Why Does Coffee Have a Soy Sauce Flavor? What Are the Differences Between Various Processing Methods? How Do Natural and Anaerobic Coffees Differ?

As everyone knows, green coffee beans produce an enormous variety of aromatic compounds after roasting. For example, white floral notes, citrus fruit flavors. These rich aromas are extensively released when we grind the beans into powder, allowing our sense of smell to receive and perceive them. Because the aroma is so refreshing, many coffee shops will let customers first smell the dry fragrance emitted by the coffee powder before brewing.

However, not all aromas can make people feel refreshed after smelling them. For example, some coffee beans emit a strong soybean paste aroma after being ground into powder. For most people, this is a smell that makes them frown, want to stay away, and cannot understand. Then the question follows: "Why does coffee have a soybean paste taste?"

What is "Soybean Paste Taste"?

The so-called soybean paste taste could be described in a thousand different ways by a thousand people. But generally speaking, it describes the coffee aroma that has rich, savory notes similar to fermented bean paste or soy sauce used in home cooking. There are two factors that cause this flavor. The most common source of soybean paste taste is mainly produced by fermentation during coffee bean processing.

Regardless of what processing method is used for the beans, coffee beans will undergo fermentation during processing. Through fermentation, the beans can convert stored substances into flavors. The lighter the fermentation, the fewer substances are converted, and the coffee made can retain more of its original taste; the heavier the fermentation, the more substances are converted, and the richer the final coffee flavor will be. And when fermentation reaches a certain level, the beans will produce a certain fermented taste!

Then, if you choose to continue deepening the fermentation degree, when the flavor reaches a certain level, the original fermented wine taste will transform into the aroma of soy sauce and fermented black beans - this is the so-called soybean paste taste. And anaerobic processing is a heavy-hit area for soybean paste taste because their fermentation degree is deeper than traditional processing methods.

We can also understand the formation of this flavor as the effect of aroma concentration being too high and too intense. This is the same principle as when we brew coffee that's too strong and can't taste the flavors. Because it's too concentrated, the senses cannot distinguish the flavors at first, so they simply package the information and transmit it to the brain, and then the soybean paste taste appears.

Discovering Hidden Aromas

Similarly, if we smell carefully, we can reduce the impact of random packaging by senses due to too high concentration. For example, the 90+ Eleta Geisha currently sold by FrontStreet Coffee, although it has a strong soybean paste taste at first sniff, if you are patient and smell it for a while longer, you can clearly feel the rich aroma of purple grapes and longan. The layers when drinking are also very rich and full. So, everyone cannot be deceived by the surface created by the beans, thereby ignoring a delicious coffee with rich layers!

In addition, we need to know that not all anaerobic processing will produce strong soybean paste taste. Anaerobic processing also has many types, and we can simply classify them into heavy fermentation and light fermentation. Light anaerobic coffee beans will not develop obvious fermented taste because the fermentation degree is lighter, and may even make people mistakenly think it's no different from ordinary natural processed coffee. The Geisha from Hartmann Estate is a very good example! Although it uses anaerobic natural processing, whether smelled or tasted, it's a natural processed coffee with a light fermented taste and extremely clean!

Roasting Factors

Another factor that can cause soybean paste taste in coffee is improper roasting! When we use too much heat during roasting, causing the bean surface to convert too quickly, it will make the beans develop a burnt, savory, paste-like flavor. In this case, it belongs to negative flavors. But because the probability of such mistakes is almost impossible for major merchants, FrontStreet Coffee will not elaborate further here to avoid causing unnecessary misunderstandings~

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