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It is common for the coffee produced to taste too strong or too light. Not only newbies, but also experienced coffee people who have been in the coffee field for many years have a certain chance of brewing coffee that does not suit the taste. So, novice friends, don’t worry, this is a “commonplace” thing.
Compared with the overly strong taste, the brewed coffee is too weak and too watery, which is a situation that many novice friends will frequently trigger. So how should we adjust when this situation occurs? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know ~ Front Street will share today what causes the brewed coffee to be weak and what are the corresponding solutions!
The first step is to determine whether the coffee beans you buy are what you like. If your coffee preference is a rich, low-acid taste, then medium-dark roasting and high-purity types are your first choice. It is recommended that you buy heavy-flavored single products such as Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling, Front Street Queen's Manor, and Front Street Blue Mountain No. 1. They are not only of high quality, but also have fascinating flavors such as nuts, caramel, and chocolate.
But if you like a lighter flavor, choose medium-light roasted items such as Front Street Rwanda Red Bourbon, Front Street Kaffa Forest, and Front Street Yirgacheffe, which will allow you to drink elegant floral and fruity characteristics. But if you still can't get the flavor out of the coffee and the overall taste is bland, then there's probably an extraction problem.
Why does the brewed coffee taste weak?
When you think that coffee tastes bland, it means that the substances in this cup of coffee are somewhat lacking, and they cannot support sufficient taste performance, so there is a bad experience of the coffee tasting bland and hollow. There are two factors that can trigger this situation. The first is what we talk about every day: "insufficient extraction."
Underextraction
When we extract coffee, we will apply the extraction formula corresponding to the bean. Because not all substances present in coffee are pleasant, we need to control the parameters to limit the release of these unpalatable substances.
Parameters such as time, grinding, water temperature, and powder-to-water ratio are the main objects we need to control. They are all important and complementary to each other. In the extraction process, they will provide different extraction efficiencies from different angles, so that the water as the solvent can dissolve the flavor substances in an appropriate amount.
And if there is a deviation in one of the parameters in this formula, it will directly affect the overall extraction efficiency, which will lead to the inability of water as a dissolving agent to extract a sufficient amount of substances. Then the coffee will have too little substance, and the flavor will not be prominent and the taste will not be obvious. This is what we often call "under-extraction." In addition to having a bland taste, under-extracted coffee may also have negative negative experiences such as saltiness and astringency.
Problems like this are easy to solve. You just need to find the factor that affects extraction and correct it! Front Street still recommends using time as the criterion for judgment.
For example, if Front Street brews a portion of 15g of coffee beans, the brewing time will be set to about 2 minutes. When the brewing time is much less than two minutes (the difference is more than 10 seconds), it means that the grinding is likely to be too coarse. Then we need to finer the grinding to correct the problem of insufficient extraction. And if the time is more than two minutes and it is still bland, then it is most likely caused by the water temperature being too low. At this time, increasing the water temperature appropriately can improve the situation of insufficient extraction. (Note: The utensils and amount of powder used by each person are different. The extraction time here at Front Street is based on the utensils and the amount of powder used, so 2 minutes is for reference only~)
But if the grinding or water temperature cannot be controlled, in this case we can correct the missing extraction efficiency by increasing other parameters. For example, if the grinding is too coarse, but because it is pre-ground or the grinder cannot be finer, then we can choose to increase the brewing water temperature or extend the extraction time (sections and filter cups can be solved) to obtain a higher extraction rate and reduce the impact of insufficient grinding. By analogy, similar situations in other aspects are also the same.
Concentration too low
Another situation that will cause the coffee to be weak is that the "concentration" of the coffee is too low, which is still different from the coffee that is under-extracted. As Front Street mentioned in yesterday’s article, because the flavor substances in coffee are limited, when we use too much hot water for extraction, we will not only extract substances that should not be extracted, such as impurities, but also dilute the concentration of the coffee. Because there are only so many substances, the more water you add, the dilute it will be.
(The picture is a comparison of coffee extracted using 1:17 and 1:15 powder to water ratios. It can be clearly seen that the coffee on the right is stronger because there is less water, and the soup color will be darker. The coffee on the left has more water, and the concentration is diluted, resulting in a lighter soup color.)
This situation is easy to solve! Let’s taste this weak cup of coffee first to see if there is over-extraction, that is, if there is any foreign flavor or obvious bitterness in the coffee. If so, then we only need to directly reduce the ratio of pink to water to correct the dull effect. For example, if you reduce 1:17 to 1:15, you don’t need to worry about whether the extraction needs correction.
And if there are no foreign flavors or bitterness in the coffee, it means that when we correct the powder to water ratio, we also need to improve the extraction efficiency of other parameters of the coffee. Otherwise, after shortening the ratio of powder to water, the extraction time will also be reduced.
Time is also an important part of the extraction formula. When using a powder-to-water ratio of 1:17, the coffee does not have negative flavors such as impurities or astringency, which shows that the overall extraction efficiency of the 1:17 powder-to-water ratio combined with other parameters is just right! At this time, if we directly adjust the powder-to-water ratio, it means that the extraction efficiency will be reduced, and the coffee will easily be under-extracted. Therefore, it is necessary to improve other aspects of extraction parameters to supplement the extraction efficiency!
In general, we need to understand the underlying logic of coffee extraction. As long as we understand the extraction logic thoroughly, no matter what happens to the coffee we brew, we can immediately find the problem and correct it in time, whether it is too strong or too light~
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
