Everyone! Place! week! Know! Hot American coffee has been nicknamed "Chinese medicine" and "Cantonese herbal tea" all year round because it tastes more bitter than other coffees. Therefore, people tend to choose iced American style over hot American style.
But no matter how great the taste and refreshing taste of the iced American style is, there are only a few warriors who dare to challenge it in a cold weather environment. Most of them still need a cup of hot coffee that can warm the heart and soul. So, the question arises: Is there any way to make the hot American style less bitter and more drinkable?
The answer is of course yes. We only need to know where the "bitterness" of hot American style comes from, and then we can know how to adjust the bitterness. Maybe the adjustment objects that many friends think of at the first time are temperature and concentration, because Front Street previously wrote in "Why is hot American style bitter than iced American style?" 》This article introduces that the reason why hot American style is more bitter than iced American style mainly comes from the sensory changes caused by different physical characteristics and the different concentrations.
But unfortunately, these two are not the main adjustment objects. Because they are just the reason why a hot American tastes more bitter than an iced American, not the reason why a hot American tastes bitter. But! We can find clues to the adjustment object from here~
The main reason why hot Americano is more bitter than iced Americano is that its high temperature increases our taste buds' perception of bitterness. At the same time, its higher concentration allows the taste to be more concentrated, making the bitterness more prominent. That is to say! They amplify the flavor of espresso itself, making hot Americano taste more bitter than iced Americano. If the coffee itself didn't have so much bitterness, wouldn't it be possible to make a hot Americano that was like a "decoction"?
Having said that, Front Street believes that everyone already knows that what really needs to be adjusted is the coffee beans and the extraction plan itself. Most friends will choose darker roasted beans and a higher extraction rate to be compatible with the production of milk coffee. If our needs are only Americano coffee, then we can have more choices of coffee beans and extraction solutions, and we no longer have to be limited.
Coffee bean selection
The production of Americano coffee is just adding water to dilute the espresso, so the taste of the coffee will not be disturbed. What we drink is mainly the original taste of the coffee. Therefore, if we don’t want the coffee to have too much bitterness, the first thing we need to choose is a coffee bean that is not roasted that darkly.
To sum up, our coffee bean selection direction is very clear. If you want to make hot American coffee that is not so bitter but not so sour, you can choose some coffee beans with a medium-to-dark roasting degree.
If you like the nutty flavor, buy the Front Street Black Cocoa Basic Blend; if you like the fruity flavor, buy the Front Street Oiran SOE Italian Blend, which is low in acidity and affordable at the same time. The Americano coffee you make will not be very bitter, and at the same time, you can make milk coffee.
Of course, you can also choose Front Street Strawberry Candy espresso, a premium blended bean that achieves both by blending. It is medium roasted and has a balanced sour, sweet and bitter taste, with distinct layers, and can also take into account the production of milk coffee.
If you want the taste of Americano coffee to be weakly bitter and more full of sour and sweet taste, the best bean selection direction is medium-light to medium-roasted coffee beans from Ethiopia, Panama, Colombia and other producing areas. Coffee beans from these producing areas will have a very obvious floral and fruity aroma, but the price will be relatively higher.
Adjustment of extraction plan
After selecting the coffee beans, we can move to the next step: adjusting the extraction plan. Most of the time, in order to prevent the concentrated taste from being masked by the milk, we will specifically increase the extraction rate of the coffee, so as to have more bitter substances to compete with the taste of the milk (because the cup size in a coffee shop has been determined and it is difficult to change, so we can only adjust the extraction).
If we don’t need to make milk coffee, we naturally don’t need such a high extraction rate and so many bitter substances. So as Front Street said, we can have more extraction options. For example, the high-concentration and low-extraction version of Ristrido in espresso is a very good choice. It only extracts the front and middle parts of the extraction, avoiding the bitter substances in the tail part, so as to make a cup of highly sweet espresso. The American style made with it will naturally not have such a prominent bitter taste~
It is worth mentioning that because Americano coffee is made by adding concentrated water, water is used to dilute the concentration of the coffee. Therefore, when extracting espresso, we do not need to consider the concentration of espresso. Whether you use 18g of powder to extract 36ml of coffee liquid or 90ml of coffee liquid, it doesn’t matter! without! close! Tie!
Because the coffee will eventually be diluted, it doesn’t matter if you extract more or less. We just need to ensure that this cup of coffee has a relatively complete extraction rate~
3. Retention of fine powder
Front Street has mentioned many times in previous articles that because the holes in the espresso coffee powder bowl are not so small, some extremely fine coffee particles will be brought out by the grease from the powder bowl during extraction. They will initially be mixed with the oil, and as the oil dissipates, they will gradually sink and blend into the coffee.
The presence of fine powders will improve the taste of coffee, but at the same time, they are also a contributor to bitterness. If we don’t want too much bitterness in our Americano coffee, we might as well try placing 1 to 2 circular filter papers at the bottom of the powder bowl. This will reduce the amount of fine powder in the cup and thus reduce the bitterness of the coffee (a small amount).
Of course, we can also filter out the oil and fine powder through filter paper after the coffee liquid is extracted, but doing so will make the operation process more cumbersome and make the coffee lack a certain aftertaste. But as the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, it’s up to you to choose.
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
