According to statistics, over 50% of Americans prefer to drink coffee daily. However, coffee lovers do not function well once they have no coffee in their mugs. People are not born as coffee lovers, and it is based on their taste and preference. Some people enjoy having a bitter coffee while others do not. Also, some people would have a scrunched-up face whenever they try a new brew because of its bitterness.
So, what causes coffee bitterness? In this article, we will walk you through the 8 causes of this bitter taste as well as effective solutions to reduce the bitterness in coffee.
1. Steeping Too Much Over Your Coffee
Steeping too long will give you a negative result, such as bitter flavour and harshness due to over-extraction. Regarding the extraction, when you extract too much, your coffee will taste bitter. However, if you extract too little, your coffee will sour with a weak flavour. Therefore, it requires you to get the extraction right to enjoy its oil inside with a delicious flavour.
So how to solve it?
Well, you can reduce your steeping time. If you have been spending 6 minutes to brew French Press coffee, now you can give it a try with 4 minutes to see the improvement in flavour here. Besides, using an automatic drip coffee maker or espresso machine will have a low chance of getting over steeping here.
2. Unclean Equipment
Keeping your equipment clean! Washing your French Press machine every time you finish using it. Or with the automatic drip coffee maker, you can run a clean with fresh water at least once a week so that it will get rid of the taste of yesterday’s coffee greatly.
Since acidity is the main cause of bitterness, you can use a small amount of baking soda to scrub it down with the solution. Also, it mainly helps the drawdown once there are the ridges and grooves inside the filter cone. Moreover, you can use a little baking soda with your long-handled brush to see the sparkle around your glass carafe, and it works on a pour-over, a drip coffee maker, or a French press.
Another tip is to wash the coffee carafe and filter cone with hot water immediately once you finish brewing, especially while they are still hot before it dries around the surface. It is the easiest way to keeping things clean all the time. Conversely, if you keep it until the coffee dries, removing it will take more effort.
Coffee is different from wine. You can keep wine for a long time or age to improve the taste, but coffee does not.
3. No Alignment Between Your Grind And Brewing Methods
Do you know that finer grinds give more bitterness while extracting more flavour? Whereas a coarser grind gives you a lighter yet sweeter brew? Based on the scientific explanation, over 1800 compounds would contribute to the coffee flavour. Some take more time to extract from the interior of the grinds, while others are extracted quickly from the grinds’ surface. Therefore, if you change the grind, you can greatly change the relative extraction of a compound of the surface and interior. In addition to the fine grind, it can slow down the water flowing process through the grinds, and this causes over-extraction. As a result, it leads to a more bitter flavour in your coffee.
To fight against your enemy, bitterness, grinding a little coarser would be your best friend to reach your desired goal.
4. Unreliable Temperature And Water Clarity
It is pretty simple to ruin a tasty coffee with unfiltered water. The lack of mineral content as distilled water is not encouraged. So the best choice is bottling spring water because it does not bring you a discernible taste.
Besides, it would be best if you were careful with the water temperature. Normally, it would be 195 F to 205 F. If the water is cooler, the more prominent the bitterness is. Thus, it is better to be closer to 205 F.
Apart from that, if you have a drip coffee maker, you don’t have to care much about the temperature. In contrast, whether you are using a French press, a pour-over, or other equipment that uses water from a kettle, a decent rule of thumb is to let the water boil completely. After that, turn off the fire and wait for 30 seconds before brewing.
5. Using Stale And Old Coffee Beans
In fact, old coffee beans can also contribute a bitter taste while they cannot stay fresh forever. Besides, when you get used to the fresh flavour of coffee beans, you will be sensitive to the stale aroma of old beans, even before brewing. And it is hard to turn it back once beans become stale.
With the solution, you can buy whole beans for only the amount you plan to use within one or two weeks. Then, grind only the beans you are going to use in coffee during the brewing method.
Or another tip: a storage container of coffee beans can keep the beans fresh for a bit longer before brewing once they are still in the bag as they came in.
6. Wrong Roast
Apart from grind size, roasting is another key factor to contribute its bitter taste. In general speaking, dark roasts give you a more bitter taste than light roasts. Therefore, instead of dark roast and medium-dark, you can consider looking for either light or medium roasts.
Some roasters give you info on how dark or light coffee is by printing a scale of the coffee bag. In addition to light roast coffee, you can look for the roasts labelled Half City or Cinnamon if you would like to eliminate bitterness. Furthermore, the different taste has also resulted from different roasted. The lighter the roast, the bitter the coffee is. So you can give it a try for different roasts until you get the right sweet spot.
7. The Different Beans And Its Origin
In the coffee industry, two different species are very important – Arabica and Robusta. Normally, Robusta has more caffeine; thus, more bitter than Arabica. Additionally, it is resistant to pests and grows faster, so it is usually less expensive. In contrast, Arabica can produce more flavour beans, but the plants require much care, so it tends to be more expensive.
Arabica is a perfect choice for people who are sensitive to bitterness. And you can look for a few recommendations, including Costa Rican Beans, Kona region, or Brazilian.
8. Coffee-To-Water Ratio
People like to add more sugar to tea to make it sweeter. This principle is also applied in brewing coffee; however, putting more coffee in water can give you bitterness.
With the golden ratio, 55 grams of coffee is a perfect match to a litter of water. But the ratio can vary due to brewing equipment. For example, a French Press usually requires you to add more coffee, but a pour-over would be an excellent option for the golden ratio.
To conclude, there are 8 causes and tips to reduce the bitterness of your coffee as mentioned above. But to get a perfect cup of coffee requires much time to make it again and again until it hits the desired goal.