Why is Coffee Sweet? Why Does Coffee Taste So Sweet? Where Does Coffee's Sweetness Come From?

If you say coffee is bitter, most people, whether they drink coffee or not, would probably agree; if you say coffee is acidic, you might get some agreement; but if you say coffee is sweet, you might be accused of having a messed-up sense of taste!

But in reality, from coffee cultivation and processing methods to roasting and brewing, people try every possible way at every stage to make coffee sweeter.

In the black coffee we drink, the main flavors are still dominated by bitterness or acidity. However, if we're among a group of acidic or bitter coffees, we can always find certain coffees that, beyond their acidity and bitterness, have some additional sweetness that makes us feel these coffees taste sweeter. So where does this sweetness come from?

Greater Emphasis on Coffee Varieties

In the third wave of coffee, people focused on origin; by the fourth wave, origin had become fundamental, and people turned to pursuing coffee varieties with better flavors. The most classic example is the Geisha variety, which shone brightly in Panama in 2004 and remains synonymous with good coffee to this day. Additionally, Eugenioides (a variety with very high sweetness) frequently seen in coffee competitions in recent years, Chicho Gayo which amazed judges at the 2022 BOP, and Ethiopia's frequently appearing 74/75 number series.

These unfamiliarly named varieties didn't just pop up recently—they were selected and cultivated many years ago. They allow consumers to better understand the impact of coffee varieties on flavor, just as consumers began learning about origin information back in the day.

Changes in Processing Methods

The impact of coffee processing methods on flavor is quite significant. This mainly involves two points: one is changes we can identify from the names of processing methods, such as washed processing, natural processing, anaerobic washed processing, slow-dry natural processing, etc.

The sweetness of coffee is related to the substances involved in fermentation and the degree of fermentation. Generally, the more substances involved in fermentation and the higher the degree of fermentation, the sweeter the coffee will be. For example, comparing the two major processing categories of natural and washed: in natural processing, the entire coffee fruit participates in fermentation, while in washed processing, only the pectin participates in fermentation for the first 1-2 days, after which basically only the coffee beans themselves are involved. Therefore, naturally processed coffee beans have more noticeable sweetness than washed processed ones.

Adding anaerobic steps, using enzymes to help coffee fermentation, and extending the drying time of coffee can all increase the degree of fermentation of coffee beans, and their sweetness will also be more pronounced.

So, if you want to drink coffee with better sweetness, you can choose naturally processed, anaerobic naturally processed, black honey processed, or raisin honey processed coffee beans.

The other point is changes that cannot be seen from the name. For example, the currently popular full red cherry harvesting and processing. On FrontStreet Coffee's bean list, there's a coffee called Yirgacheffe Red Cherry, which is actually from the "Red Cherry Project" started by Dutch green bean traders in 2007. The project mainly involved increasing the purchase price of fully red cherries to encourage coffee farmers to harvest only fully red coffee cherries.

Why are fully red cherries so important? Because unripe coffee fruits generally appear greenish-yellow or light red, while overripe coffee fruits appear purplish-red. Unripe coffee beans will cause grassy flavors in coffee, while overripe coffee beans are prone to rotting, causing rotten fruit flavors and off-notes in coffee. Therefore, to achieve good coffee quality and high sweetness, full red cherry harvesting is essential. As the consumer market increasingly values coffee quality, full red cherry harvesting has become a very common step in specialty coffee, so it's rarely highlighted in processing method descriptions.

Brewing Coffee Sweetness

When it comes to the coffee roasting stage, it's about expressing the substances stored in the coffee beans. Different roasting styles might cause subtle differences in flavor expression for the same coffee. For example, in some designated coffee bean roasting competitions, everyone's roasting degree might be similar, but due to different operational styles of roasters during the roasting process, the main tone of the coffee beans might be consistent, while the detailed flavors vary—some might pursue ultimate acidity, while others might focus on the balance between acidity and sweetness.

If we only talk about roasting degree, then FrontStreet Coffee believes that medium-roasted coffee performs best in sweetness expression. Everyone can also judge based on flavor descriptions—flavors described as "honeydew melon, grapes, slightly acidic fruits" and other sweet-leaning fruits can be identified as medium-light roasts leaning toward medium. Flavors described as "sugarcane, maple syrup, chocolate" and other obviously sweet flavors can be identified as medium-dark roasts leaning toward medium.

Brewing Out Coffee's Sweetness

Once the coffee beans are decided, it means the general direction is set and cannot be changed. But the detailed expression can still be adjusted through different brewing methods. Among these, how to brew out coffee's sweetness is a question of great concern to many.

Regarding specific brewing methods, FrontStreet Coffee has shared them in detail in previous articles, so here's a simple summary:

1. Appropriately increasing water temperature can enhance coffee's sweetness;

2. Pour-over in stages can increase coffee's sweetness and complexity;

3. The greater the force of stirring and tumbling the coffee powder layer, the easier it is to brew out coffee's sweetness, but it's also easier to brew out bitterness and off-flavors.

Important Notice :

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