Page 88 - #55 English

Report

Story by Coffee t&i Thailand / Photos by SCAA
The Simplest Ingredient?

The Complexities of Water and Flavor

At the 2015 SCAA Symposium, three-times UK Barista vors. This tells us one thing that these minerals extract a lot, and
Champion Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood gave a talk about water. water with a lot of these minerals in them will extract different
The talk started with Maxwell addressing an issue that hap- flavors than those without.
pened 3 years ago at his coffee shop, the problem was the coffee However, Maxwell noted that it’s not as simple as it
tasted awful and undrinkable. Why? They used a refractometer seems. If we use mineral water (which has a lot of minerals), the
to check, the brewing methods, the roast date, clean the grinder coffee should taste full, more vibrant and complex. But it turned
but the coffee was still tasting bad. Later they called the roasters out that using mineral water to brewed coffee makes the coffee
and talked to them about the brewing experience and what they tastes flat, dull, chalky and bitter. Another important mineral that
found in the cup. The roaster checked everything and called we haven’t touch is the Bicarbonate, in which we could call it the
back two days later that everything was fine, the coffee was tast- buffer. The buffer turns a compound into its conjugate partner
ing brilliant. However, Maxwell has been tasting a lot of coffee by keeping the pH constantly where they need to be and it has no
with them and was sure that they both definitely agree on the interest in what we find in tastes. Since coffee is a mildly acidic
basic ideas of quality and what would taste bad. beverage and usually will have a pH around 5.
So a question popped up, could it be the water, the invis- Water acts as an ingredient, a flavor extractor, and a
ible force? We used TDS meter to measure the mineral content carrier. If we found a really good tasting water and use it to brew
in the water, but the equipment is flawed because it does not tell a really good coffee, you might think this is a great idea, why not
us exactly how much content does each mineral is in the water. combine both delicious water and coffee together? But what re-
The most important minerals in coffee extractions are Calcium, ally happen is that you will not taste what is in the water, it will
Magnesium, and Bicarbonate. Calcium and magnesium help us be completely gone. What you will taste is the way water do its
extract compound into the beverage because it has the ability job as a flavor extractor and a carrier. So this solved the mystery
to bind strongly to flavor molecule. Magnesium tends to bind that happened in our shop. After the coffee itself and the way it
to fruity and sharper compounds such has citric and malic acid. was roasted, water is definitely the next biggest impact on the
While Calcium binds strongly to round, heavier and creamier fla- way coffee taste.
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