How to Brew a Sweet, Low-Acidity Coffee! What Factors Affect Coffee's Sweetness and Body?

In our daily coffee service, whenever an unfamiliar face comes for coffee, FrontStreet Coffee always asks, "Would you prefer something acidic or non-acidic?" In the past, most people would answer "not acidic" without hesitation, sometimes emphasizing that a bit of bitterness was acceptable. But in today's increasingly rich specialty coffee culture, more and more customers are actively seeking acidic coffees. Acidic coffees have become the favorite of many enthusiasts, and light-roasted beans have particularly risen to become the "hot favorites" in the pour-over world.

However, ultimately, compared to purely "sour" coffee, most people actually prefer a taste that's acidic with sweetness. This is why people are always obsessed with how to brew light-roasted beans to bring out their sweetness, or exploring how to achieve high sweetness in coffee extraction.

Sweetness is Inherent in Beans and Developed Through Roasting

Those who have participated in cupping should know that acidity and sweetness are listed consecutively, indicating that during the slurping stage, these two sensations stimulate the taste buds simultaneously. When we say coffee is sweet, besides referring to the sweet sensation on the palate, we're actually referring to sweet aromas detected by the sense of smell. Therefore, from a tasting perspective, only acidic coffees with a sweet and fragrant foundation can be considered a high-quality flavor experience. To achieve the right balance of acidity and sweetness, roasting plays a crucial role.

During the roasting process, from the moment green coffee beans begin heating until roasting is complete, sweetness is the first flavor to develop, followed closely by acidity. According to the law of flavor development, as the roast level deepens (with increased time), the sweetness of coffee continues to rise until it reaches a peak (typically in medium-dark roasts), after which it begins to accelerate in decline. Therefore, purely from a roasting perspective regarding sweetness, the medium roast range often contains the most "sweetness."

As ordinary consumers, while we cannot influence the roaster's approach to balancing acidity and sweetness, we can judge the "sweet content" of beans based on flavor descriptions. For instance, coffees whose flavors are dominated by mildly acidic fruits like honeydew melon, dried fruit, honey peach, mango, guava, and sweet orange are typically sweeter than acidic types. They often come with descriptors like fermentation sensation, maturity, and fruit candy. In contrast, coffees dominated by more acidic fruits like lemon, passion fruit, plum, and similar varieties usually have more acidity than sweetness.

Acidity Extracts Before Sweetness

The coffee extraction process can be divided into three stages. The first stage most easily releases light molecular aromatic compounds, such as floral aromas and bright fruit acids. The second stage extracts a large amount of caramelized compounds, with flavors related to sweetness like vanilla, sucrose, chocolate, nuts, and cream taking the upper hand. The final stage begins to release larger molecular compounds that are more difficult to dissolve, which mainly lead to undesirable characteristics in coffee, such as heavy body, woody notes, sharpness, and bitterness.

Therefore, brewing sweet coffee is essentially about obtaining a higher proportion of sweet substances, which means finding a reasonable approach to "suppress bitterness and enhance sweetness." Returning to today's topic, if you want to increase the sweetness of light-roasted beans while preserving the wonderful aromatic compounds from the early stages, you must first ensure control over the acidic aromas in the first stage, followed by mastering the key extraction part of the second stage.

Building on yesterday's article, FrontStreet Coffee has selected a sun-dried coffee bean that emphasizes sweet characteristics to demonstrate how to achieve a high-sweetness, low-acidity profile in brewing.

How to Brew Light-Roasted Sun-Dried Coffee for Sweetness?

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned yesterday, sun-dried processed coffees possess complex and varied fruit flavors while carrying subtle fermentation notes with wine-like characteristics and sweet aromas. Therefore, in terms of parameters and techniques, besides highlighting the acidity and sweetness of floral and fruit flavors, we also need to enhance the overall body and richness of the coffee. FrontStreet Coffee achieves this by widening the coffee-to-water ratio, increasing the water temperature by 1-2°C, adding more pour segments, and pairing these with specific techniques.

Coffee Beans: Colombia · Margarita Estate Sun-Dried Geisha
Dose: 15 grams
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:16
Grind Size: Regular fine grind (EK43s setting 10)
Filter: V60
Water Temperature: 93°C

Pouring Segments: Four pours (30g/70g/70g/70g)

First Pour: Pour 30g of hot water for a 30-second bloom. Ensure all coffee grounds come into contact with water and are in the same pre-extraction state.

After 30 seconds, pour the second segment of 70g with a small water flow (4ml/s) in clockwise small circles from the center. The purpose is to continue degassing the coffee while raising the coffee bed to about 3/5 of the filter cup height. This should take approximately 55 seconds, with the scale showing 100g.

When the water level drops and nearly exposes the coffee bed, you can begin the third pour of 70g, maintaining the same slow water flow of 4ml/s. At this stage, the circular motion can be slightly wider than the second pour, aiming to extract more sweet substances. This should take approximately 1 minute 15-20 seconds, with the scale showing 170g. Be careful not to pour too quickly to avoid raising the water level too high, and try to maintain a balanced rhythm between drainage rate and pouring width.

When the coffee bed is exposed again, you can pour the final segment of 70g using the same technique as the second pour. Try to control the water flow to avoid too wide circles, as this can scatter the coffee bed and cause under-extraction. This should take approximately 1 minute 45 seconds, with a final total water volume of 240g and a total brewing time of 2 minutes 12 seconds.

The sun-dried Geisha brewed using FrontStreet Coffee's method exhibits a distinct clear sweetness upon first sip, with ripe fruit flavors of blackcurrant, honeydew melon, sugarcane, and blueberry jam. Compared to the usual three-pour method, the acidity is much gentler, the body is richer, and the aftertaste is more persistent. Even as the temperature drops, the various fruit sweetness notes remain full, and the finish is accompanied by a subtle rose aroma.

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