What is the effect of adding salt to coffee? What is the effect of adding salt to hand-brewed coffee? Why can adding salt to coffee suppress bitterness?

Whether before or now, people will always add various condiments to coffee. The purpose is not only to balance the bitterness of coffee, but also to obtain a more unique drinking experience. Therefore, materials such as sugar, dairy products, or other various materials have become ordinary coffee "companions". Among the materials added to coffee, there is one material that many people cannot understand because its own characteristics do not seem to be able to "live harmoniously" with coffee. But in fact, its role will actually be much more than everyone thinks. And it is "salt".

That's right, the dirty operation mentioned in the front street title that can "improve the quality and flavor" of coffee is: add salt to the coffee! Salt is a very common condiment in daily life. As the top of all flavors, it can not only give food salty taste, but also enhance the intensity of other flavors and suppress the appearance of odors. Even because of its own unique chemical properties, it has many other effects, so it has become an indispensable and important consumable in daily life. The "effect" of salt in daily life can also be exerted on coffee, so far, Qianjie has shared a lot about the use of salt in coffee. So today, Qianjie will come to integrate and see what effect can be achieved by adding salt to coffee!

1. Suppression of bitterness was the first purpose of people adding salt to coffee. In food science, there is an effect called taste interaction. What it means is that when two same or different taste-giving substances enter the mouth, the two will influence each other, and then change the taste we feel. This effect occurs when we add salt to coffee! The presence of salt brings salty taste, which can well balance the bitterness of coffee.

There is a certain delay when we perceive bitter taste. When the bitter substance enters the mouth, the taste buds will release calcium ions to transmit the message of "bitter" to the brain, and then activate the taste receptor of bitter taste. Only then can we feel bitter. The bitter taste receptor is more sensitive to sodium ions in salt because the feeling of salty taste is relatively direct. Therefore, the addition of salt will effectively suppress the tongue's perception of bitterness, thereby reducing the bitterness in coffee.

2. Improve quality and enhance flavor, improve quality and enhance flavor, which is understood in terms of: improve texture and increase flavor. Qian Jie mentioned earlier that due to the interaction of taste, the addition of salt will reduce the bitterness we feel from coffee. When our perception of bitterness is weakened, the sweetness in coffee will become more prominent. At the same time, sodium ions can change the activity of sweet receptors and amplify sweet signals to be perceived by us. Therefore, when salt is added to coffee, we can better feel the sweetness hidden in the coffee.

In addition, the flavors previously concealed by suffering will also have better expression due to the reduced perception of bitterness, and we can more easily capture the positive flavor in coffee. So it is not difficult to understand why salt is nicknamed "flavor enhancer." Let's talk about texture! Many times when we swallow coffee, we will feel a rough wrinkle feeling, which is a convergence feeling like being "grabbed" in our mouth and tongue. We usually call this feeling astringency. The reason why coffee has astringent feeling is that there are too many tannins or other substances in the coffee, which may be caused by extraction or the coffee itself. Then substances such as tannic acid will combine with saliva proteins, giving us a "slippery" and rough feeling when swallowing coffee.

The addition of salt can reduce this situation and reduce the astringent feeling caused by coffee; at the same time, after salt dissolves, the surface tension of the coffee will slightly change. Combined with the above effect on the astringent feeling, coffee will have a smoother taste and improved texture after adding salt.

3. The increase in the level is different from the first two. The first two are to change the coffee while controlling the salty taste not to be prominent, while the third point requires the salty taste to be prominent, so as to increase the level of coffee. purpose. Salted mocha, salty latte and other products are popular items born with the addition of salt. By adding a certain amount of salt to the coffee, the salty taste is highlighted, and then it is integrated with the sweet taste and improves each other, thereby giving the coffee a richer sense of hierarchy. For example, in an experiment previously conducted on Qianjie, 0.1g of salt was added to the already sweet latte. Then, when the latte collided with the salt, it produced a salty flavor like cheese. Very good!

So, these are the three effects that salt can bring to coffee. Interested friends can try them at home. But what!!! There are two points that need to be paid attention to when putting salt into use. The first one is that the amount of salt should not be too much! You must not let the salty taste be too prominent in coffee, otherwise the salty taste will dominate and replace the bitter taste as a negative taste that affects the performance of coffee.

Another point to note is that salt is not everything and it is not suitable for all coffee. The reason why we use salt most of the time is because the cup of coffee is not as good and has a certain negative performance. For example, astringent and bitter, so salt is needed to improve it. When a cup of hand-brewed coffee itself performs very well (rich aroma, balanced taste, and mellow taste), Qianjie does not recommend adding salt to it in order to further improve the texture, because this may instead lead to more coffee. An unharmonious taste.

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