Why does coffee taste sweeter with salt? Why does bitter coffee need salt? Is it true that lattes with salt will taste cheese?

Adding sugar and milk is a common seasoning method for coffee. But in a recent period of time, coffee circles have suddenly become popular with salt seasoning. Although this is not uncommon in the vast history of coffee, it used to be black coffee. Recently, it is not salt-flavored black coffee, but milk coffee. (don't learn to exaggerate ↓)

I believe many friends will be curious to add salt to the milk coffee, which will make the coffee salty and tasteless. How can it still be popular? Salt is a kind of seasoning, and the so-called seasoning refers to special materials that can influence the taste. Although they will have their own characteristics, such as sweet and salty sugar, very often, we do not add seasonings to give full play to their characteristics. Because the relationship between taste is mutual check and balance. So most of the time, they play an auxiliary role, just like harmony in music!

So the question is, what will be the effect of adding salt to the coffee?

What is the effect of adding salt to the coffee? As a matter of fact, there has long been sharing in Qianjie, and the reason why people added salt to their coffee earlier was mainly to dilute the bitterness! At the beginning of the 19th century, coffee prevailed in European countries. At that time, coffee was roasted deeply and of poor quality, and the extraction method was mainly cooking, so the taste can only be described as bitter, astringent and strong.

This black liquid is very difficult for most people to swallow, so people dilute the bitterness by adding a variety of seasonings. Although sugar was the best seasoning, sugar at that time was a high-priced luxury, rarely affordable for civilian consumption, so people would look for other seasonings to dilute. Salt was the best substitute at that time. The reason why coffee is bitter is mainly due to the existence of chlorogenic acid lactone and phenyllindane in its body. When we use a higher extraction rate to brew coffee, these bitter substances will be dissolved in large amounts, making the coffee bitter.

When bitter coffee enters the mouth, our taste buds release calcium ions, and then convey the message of "bitterness" to the brain, activating bitter receptors. So generally speaking, the time we feel bitterness is slightly later than the time it takes to drink imported coffee. The sodium ions in the salt activate the salt receptors in the taste and bind them, which increases our sensory perception of other flavors. Therefore, when people add a little salt to the coffee, the presence of salt increases the taste buds' perception of other flavors in the coffee, which is equivalent to magnifying other flavors and reducing the proportion of bitterness, thus achieving a balance. the coffee tastes less bitter.

To this day, most areas still have the habit of adding salt, especially in some coastal cities! Here comes the problem again: adding salt to the extracted black coffee is to reduce the bitterness, so the milk coffee is not bitter, how can you think of adding salt to it?

Why add salt to the milky coffee? Very simple, in order to add more layers to the coffee. As mentioned in the front street, the addition of salt will enhance the taste buds' perception of other flavors, so the addition of salt can magnify part of the taste of milk coffee and gain a new taste. Qianjie tried it and added 0.1g salt to the original latte (mixed with milk). Sure enough, the original sweet latte had a cheese-like salty taste under the action of salt, and the sweetness was also assisted by salty taste. it's becoming more and more obvious, very good!

If a friend wants to try, please pay attention to the salt must not be increased. When salt is added too much, it becomes too obvious because of the lack of sweetness of lactose, and then becomes the main flavor of the whole cup of coffee. Salty latte, that's a little scary!

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FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou China, selling freshly roasted beans from its own farm in Yunnan as well as dozens of carefully selected single-origin beans from around the world for both pour-over and espresso. The products deliver consistently excellent quality and great value, with shipping within 24 hours. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers, and the beans are now available online at the Tmall 。

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