How to Enjoy Black Coffee Without Bitterness: A Guide to Coffee Bean Bitterness and Pricing

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The Truth About Coffee Bitterness

Most people have a fixed impression of coffee: bitterness.

Bitter coffee, oh bitter coffee. Why would I choose bitter coffee instead of sweet milk tea?

The answer is simple: good specialty coffee is actually almost never bitter.

This contradicts the general impression of coffee. Not to mention black coffee without sugar or milk, even typical espresso drinks like cappuccinos, lattes, or even instant 3-in-1 coffee all have some degree of bitterness. How can we say that specialty coffee has no bitterness?

First, we must understand the sources of bitterness:

1. Over-roasting: Carbonization

During coffee roasting, high temperatures caramelize the starch in coffee beans, bringing out sweetness and body. Whether it's light, medium, or dark roast, the caramelization process is unavoidable—it's just the degree and duration of heating that leads to different expressions of sweetness.

If caramelization occurs at too high a temperature or for too long, it will burn and produce bitterness. This phenomenon is called carbonization. Just like sugar stuck to the surface of a pan, excessive heating turns sweetness into obvious burnt bitterness.

Surface carbonization is the main source of bitterness

Does this mean that dark roast always has burnt bitterness? Not necessarily—it just means the probability is higher.

Imagine stir-frying sugar in an iron pan. With high heat or prolonged cooking, the probability of sugar burning is indeed higher. But with quick stirring that allows the sugar to heat evenly, bitterness might not develop.

However, even with low heat or shorter time, if not carefully monitored, the sugar near the bottom of the pan will still carbonize and develop bitterness.

From this, we can see that bitterness is definitely not exclusive to dark roast. As long as the heating is uneven during roasting, the coffee surface easily receives excessive heat, causing surface carbonization and naturally creating bitterness.

Most non-specialty coffees use dark roasting to increase sweetness and mask obvious flavor defects from imperfect beans. Combined with careless attention during roasting, this often results in many coffee beans being burnt and carbonized, thus producing bitterness.

Excessive caramelization during roasting produces burnt bitterness

Unfortunately, bitterness itself is particularly prominent in our taste system. Therefore, even espresso drinks and 3-in-1 coffee that try to mask bitterness with lots of sugar and milk can still make people aware of its presence.

Not to mention that traditional black coffee is mostly dark roast, and at that time, roasting concepts were underdeveloped, leading to unawareness of surface carbonization. This has made people drink bitter coffee for over a decade—a truly strange yet widely accepted phenomenon.

2. Bitterness from chlorogenic acid conversion

The first point mentioned bitterness caused by carbonization, which is fundamentally terrible bitterness that makes people frown.

But just as acidity has two sides, bitterness also has a more acceptable form that can even add to flavor complexity. This "good" bitterness generally comes from chlorogenic acid.

Chlorogenic acid is one of the sources of acidity in coffee beans. During roasting, when heated, chlorogenic acid first converts to chlorogenic acid lactone, which has a mild, gentle bitterness.

Like coffee, cocoa also contains chlorogenic acid. When properly roasted, chocolate has a pleasant bitterness with rich flavor.

So excluding the terrible bitterness from carbonization, beans roasted below medium level might still have some bitterness, but it's not obvious and often doesn't stand out particularly when embedded in the complex flavors of fruit acids and sweetness.

This subtle bitterness in rich specialty coffee with high acidity and sweetness can reduce the cloying sweetness of beans, keep the palate refreshed, and even enhance the aftertaste's sweet return, strengthening complexity.

But this bitterness must not be excessive, otherwise it becomes a disaster, overpowering the sweet and sour sensations—that's putting the cart before the horse and killing good flavors.

In beans roasted beyond dark level, chemical reactions continue, with chlorogenic acid lactone further converting to phenylindane, which has a stronger bitterness. This bitterness is somewhat more severe.

Generally, phenylindane begins to form after the second crack. Typical dark roasts end around the second crack, so the proportion isn't too high and mixed with rich caramel sweetness, it's not particularly noticeable.

This bitterness, when properly controlled, might create a bittersweet impression (still primarily sweet, with bitterness not too high).

But if roasting continues past the second crack, producing very dark, oily ultra-dark roasts (or ultra-heavy roasts), the phenylindane proportion naturally becomes higher, making bitterness unavoidable. It becomes bitter with some sweetness, creating an uncomfortable mouthfeel—that's not normal.

The bitterness of ultra-dark roasts is amplified and hard to mask

3. Defective beans, rotten beans

When green coffee beans are of low grade, coffee cherries vary in quality, improper processing leads to rot, or poor storage conditions occur, coffee beans can acquire strange flavors that present uncomfortable bitterness after roasting.

This generally happens in cheaper beans. Specialty coffee usually receives careful attention, so the probability is relatively low.

Defective and rotten beans have astonishing destructive power

Often one bad bean ruins a whole pot of specialty coffee.

After understanding the sources of coffee bitterness, a natural question arises: Is the bitterness I taste from carbonization or chlorogenic acid conversion?

This question is very complex and difficult to identify with taste alone. Fortunately, this question isn't important at all—the key is whether the bitterness plays a comfortable or unpleasant role in the flavor profile.

As mentioned before, good specialty coffee is the coffee that isn't bitter—to use more precise terminology: good specialty coffee won't make you particularly aware of bitterness's existence.

Even chlorogenic acid converting to chlorogenic acid lactone, or even phenylindane and non-irritating carbonization, in appropriate proportions, might enhance flavor expression.

But I must emphasize that in today's specialty coffee market with strong fruit acidity and delicate aromas, using bitterness to add flavor is uncommon and not easy to handle, because:

1. Consumers don't rate bitterness highly (some even hate it).

2. If consumers brew it themselves, they might amplify the subtle bitterness, ruining the entire bag of beans.

Therefore, most shops still try to avoid bitterness, as it's not particularly popular.

A few shops that can carefully master the texture of bitterness—if you're lucky enough to encounter them—try to feel the interesting texture changes that bitterness brings. You might fall in love with this bittersweet flavor.

Finally, let me emphasize: if the bitterness in your coffee is strong or prominent enough to make you feel uncomfortable or strange, this is definitely not a good coffee.

Don't convince yourself that coffee is supposed to be bitter, and don't doubt whether you're a coffee novice who doesn't understand this bitterness. Good specialty coffee won't make you suffer—good flavors don't require such effort.

Additionally, bitterness differs from acidity—water doesn't easily dilute it, and it won't become sweet. So the best way to deal with unbearable bitterness is not to drink it. After all, rather than drinking bitter coffee, it's better to drink plain water...

Recommended Brands of Non-Bitter Coffee Beans

FrontStreet Coffee's non-bitter roasted coffee beans: washed Yirgacheffe coffee, Kenya AA coffee, Panama Geisha coffee, and others are fully guaranteed in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high value—half-pound (227g) bags cost only about 80-90 RMB. Calculated at 15g per pour-over coffee, one bag can make 15 cups, with each single-origin coffee costing only about 6 RMB. Compared to café prices of dozens of RMB per cup, this offers exceptional value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online shop services: https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473