3 Reasons Why Your Coffee Tastes Sour
1. Under Extraction
When you make coffee, acids, sugars, oils, and other flavors from the beans are dissolved and combine with the water to create your final brew.
This process is called “extraction.” Aka, coffee brewing.
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The first things to be extracted are the acids. So when you start brewing, your coffee is very sour. And if all those natural acids aren’t balanced out by the sugars, oils, and other flavors, they’ll taste overpowering (too bright and sour).
We call this “under extraction”, because the coffee wasn’t brewed enough to produce and dissolve all of the good tasting flavors from the beans for a balanced cup.
Under extraction is a fairly common problem, but it’s not complicated to fix. We’ll show you how in a minute.
2. Under Roasted Beans
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The coffee roasting process starts with green coffee beans. Through the perfect balance of heat, air, rotation, and other factors, roasters transform this green bean into the coffee we know and love.
During the roasting process, the Maillard Reaction occurs. The Maillard Reaction is responsible for the “browning” of food. You’ll recognize this chemical reaction when you:
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Turn bread into toast
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Fry floppy bacon into crispy goodness
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Roast coffee beans
In coffee, the Maillard Reaction turns the raw organic compounds in green coffee into delicious flavors and caramelizes the sugars. Without the Maillard Reaction, coffee tastes sour and earthy.
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This means, if your coffee beans are roasted too light and don’t experience the Maillard Reaction, they’ll have a noticeably sour and almost hay-like flavor. Yuck!
If your coffee tastes sour, it may be due to under roasted (also known as underdeveloped) coffee beans.
Thankfully, this is primarily a challenge with newer coffee roasters, but one that’s becoming less and less common.
3. Stale Coffee Beans
Your coffee beans slowly break down over time. The aromatic oils evaporate. The sugars break down. And the one-delicious natural acids start to turn sour and aggressive.
Within just 3-4 weeks of being roasted, your coffee beans will start to taste less balanced. A few weeks later, they’ll start to be pretty sour. If you taste harsh lemon citrus notes, they’re completely stale. Bummer!
Fortunately, remedying sour coffee at home is simple.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
