Is Blue Mountain Coffee Well-Balanced? What Does Coffee Balance Mean? Coffee with Balanced Sweet, Sour, and Bitter Notes

The concept of balance feels ethereal, unlike sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, or cleanliness—sensations that are immediately perceptible. Balance functions more like a coordinating role.

What is balance?

Many people believe that所谓平衡就是酸味、苦味、甜味的相互制衡，达到一杯平衡的咖啡。现实中也不少人在品尝了一杯没有明显风味、不太苦不太酸的咖啡，会赋予这杯咖啡"平衡"的评价。若以这个"平衡"等同于平衡度，这也未免小看平衡度了吧！

So, what exactly is balance?

According to COE cupping standards, balance is scored after cleanliness, sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, flavor, and aftertaste—making it the final scoring item. It represents a comprehensive evaluation derived from the coordination of these preceding scoring criteria.

To give a simple example, if in cupping, a coffee bean exhibits excellent cleanliness, sweetness, acidity, and flavor, but has a mouthfeel as thin as water, then points would be deducted from the balance score.

In other words, balance refers to the harmonious coordination of various elements in a cup of coffee (not just taste), creating a comfortable overall impression without any jarring sensations. Therefore, a coffee with balanced sweet, sour, and bitter notes doesn't necessarily have better balance than one with pronounced acidity.

What are the characteristics of coffee with poor balance (imbalance)?

The most obvious manifestation of an imbalanced coffee is extreme taste sensations such as excessive acidity or bitterness. Such extremes often make the entire coffee experience jarring and unpleasant.

Excessive acidity can also reveal astringency and sharp sourness—like unsweetened lemon tea, which is overwhelmingly sour and astringent, but becomes refreshingly sweet with the addition of appropriate sugar. This demonstrates the power of balance.

In roasting, if one exclusively pursues the rich fruit characteristics brought by extremely light roasting, they might neglect the coffee's body, resulting in imbalance in the cup's performance.

Of course, pursuing body through slow roasting can easily lead to excessive roasting time that diminishes the coffee's flavor, also considered imbalanced in the cup's performance.

In brewing, if one excessively emphasizes fruity acidity during brewing, it can easily cause the coffee to become imbalanced. Improper brewing can create sharp acidity or other stimulating flavors that make the entire coffee imbalanced and difficult to drink. It might also result in insufficient body or produce astringency, where delicious flavor is marred by textural defects, affecting balance.

Well-balanced coffee

Many coffee beans have outstanding qualities. For instance, various anaerobic processed coffee beans with unique flavors most easily attract the masses. Dark-roasted coffee with rich body is deeply loved by coffee connoisseurs. For well-balanced coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes Blue Mountain No. 1 is most suitable for this standard. In terms of flavor, there are countless exceptional newcomers since 2000. In terms of body, it must bow to Mandheling.

However, Blue Mountain coffee offers a clean mouthfeel, nutty and chocolate flavors, balanced acidity, sweetness, and bitterness, medium body, and an aftertaste that reveals sweetness. Although each individual aspect isn't the most exceptional, the coordination between these five elements creates an experience without any jarring or lacking sensations. Perhaps today, Blue Mountain is considered a "very ordinary" coffee, but this "ordinary" coffee never becomes tiresome to drink—perhaps this is the charm of balance!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473