Colombian coffee beans are sour? Why is the coffee sour? how to deal with the acid in the coffee beans?

Do you know? 2000-8000 taste buds? These small sensory cells are responsible for taste perception. Generally speaking, taste belongs to one of the five flavors:

Sweet

salty

Sour

Bitter

Fresh taste

Sour taste and flavor usually come from the back edge of our tongue. But it is worth paying attention not to confuse acidity with sour taste

Now, it is important to note that coffee naturally contains acidity. Also, the acidity in coffee is a good thing! But it is often confused with sour taste.

Pleasant acidity is the difference between dull, soft coffee and bright, refreshing, vibrant coffee.

In fact, sour taste is a typical flavor feature of Colombian coffee:

Colombian coffee stands out because they have a large number of varieties from different growing areas. This variety produces a wide range of flavors, and it is difficult to remember a set of Colombian flavors. Colombia is also one of the few countries that grow only Arabica coffee beans. That's why their coffee is usually sweeter, more sour and of higher quality than robusta coffee. Some coffees have a stronger chocolate flavor, while others are bright and sweet and fruity. Coffee is smooth and medium-bodied, and its mild flavor makes it an excellent choice for espresso.

Coffee beans produce a lively fermented flavor with medium to high acidity, usually with fruity, citrus, and sometimes spicy aromas. Colombian beans are unique in that they do not become too bitter when they are deep-roasted. So you can see that there are a large number of cafes that choose to use Colombian coffee beans.

On the front street is a coffee bean from Montblanc Manor, Columbia, which is anaerobically washed by Zicadura passion fruit yeast. The flavor of this coffee bean is the division and tonality of tropical fruits such as passion fruit grapes.

Think of acidity as the carbonation of soda. Without the rich taste of carbonation, the soda tastes dull. Without acidity, your coffee won't be as exciting as it should be!

There are four main acids in coffee:

Citric acid-lemon, lime, orange, citrus flavor

Malic acid-green apple flavor

Phosphoric acid-sweet, rich taste

Acetic acid-similar to the taste of sour beer or vinegar.

Coffee from all over the world contains varying degrees of acid, which helps to form the overall flavor of the cup. For example, beans from Brazil usually contain less acidity, resulting in smooth, nutty and sweet coffee. Coffee beans from East African countries such as Zambia or Ethiopia contain higher levels of acid and can be used to make fruity or "spicy" coffee.

Like everything in life, too many good things can be bad things. The sour coffee tastes sour and astringent. This happens when coffee is overroasted or incorrectly brewed. This is why the goal of professional coffee professionals is to bake and brew sour coffee, highlighting and praising the natural flavor of coffee beans.

Three reasons why coffee turns sour

1. Extracting

When you make coffee, the acid, sugar, oil and other flavor substances in the coffee beans dissolve and mix with water to make your final brewing drink.

This process is called "extraction". Also known as coffee brewing.

The first thing to extract is acid. So when you start brewing, your coffee is very sour. If all these natural acids are not offset by sugar, oil and other flavors, they will be very strong (too bright and sour).

We call it "insufficient extraction" because the coffee is not brewed enough to produce and dissolve all the delicious flavors in the beans to create a balanced cup of coffee.

Insufficient extraction is a very common problem, but it is not complicated to solve it. We'll show you how in a minute.

two。 Under the baked beans

Coffee roasting begins with raw coffee beans. Through the perfect balance of heat, air, rotation and other factors, the baker converts the raw beans into coffee that we are familiar with and love.

During the baking process, Maillard reaction occurs. Maillard reaction is responsible for the browning of food. When you:

Turn bread into toast

Deep-fry the soft bacon into a crispy delicacy

Roasted coffee beans

In coffee, Maillard reaction converts the original organic compounds in raw coffee into delicacy and caramelizes sugars. Without Maillard reaction, the coffee tastes sour and earthy.

This means that if your coffee beans are lightly roasted and do not experience Maillard reaction, they will have a noticeable sour taste and almost hay-like taste. It's gonna be really bad.

If your coffee tastes sour, it may be because the beans are not fully roasted (also known as immature).

Fortunately, this is mainly a challenge to the new coffee roaster, but it is becoming less and less challenging.

3. Old coffee beans

With the passage of time, your coffee beans will slowly decompose. The aromatic oil evaporates. The sugar will break down. A delicious natural acid begins to sour and taste.

Within 3-4 weeks after baking, the taste of your coffee beans will begin to become less balanced. After a few weeks, they start to get very sour. If you taste the pungent taste of lemon and citrus, they are completely out of date. Scoundrel!

Fortunately, it's easy to repair sour coffee at home.

Three simple ways to solve sour coffee

One of the best parts of making coffee at home is the ability to experiment. If you find coffee sour, try one of the following three solutions.

1. Grind more finely

Remember how sour coffee is when it is not extracted? If the particle size of your coffee is too large, there may be insufficient extraction.

Because of their size, it takes longer for the water to fully saturate the larger coffee particles, which means that most flavors are not extracted from coffee beans. On the other hand, fine grinding can extract flavor compounds more quickly than rough grinding.

If you find that your coffee tastes a little sour, please grind finer coffee particles.

two。 Increase the brewing time

If you buy ground coffee instead of whole beans, grinding finer is not an option. Since rough coffee needs more brewing time to extract flavor correctly, the simplest solution is to increase the brewing time.

Sour coffee is usually the result of a short brewing time and does not fully extract sweetness from coffee beans. Increasing the brewing time will enable all delicious flavor compounds to be extracted into your drink.

If you are brewing French media or Philharmonic pressure, this means waiting for a while before you slowly drop to the ground (it may be the easiest way to deal with the sour taste of coffee). Or, if you like to pour water, pour water a little more slowly to increase the total time for coffee grounds to interact with water.

3. Increase the proportion of coffee: water

All coffee formulations are changes in the ratio of coffee to water, such as the traditional 2 tablespoons coffee powder and 8 ounces of water.

Unfortunately, this ancient recipe doesn't work for all coffee-even if it's the right way to extract it. Some mixed coffee or single-source coffee tastes too sour, even with commonly used recipes.

That's why eventually you have to trust your taste buds.

Use coffee with too little water: the proportion of water will lead to thicker brewing. Naturally, this stronger cup of coffee will lead to a stronger sour taste.

Now, think back to our quick course on coffee acidity. The acidity highlights the pleasant taste and sweetness of the coffee.

When your brewing formula causes the coffee to turn sour, please use more water. Adding more water directly increases the brewing time, making the extraction more uniform and producing coffee with softer acidity and sweeter taste.