The taste of over extracted, under extracted and the well extracted coffee

Greetings, this is Catch Mind. Today I am going to discuss about the taste of over extracted, under extracted and the well extracted coffee. It would be impossible to touch on every detail in one post but, let’s begin with a casual and light mind.

 

 

Water takes away the brown figment of the coffee.

 

If you skip the process of ‘extraction’ for making a cup of coffee, there wouldn’t be a brown color of the coffee. That is how significant the water is to the coffee making.

 

When we begin to talk about “How and how much to extract”, the discussion can be heated as every individual has different experience and knowledge.

 

But something that never change is that the 28% of component making up the coffee is soluble. The density of coffee is quite hard so we go through the process of “grinding” to ease the extraction. This process will increase the surface area of coffee grains and helps them to be extracted constantly and easily.

 

 

Do we need to know all the names of extracted components, amount, and procedure and so on?

 

When the water touches the coffee, we can witness some of chemistry and physics theory we learned in our school.

 

I personally think that knowing the name of every component, the procedure, and knowing all the knowledge is not very important. It is not easy to distinguish the flavor and aroma of difficult ingredients with our taste buds at every step of the extraction procedure.

 

I think that it is enough to judge the extraction condition by looking at the taste, scent and texture, by putting aside the acidity, bitterness, density and the preference of people who drinks the coffee.

 

 

So do we need to extract it as we want to?

 

When we are brewing a cup of coffee, sometimes we fail to extract to fullest (under extraction) or extract too much (over extraction), the taste, texture, balance of the coffee will have problem.

 

Not all of the 28% of the soluble part in coffee is leading to delicious or good texture. About 18-22% has potential to bring out the components that will create good taste in coffee. And the reason why I use the word “about” is that, even outside that scope, we can still make a good cup of coffee.

 

The problem can still occur even within the range. Variables such as the state of coffee, roasting defects, characteristics of the coffee, harvesting method, storage method can affect the quality of coffee. Even you extract it well, these variable can be the reason for bad taste.

 

Thus, these variables such as harvest method, process method, storage method, transportation, roasting must be well controlled before the extraction to assure the good taste of coffee.

 

 

The introduction was a bit too long, the taste of under-extracted coffee is

 

When the coffee is under-extracted, the problem occurs in acidity, sweetness, texture and after taste of the coffee. The result may vary depending on “how under extracted” the coffee is.

 

Firstly, let’s talk about the Acidity

Acidity is an acquired taste of the coffee. I personally do not really like coffee with strong acidity. So the preference of a person who drinks it plays a big role in defining the acidity of coffee.

 

However, the extreme sour taste that make people frown would be something nobody will likes. When the coffee is under extracted, the coffee would be sour instead if acidic, with a piercing and disturbing sour taste.

 

The ‘sour’ taste of coffee from under extraction, is often too strong to be describe as ‘brewed to be sour’. Acidic coffee like Kenyan coffee can be described as strong in acidity when extracted well but, describing them to be ‘sour’ will be wrong.

 

Other characteristics will be lack of sweetness,

Usually in terms of taste, the soluble extraction of the coffee takes step-by-step procedure, in large as sour, sweet and bitter.

 

That’s why the under extraction may cause lack of sweetness because the abundance of sour taste does not give out good texture, and the sweetness disappear in the mouth instantly.

 

Lastly, the short aftertaste and texture,

Ironically the short aftertaste may be the good result. The discontinuation of the unpleasant taste will be blessing. Longer aftertaste works only when the coffee taste is good.

 

Moreover, the texture in the mouth may be rough and bitter like eating a unripe persimmon. If there is enough sweetness extracted from the coffee, the bad texture would be covered with the sweetness. Severe under extracted coffee may taste like a uncooked peanut or even grass.

 

 

Then, how about the taste of over extracted coffee,

"It’s just too bitter."

Coffee naturally is strong in bitter taste and when it is over extracted, it can be “really bitter”. It is the same when the density is not thick. This is mainly but not limited to caffeine, and many other chemical substances.

 

It will be bitter like medicine, and dry and rough in the mouth

Usually, there will be rough texture and dryness in the mouth. Severely over extracted coffee will sometimes taste like wood or even medicine, which make it hardly enjoyable.

 

Some people may describe the taste as “thick” or “nutty”. Thus, if you have a choice between over extraction and under extraction, it may be wise to choose the over extraction instead.

 

 

Why do we have to extract the coffee normally?

Meaning of normally extracted coffee is,

The flawless and systematic extraction process which take consideration of the origin of coffee and bring out the characteristics of coffee to its fullest. By then, we can now discuss about level of taste in terms of the acidity and sweetness and judging the balance and after taste of the coffee and adjust them accordingly.

 

By the time we successfully extract an ideal cup of coffee, we can discuss about the characteristic of coffee, choice of coffee beans, roasting process according to the end-goal, the extraction technique, and the strength and weakness of flavor.

 

You can think this as,

Making a so-so cup of coffee by extracting an extremely valuable coffee which cost about 100 thousand won per kilo.

 

A so-so taste may not be a big issue but imagine your mother drinking a fancy cup of Ethiopian specialty coffee and thinking “this is actually quite rough” or drinking a cup of Kenyan coffee and believing “It’s a bit sour. Maybe this isn’t for me”.

 

 

In conclusion,,,

From the book I read before, it said “I saw her from the taste of coffee extracted by an old lady from the home coffee maker machine in Australia”.

 

In this book, the “her” refers to the “surprisingly tasty coffee” which the author longing for. And this implies that “the more you know about the coffee, the harder it gets”.

 

Despite lack of experience and knowledge, I hope to master the coffee in my lifetime by continuously share my thoughts on the coffee via blog posts.

 

And I wish my blog post will be helpful to you.

 

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