of coffee, some people do not think that coffee is bitter or bad, but after reading the article, if you know why coffee is bitter, you can naturally compare it with yourself. control the cause and degree of bitterness.

Finally, I hope you can all drink your favorite coffee!

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