Each coffee lover may have a completely different pursuit of coffee flavor. Some people like original coffee with a slightly bitter taste, while others like sweet coffee. There are many ways to drink coffee. Since a single flavor of coffee cannot satisfy your taste buds, why not try it yourself and drink the coffee taste you have been waiting for!
Recently, a friend asked Front Street Street, what should I do if I often feel bitter when making Pour over(V60) coffee at home? Today Front Street will explain to you the reasons for the bitter taste in coffee and how to avoid it!
Reason 1: The flavor of coffee beans itself is bitter.
The coffee beans themselves have many flavors, including fruity sour coffee, honey brown sugar sweet coffee, and nutty cocoa bitter coffee. If you brew Front Street Mandheling or Front Street Blue Mountain coffee, which has the flavor of nutty dark chocolate, it will inevitably have this type of sweet and bitter taste when brewed (note: the bitterness mentioned here is not the same as burnt bitterness and bitterness, but a roasting aroma + sweet aftertaste + rich taste). For those who don’t like this type of coffee, the bitter taste of nutty dark chocolate is not much different from the burnt, bitter and astringent taste.
Solution: When purchasing beans, consumers should pay more attention to the flavor description column. Although the flavor described above seems a bit impressionistic, you can tell what flavor type the coffee beans belong to and choose the right coffee beans that suit your taste.
If you like floral coffee, buy Front Street Panama Poquette Geisha; if you want a fruity and fragrant flavor, go to Front Street Strawberry Candy and Front Street Blackberry; if you are looking for a more intense fruit flavor, we recommend Front Street Hija and Front Street Big Navel. They are both from the Divide Estate in Colombia, and you can drink rich layers of passion fruit, grape, and blackcurrant juice.
Reason 2: Coffee beans lose their flavor after being stored for too long
The tasting period of roasted coffee beans will be relatively short. The store designs the packaging to have a capacity between 100-227 grams. On the one hand, it also considers the consumption speed and tasting period of consumers. If we consume 15 grams of coffee beans a day, a pack of 227 grams of coffee beans will take exactly half a month to drink, which is also in line with the best tasting time of coffee.
Generally, the best tasting period of Pour over(V60) coffee beans is 4-30 days calculated from the roasting date. The longer it is stored, the more the flavor of the coffee will dissipate. You can smell fresh coffee beans and compare them with coffee beans that have been stored for a long time. Fresh coffee beans smell very aromatic, which is what we often call "coffee smell". Old coffee beans will have a woody and greasy smell. Coffee beans that have lost their flavor will naturally have a woody, bitter taste when brewed.
Solution: The best solution to this problem is to drink it quickly and don’t leave expired beans! But Front Street believes that the most important thing is to learn to judge the tasting period of beans. One way is to look at the roasting date and add 30 days, but not all coffee has a fixed tasting period of 30 days. 30 days is just a generalization. Some beans will have a longer tasting period than 30 days, and some will have the opposite. Proper storage will also last longer than improper storage. Therefore, you can judge whether the tasting period has passed by whether it expands and exhausts after steaming. If there is no reaction at all after adding water, it is most likely that the tasting period has passed.
Reason 3: The coffee is ground too finely or there are too many fine powders
Grinding coffee too finely and grinding it too finely are two different situations, but they are both grinding causes that can lead to a burnt and bitter taste in brewing. The stratification behavior during brewing is different in these two situations. If the coffee is ground too finely, the powder layer from the beginning to the end will drop very slowly, and the overall extraction time will exceed 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Excessive fine powder will often cause the powder layer to decline normally in the early stage, and then the decline speed will become slower, and even blockage may occur.
Solution: The solution for grinding too fine is very simple, just adjust the coarseness to normal. Reference for hand grinding: the pass rate of No. 20 screen for light baking is 80%, and the pass rate for No. 20 screen for dark baking is 70%.
Excessive fine powder (uneven grinding) is caused by the quality of the grinder. There are three solutions. One is to use a better quality grinder. The second is to use a fine powder sieve to remove the fine powder. The third is to intercept the clogged coffee liquid in the tail section during brewing, and then add the corresponding water to return it to the appropriate concentration.
Reason 4: The water temperature is too high
Water temperature that is too high can also cause coffee to taste burnt and bitter. Although everyone knows the truth, they are often misled by their own experience. Just like if you often brew a type of beans, using 93°C can produce a good flavor, and you will become accustomed to it over a long period of time. When brewing coffee beans that seem to be about the same roasting level, you will also use 93°C. This will cause you to not realize that the water temperature is high.
For example, when brewing Blue Mountain coffee beans, if other parameters are fixed, using 88℃ can show the balance of Blue Mountain coffee beans very well, but using 89℃ will make it appear too bitter and unbalanced. Yes, it is often just such a 1℃ difference!
Generally, the judgment of whether the water temperature is too high is based on two conditions. First, whether a reasonable range of temperatures is used, that is, 90-93°C for medium-light roasting and 86-89°C for medium-dark roasting. Second, if the appeal conditions are met and the reasons such as coffee beans, date, grinding degree, etc. are excluded, then whether the water temperature is too high can be judged.
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
