Over/Under Coffee Extraction? How To Taste It?

It's easy to talk about, but it's much harder to understand and apply.

I won't discuss the effects of coffee oils and trace components in depth here. First, discuss more practical and relevant information, such as how to taste the extracted coffee and be proficient. As for chemical analysis, I will talk about it later.

A lot of things happen when coffee is mixed with water. The easiest way to understand is that the water dissolves a lot of coffee flavors, and these dissolved flavors are almost the flavors you get in a coffee cup. Only very finely ground coffee powder will affect the taste, but the fine powder is not considered during extraction because the fine powder only floats in the water during extraction.

Roasted coffee beans have about 28% by weight, which can be dissolved in water, which means that about 28% of the coffee beans can be extracted into water. The rest of the material is almost all the fiber and seed tissue of coffee beans. Water is a good medium for soluble substances, but it still needs some external help. If the whole coffee beans are thrown into hot water, the extracted substances are much less than powder because the structure of coffee beans is very dense and complex, and water cannot pass through whole coffee beans and dissolve the flavor. So we have to increase the surface area of ​​the coffee beans. We have to 'open it' so that the water can bring out the taste of coffee. It can be easily extracted by using a grinder to grind the coffee beans into a powder and increase the surface area so that the water can be effective.

Under ideal conditions, we grind the coffee to a very fine state, throw it into the water and dissolve the beautiful flavor. Unfortunately, if you do this, this is a very bitter and difficult cup of coffee. Not all coffee flavors are good, so we must control the amount of flavor extracted to brew a delicious cup of coffee.

Similarly, we cannot grind a lot of coffee beans and extract a little bit. In order to avoid these over-extracted flavors, under-extracted coffee is just as horrible to drink (sometimes worse than over-extraction). Most people understand that extraction is like a two-way road, and we always try to find a balance on this road to avoid over-extraction or under-extraction.

The following simple diagram can explain the follow-up content. When you can manage these, you can make the brewed coffee richer. Before that, we all stopped at the intersection represented by the picture below.

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Insufficient extraction means that the water does not carry enough coffee powder substances. There are many residual substances in the coffee powder, which can increase the flavor of this cup of under-extracted coffee. Imagine a cup of espresso with too short extraction time, that is, a boutique espresso ristretto, which has a foul sour taste, lack of sweetness, strange saltiness, and a disappointing short aftertaste. These four characteristics are obvious signs of insufficient extraction. Let us take a closer look at the phenomenon of insufficient extraction.

The pungent sourness of coffee is tricky, especially when you want to get the sourness of coffee. Many people ask, 'isn't sourness the same as acidity?' This is a good question; many languages ​​express sourness and acidity are the same words. You can imagine how difficult it will be when people who speak different languages ​​cup together.

In order to clarify this part, the sour taste will be defined as a negative taste. The tongue will quickly and strongly feel the sour taste, which will cause an immediate physiological reaction. You may wrinkle your lips or have electric shocks, sharp sensations on both sides of your tongue. The prickly sour taste is uncomfortable and spoils your sense of taste, and it will not be the taste you want.

It can be good or bad when it comes to acidity, and acidity is more like a flavor than describing it as good or bad. For example: 'The acidity of coffee is pleasant' or 'The acidity of this coffee is very strong' is logical. Acidity can be linked with sour taste/juice/bright acidity/stimulating acid. You can write an article on acidity, but this article is about extraction, back to the topic.

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The most important thing about coffee flavor is sweetness. Sweetness is the best. Have you ever heard someone complain like this? 'This espresso is too sweet!'. Let us think about it, and I believe we are all pursuing the sweetness of the coffee. Sweetness is like a holy grail that is very difficult to find, and once you find it, there will be amazing rewards! Insufficient extraction will not have sweetness, and it is far away. Insufficient extraction will show dissatisfaction after drinking coffee, making people feel like they want more coffee. It is worth mentioning that the lack of sweetness can highlight the prickly sourness of coffee beans and make people feel the lack of extraction more clearly.

At present, not everyone agrees, but this part must insist that under-extracted coffee will be salty. This is not as salty as 'Sorry I added salt to the coffee', but under-extracted coffee will almost always have the same taste as when it tastes salty. In terms of tactile feeling, it is like the slippery sensation of contact with alkaline food (please don't drink Ammonia to feel this taste, trust me).

Sour taste and salty taste are easier to dissolve than sweet taste, which is why the under-extracted coffee will have a sour taste and salty taste, and the sweet substance does not have enough time or opportunity to dissolve completely.

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The aftertaste of a well-extracted coffee can last for several minutes (or even a few hours if you are lucky). This aftertaste can be imagined as someone putting a piece of brown sugar on your tongue, or imagine you just finished eating a piece of delicious toffee.

The under-extracted coffee does not have this aftertaste. When you swallow the coffee, the flavor also dissipates. There will not be any pleasant feelings left in your mouth, which allows you to experience the short and unsatisfactory taste of this cup of coffee, which is unpleasant and unpalatable.

Other bad feelings represent insufficient extraction, but the above four items are more obvious and certain. When you drink these properties, you can be sure that you are drinking under-extracted coffee.

Next, let's look at the other extreme of under-extraction.

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Over-extracted coffee means that too many soluble substances in the coffee are brought out, and the result of this extraction is a bad flavor.

Imagine a fine espresso cup with 40-50 seconds extraction time. Don't pretend that you haven't drunk this kind of over-extracted coffee. Such coffee will be bitter, dry, and hollow. These are the three most obvious characteristics of over-extracted coffee. Let's retake a look at these characteristics.

We have all drunk very bitter coffee. Over-extracted coffee is really bitter unless I am drinking Campari bitters. Otherwise, I do not want to drink such a bitter taste. A lot of bitterness comes from caffeine, but the bitterness is also related to many other chemical effects. Dark roasted coffee will reach a state of coking and form more bitter chemicals.

There are thousands of chemicals (mostly poisons) that trigger the bitter signal of our taste buds, warning our bodies not to eat this thing.

If you want to get a better brew, you can read more about coffee and do more practice on your favorite brewing method.

It is very uncomfortable to drink coffee that feels dry in the coffee because the dryness is very strong and lasts for a long time. This sensation is called astringency, just like drinking unsweetened black tea, fresh wine, or over-brewed white wine. The astringency in wine comes from the effect of polyphenols: these are chemicals that are easily found in plants, seeds, and bark, and these may also be the chemicals that cause coffee to taste dry.

Polyphenols are bitter and will bind to the proteins in your saliva. As most people understand it, polyphenols will dry your tongue and produce a rusty or dry feeling in your mouth (this shouldn't be the same as in wine.' 'Crispy' is confused with 'dry'. These adjectives indicate sharp acidity or low sweetness, not necessarily indicating taste)

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I like to use empty to describe over-extracted coffee. Coffee feels empty and lifeless. It is like extracting the light from the coffee and stifling the beautiful substances in the process. A well-extracted coffee will give you a full-bodied taste, which is delicious, smooth, and mouth-watering. The over-extracted coffee is hollow, rough, and unpleasant, and tasteless.

These are the taste characteristics of over-extracted flavor. Of course, there are more adjectives, but these are the easiest to identify, which also reminds you not to brew over-extracted coffee.

The most important thing about these hollow flavors is that they are very common. You can extract hollow coffee from the world's most expensive Geisha coffee, and you can also extract such characteristics from the second-class, difficult-to-drink coffee. These flavors are not pleasing. Most people who read this article are pursuing specialty coffee, which means that we are trying to create special coffee for consumers so that consumers will be willing to spend more money on tasting. There is a mistake of insufficient extraction. It's so abrupt.

Now let's look at the good ingredients, the sweet and delicious coffee.

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Some well-extracted coffees are hard to come by. Everyone has invested a lot of effort to balance the countless variables just to create a cup of beautiful flavored coffee, and we must know how such coffee tastes.

Imagine that the best coffee you have ever had is a sweet and mature flavor! The clear flavor is like transparency. The acidity is balanced and brings positive feelings. If you are lucky, the acidity will be rich, and the aftertaste will be long. This is the coffee that everyone is eager for, and you will want to know more about it.

Imagine that plums or similar stone fruit fruits will initially have rich and strong acidity when they mature and then become sweeter and sweeter as they mature. The sugar content of the fruit develops and becomes richer, heavier, and even greasy. Then it reaches a point, just like the sweet scent you smell when you hold a fruit close to your nose. This is the sweet and mature flavor you will want to drink from coffee. If you have never drunk such coffee, you may be easily satisfied.

George Howell describes the coffee processing method as: 'peep the coffee through the coffee window', and extend this sentence to 'imagine extraction and roasting as other panes of the coffee window' if the coffee in your cup is over-extracted Or under-extracted coffee, it will be difficult for you to 'see' the actual flavor of the coffee. Common extraction errors will distract you and will waste the care of the coffee you taste in the front-end processing.

The meticulous, rich, and distinctive acidity is the most important element behind coffee. The acidity is intoxicating but also frustrating. The acidity reminds you of certain fruits or even wine when you drink coffee. If this acidity can be clearly defined, you can focus on remembering how you felt when you ate this fruit last time.

The meaning of the word itself explains everything. A good aftertaste can last for a long time, which is one of the symbols of good coffee extraction.

The above is the good, bad, or worse of coffee extraction and flavor. I hope that now you can pay attention to the coffee you usually drink and be able to link to the coffee characteristics of different extraction results.