While wine is made up of about 400 different flavors, coffee is even more than 800. Coffee is one of the most complex natural products of all. The variety of flavors in coffee ensures that good coffee tastes varied and varied.
Coffee cupping can be thought of as a wine tasting. One slurps and smells through countless flavors in very different combinations. The coffees are reminiscent of tropical fruits, honey, mint, peanuts or flowers. A coffee can taste very clear or incredibly complex. Some aromas only come to light when the coffee cools or can only be detected by the smell
Only a few people, have such a pronounced sensory effect that they can clearly name the different and subtle aromas. But you can train it. Try it! Close your eyes, smell your freshly brewed coffee, sip it in small sips and at different temperatures. You'll be surprised what you can discover. But do not doubt if you do not immediately succeed in tasting bergamot or passion fruit. What matters is that enjoying coffee is pure pleasure for you
The taste of the coffee is influenced by several factors. The coffee variety plays a big role: Arabica coffee tastes milder and more nuanced than Robusta coffee. But the cultivation conditions leave behind coffee, as in wine, taste marks.
Because factors such as temperature, rainfall, sunshine intensity and soil quality during the harvest year affect the taste of the coffee. In addition to the cultivation, the harvesting process and especially the subsequent processing of the coffee cherries has a great influence on the aromas of the coffee.
The uniqueness of specialty coffees lies in the complexity, clarity and liveliness. While enjoying specialty coffees, you will be able, with a little practice, to find fine taste nuances and clear aromas.
5 Reasons Why Your Coffee Does Not Taste and What You Can Do About It?
What to do if you notice at the first sip: The coffee does not taste. Nobody deserves to drink bad coffee in the morning (or at all). Here are five tips on what you can do to make your home coffee taste better.
1. Your coffee beans are old and/or taste rancid Coffee beans oxidize when in contact with oxygen. The oxidation of coffee fats creates a rancid taste, which of course you will also find in your cup of coffee - hence the coffee does not taste good.
That's why you should always use fresh beans, which you store dry, cool (room temperature), dark and under exclusion of air. Close the opened coffee bag as best as possible and store it in an airtight Tupper box. Optimal place is then the dark kitchen cabinet, away from the stove and dishwashe
As important as the storage, the fresh grinding of the coffee is about to be consumed. Ground coffee loses its aroma faster than average and therefore, at best, you should not use pre-ground coffee for home use. The aroma of freshly ground beans not only smells in your kitchen but also makes your coffee better.
And of course you should only use beans that have been roasted recently. After more than 6 months, the coffee has lost so many flavors that the full taste experience is no longer present.
2. Your coffee beans are not optimally roasted Without the roasting of the green (raw) coffee beans we could not enjoy coffee at all. Therefore, optimal roasting is the basis for the best possible development of the coffee aromas.
Industrially roasted beans are generally not roasted, but are almost "raw" on the inside and almost too dark if not oily on the outside. As a result, the coffee often tastes bitter and sour. I always call this the "fillet effect", because when searing a filet, the same thing happens: on the outside the meat has a fine brown color, but inside it is almost raw. The filet is so desired, the coffee not. Because so that the whole bean can develop its full aroma, it must be roasted. The fact is: the coffee does not taste aromatic when it is too short and too hot roasted.
The roast master achieves this only if the beans are roasted slowly and gently at low temperatures (up to 220 degrees). In addition, the chlorogenic acid contained in green coffee is roasted out of the bean only by the time factor. This chlorogenic acid is responsible for the fact that many people do not tolerate coffee and react with gastric complaints.
Therefore, buy coffee beans that have traditionally been roasted in the drum and whose roast level corresponds to their use. Filter coffees are roasted rather lighter, espresso rather darker.
3. Your equipment is dirty: the coffee does not taste good A dirty press jug, an uncleaned espresso machine or an unkempt coffee machine contribute significantly to the bad taste of coffee. The result is always the same: the coffee does not taste good.
The already mentioned coffee grease likes to settle on the surfaces of bean containers and portafilters. There it becomes rancid under the influence of oxygen, negatively affecting the coffee taste. Especially coffee machines are ideal place for all types of contamination. Moldy coffee trester, moldy residual water and rancid residue on the brew group prevent lasting coffee pleasure.
That's why every coffee preparation, whether with a hand or a machine, requires cleanliness. Clean your equipment regularly with coffee grease remover and milk fat remover (at the fully automatic machine ), after use at least with warm water.
4. You use a classic filter coffee machine If you prepare your morning coffee in a classic filter coffee maker, you should have drunk the coffee within an hour. After this time begins a so-called hydrolytic reaction of the coffee: the coffee forms unwanted acids and becomes increasingly bitter. The reason for this is the continuous reheating of the coffee through the heating plate of the filter coffee machine.
Who likes it better, should either filter by hand (for me, anyway, the optimal method for a morning coffee) or replace the old filter coffee machine with a Moccamaster. The Moccamaster simply keeps the coffee warm and regulates the added temperature in relation to the amount of coffee that needs to be kept warm. But here too: Coffee should be drunk freshly prepared.
5. The quality of the water used is bad Since a cup of coffee consists of 98% water, you should not neglect the quality of the water in any case. The water used should always be fresh, have a pH between 6 and 7 and also have a medium degree of German hardness (7 to 8 A dH).
In general, it is therefore recommended in Germany to use a Brita filter and depending on the local water hardness of this filtered water either to use pure or to cut it with tap water.
Time and again one reads that coffee fans buy still water from the supermarket. However, here is the same as the tap water: the right mineralization is important. A water, which is suitable for baby food, is unsuitable for coffee, since in fact the salt in the soup = in the coffee) is missing and the coffee acids taste too strong come to the fore. On the other hand, excessive mineralization neutralizes the fine acids in the coffee and lacks the volume of the taste.
Conclusion:
In this summary you will find the key points to do good for the taste of your coffee. Because why should you be satisfied with bad taste, if it is just better?