How to Make Pour-Over Coffee Taste Sweeter and Recommended High-Sweetness Coffee Beans

Black coffee can be bitter for some people and sour for others. But when you hear someone say, "Wow, this coffee is so sweet!" you'll probably make this expression👇

"How can black coffee be sweet?"

FrontStreet Coffee has also explained in articles analyzing the chemical composition of green coffee beans that sucrose and polysaccharides account for 50% of green coffee beans. However, the vast majority of polysaccharides (carbohydrates) don't taste sweet and are difficult to dissolve in water. The remaining approximately 8% sucrose-based substances can display sweetness.

This is just at the green bean level. After roasting, these substances also change. For example, sucrose converts to caramel. Therefore, roasted coffee doesn't actually possess the sweetness provided by pure sugars.

If you've interacted with some coffee professionals, you've probably heard statements like "this coffee bean... (roasted this way) will become sweeter" or "this coffee bean... (brewed this way) can highlight sweetness"!

The Sweetness in Coffee Isn't Actually Sweet

When tasting black coffee and experiencing a sugar-like sweetness, it doesn't come from taste sweetness but rather from flavor sweetness. This is easy to understand - in a cup of coffee, we can easily detect bitterness and acidity because these are perceived by taste buds.

We find it difficult to detect sweetness largely because we rely on our sense of smell to perceive sweet aromas. For example, when tasting Yirgacheffe or Geisha coffee, we can often "taste" the sweetness of honey and honey pomelo. This comes from furanone (the source of caramel and maple flavors) and furanone (the source of roasted apple and honey flavors) produced during light roasting.

Similarly, when we taste dark-roasted Mandheling, Brazilian, or Blue Mountain coffees and detect sweet flavors like caramel and maple, it's for the same reason.

Can Different Brewing Methods Make Coffee Sweeter?

Sweetness is an irresistible flavor for humans. Including FrontStreet Coffee, many friends who enjoy sharing brewing methods have shared experiences on how to brew coffee to make it sweeter. In fact, regardless of how much the specific methods vary among different approaches, their core principle is the same: extracting more acidic and sweet substances within a specified time. Therefore, there's no need to overly worship certain techniques. Take your time, observe details patiently, study the principles, and perhaps next time you'll be the one on stage sharing your brewing method. (Getting off topic here)

-Back to the main topic-

Therefore, to taste the sweetness in black coffee, you actually need coordination between your nose and tongue. The tongue is responsible for perceiving the five basic tastes - anything beyond these five tastes is not its domain. We know that the nose is connected to the oral cavity. Everyone is familiar with orthonasal olfaction - that's when you bring your nose close to smell. The key is retronasal olfaction: when coffee enters the mouth, aromas travel from the throat back to the nasal cavity, allowing us to smell the fragrances.

For example, when we determine whether a fruit is a tangerine or an orange, we don't rely on taste buds to distinguish their acidity. In most cases, we identify them by their aromas (tangerines and oranges have very distinct aromatic differences).