Have you ever encountered such a situation? You have spent a lot of effort researching the origin, understanding the roasting method and confirming the time when the roasting is completed, and finally chose a coffee bean, brought it home, grind, brew… …However, the coffee you get is not as delicious as you think.
Then what will you do? Give up this bean and change to another one? Wait a minute, maybe you really blamed your coffee beans, you can try to change the “water”.
In a cup of coffee, water is an important component. In espresso coffee, water accounts for about 90% and in follicular coffee it accounts for 98.5%. If the water used to brew coffee is not delicious at first, coffee is definitely not good.
If you can taste the smell of chlorine in the water, the brewed coffee will taste terrible. In most cases, as long as you use a water filter containing activated carbon, you can effectively remove the negative taste, but you may not be able to get the perfect water quality for brewing coffee.
During the brewing process, water plays the role of a solvent and is responsible for extracting the flavor components in the coffee powder. Because the hardness and mineral content of the water affect the extraction efficiency of the coffee, the water quality is very important.
01
Hardness
The hardness of water is the value of how much scale (calcium carbonate) the water contains. The cause comes from the local rock bed structure. Heating the water will cause the scale to be dialyzed out of the water. After a long time, the chalk-like white substance will begin to accumulate. People who live in hard water areas often have such troubles, such as hot water pots, shower heads, and dishwashers, which will accumulate limescale.
The hardness of water has a great influence on the interaction between hot water and coffee powder. Hard water will change the ratio of soluble substances in coffee powder, which in turn changes the chemical composition ratio of coffee juice. Ideal water contains a small amount of hardness, but if the content is too high or even extremely high, it is not suitable for making coffee.
Coffee brewed with high hardness water lacks layering, sweetness and complexity. In addition, from a practical point of view, when using any coffee machine that requires heated water, such as a filter coffee machine or an espresso machine , Soft water is a very important condition. The scale accumulated in the machine will quickly cause the machine to malfunction, so many manufacturers will consider not providing warranty services to hard water areas.
02
Mineral content
In addition to being delicious, water can only have a small amount of hardness. In fact, we don’t want the water to contain too many other things, except for the relatively low content of minerals.
Mineral water manufacturers will list different mineral content on the bottle, and usually tell you the total dissolved solids (TDS) in the water, or the value of the dry residue at 180°C.
Here is a recommendation of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) on the parameters of the water used for brewing coffee, you can refer to:
Odor: clean, fresh and odor-free Color: clear Total chlorine content: 0 mg/L (acceptable range: 0 mg/L) solid content in water at 180°C: 150 mg/L (acceptable range: 75-250 mg /L) Hardness: 4 crystals or 68mg/L (acceptable range: 1-5 crystals or 17-85mg/L) total alkali content: about 40mg/L pH value: 7.0 (acceptable range: 6.5-7.5 ) Sodium content: about 10mg/L
03
Perfect water quality
If you want to know the water quality status of your area, you can seek the assistance of water filtration equipment companies or search for information on the Internet. Most water filtration equipment companies must publish their water quality data on the Internet.
04
How to choose water
The foregoing information may be dazzling, but it can be summarized as follows:
1. If you live in an area with moderately soft water, just add a water filter to improve the taste of the water.
2. If you live in an area with hard water quality, the best solution at present is to buy bottled drinking water to brew coffee.
Post time: Jul-24-2021