How to Reduce Bitterness in Pour-Over Yirgacheffe Coffee_What to Do When Yirgacheffe Tastes Bitter_Yirgacheffe Recommendations

Coffee Extraction Theory: Understanding Bitterness

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

In coffee extraction theory, the dissolution of coffee liquid extracts more bitterness and astringency in the third stage.

Therefore, theoretically, the brewing time should not be too long (complete time should not exceed 3 minutes) to avoid over-extraction in the third stage. However, there are actually good things in the third stage too - some sweetness and body finish are also present there.

Secondly, "improperities" during the brewing process may lead to the premature and excessive appearance of substances such as lactic acid, chlorogenic acid, and caffeine, resulting in bitterness in taste.

These "improperities" could be excessive water flow causing agitation of the coffee grounds; it could also be that the grind is too fine, leading to over-extraction due to excessive contact with water; or it could be too high a temperature (above 96°C).

If the water-to-coffee ratio is between 1:16-18, brewing time is 1-3 minutes (for 1-4 servings), and water temperature is around 92-94°C, yet bitterness still occurs, I would boldly guess there are only two reasons.

One is that during brewing, you excessively agitate the coffee grounds in the water, and large amounts of water flood over the grounds.

The second is... try switching to Yirgacheffe roasted by someone else - it's possible for a roaster to make Yirgacheffe bitter!

Sources of Bitterness

The bitterness may be caused by the following factors:

1. Some smaller particles (fine grounds) are extracted from beginning to end
2. The overall grind is too fine, causing water flow to be unable to drain quickly

Solutions

Therefore, I would additionally do the following two things:

1. When the water injection reaches about 100g, shake the V60 filter cup to allow some fine grounds to adhere to higher positions on the filter cup wall
2. During subsequent water injection, if the water flow is not fast, discard the last bit of water along with the filter paper

Remove bitterness as much as possible, at all costs, without considering the final flavor.

Extraction Timeline Method

Solution: Using a 90-second coffee brewing timeline as reference, divide it into three 30-second segments. The first segment has more flavor, the second segment has more sugars, esters, and other elements, while the third segment has more fibrous bitter macromolecules.

Only extract the first segment.

There are many more specific methods: lower water temperature / remove bloom / reduce water flow agitation / reduce brewing time / lower coffee-to-water ratio / coarser grind / sieve the grounds...

Yirgacheffe Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's washed & sun-dried Yirgacheffe coffee beans offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high value - a half-pound (227g) package costs only around 80-90 yuan. Calculating at 15g of coffee per cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 5-6 yuan. Compared to coffee shop prices that often reach tens of yuan per cup, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

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 store 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