I feel that coffee tastes sour. How can I balance the sour taste of coffee?

When many people first start drinking coffee, they often feel a sour taste and find it difficult to accept. However, for the editor who has loved coffee for several years, the sour taste is delicious. So where does this sour taste come from? [Forward this article and follow the "Coffee Lecture Hall" account, contact the Toutiao homepage customer service account to receive a free coffee gift]

1. Coffee Berry

Many people may not know that coffee berries are a bit like cherries, shiny and plump. Green coffee beans are the seeds inside the red pulp that have been processed. At this time, the green beans are as green as ordinary plant seeds. After roasting, they become the cooked coffee beans on the market, which are brown or black in color.

The pulp is used to provide nutrients to the seeds. Therefore, when growing coffee, the taste of the coffee will be affected by the original flavor of the pulp. This is easy to understand. It is very normal for coffee to have a little acidity. It is not corrupt or sour. It is also a display of its true natural state.

2. The beauty of sourness and the discomfort of sourness

Although it is normal to have a little sour taste, it does not mean that it is good. Due to factors such as the coffee beans themselves, transportation, handling, processing, roasting, and storage, the sour taste will present a more delicious sour taste, a comfortable sour taste, a strange sour taste, or an uncomfortable sour taste.

When learning about specialty coffee, you should keep a calm mind while tasting coffee. Imagine, taste and compare the sourness in the coffee. The sourness that makes people feel more comfortable includes grape acid, citric acid, red wine acid, malic acid, cherry acid, various fruit acids and acetic acid, etc. The various fruit acids appear naturally in the mouth, and the different characteristics not only enrich the coffee itself, but also make it softer and more delicious.

On the contrary, the sour taste that makes people feel uncomfortable includes: overly strong acetic acid, expired smelly acid, over-fermented acid, lactic acid and humic acid, etc. Just a little bit of these acids can ruin the whole cup of coffee. It is generally easy to feel the disgusting acid, which may be the main reason why some people have a bad impression of sour taste.

The real high-quality coffee does not have the offensive acidity. These tastes seriously affect the coffee tasting, so they will not appear on the shelves of specialty coffee. However, sometimes there are unscrupulous merchants, so you still have to keep your eyes open and carefully distinguish when buying.

3. Roasting degree and origin

If you are not used to drinking sour coffee, don't rush to avoid fruit acid. You can choose beans with lower acidity and slowly get used to the changing fruit acidity. In terms of origin, the acidity is lower in Central and South America and Asia, while the acidity is higher in Africa.

The above is a relatively simple judgment. Even if the specialty coffee is produced in different regions of the same country, the difference in terroir conditions will lead to a big difference in the sour taste. It is most convenient to ask clearly before buying. The higher the roasting degree, the less obvious the sour taste. For beginners, it is more appropriate to choose beans from medium roasting or above and from regions with lower sourness. After getting used to it, you can slowly cut down.

4. Brewing Adjustment

It is a very correct concept to blend the sourness, mellowness and sweetness to a ratio that suits your taste. A higher temperature will reduce the sourness, which can be raised from 90-92 degrees to 95 degrees. Grinding finer and adding more water can also reduce the sourness.

For those who are not used to the sour taste, remember to drink it in small sips. You can also add a small amount of hot water to reduce the sour taste. If it is still sour, you can repeat the process of adding hot water two or three times. Note that you should not add milk sugar or anything like that. The taste of milk products mixed with sour black coffee will be strange. [Forward this article and follow the "Coffee Lecture Hall" account, contact the Toutiao homepage customer service account to receive free coffee gifts]