What Does "Bright" in "Bright Coffee Acidity" Actually Mean? How to Properly Taste and Evaluate Coffee?

Understanding Coffee Acidity: What Does "Bright" Really Mean?

When evaluating a cup of coffee, we use various adjectives to describe its texture, allowing others to receive more three-dimensional information. For example, when describing coffee's mouthfeel, we use words like smooth and mellow to express the tactile experience in the mouth; or when describing a coffee's aroma, we use words like rich, delicate, and fresh to indicate the type of aroma.

However, not all adjectives are so straightforward. For instance, among the adjectives describing coffee acidity, there are terms like "bright" and "lively" that can be quite puzzling. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share what exactly "bright" means in the phrase often heard from baristas: "This coffee's acidity is very bright."

Understanding Acidity vs. Acid Quality

Setting aside the term "bright" for now, FrontStreet Coffee will first help everyone understand the meaning of "acidity quality" (酸质). Because although FrontStreet Coffee has shared many articles, friends still often confuse "acidity quality" (酸质) with "acidity level" (酸度). First, we need to know that acidity quality is not equal to acidity level. The term "acidity level" describes the intensity and quantity of acid; while "acidity quality" refers to the style and texture of the acid. It encompasses not only the intensity of taste but also includes mouthfeel, aroma, and other sensory experiences that can combine with flavor, though acid is the main component. To put it more simply, it's about whether this acid is comfortable and pleasing to the palate.

Coffee's acidity quality is influenced by many factors, such as variety, cultivation, processing, and roasting (interested friends can search for previous articles on this topic, so we won't elaborate too much here), so different coffees have different acidity qualities. Good acidity quality can make people feel comfortable and pleased, while bad acidity quality can make people frown and be difficult to accept. Everyone can recall the different feelings when encountering various acidic beverages! For example, yogurt (with sugar added), the acid we perceive from yogurt is very mild, and drinking it comes with obvious milky aroma and thick texture, giving people a very comfortable feeling. So combining taste, aroma, and mouthfeel, we can define this acid's quality/style as pleasing: round. The same applies to round acidity in coffee; whereas if the acid we taste from coffee is like rotten sour fruit, making people feel very unpleasant, very sharp and uncomfortable, then its acid quality/style can be defined as: sharp/stimulating. This brings us to the question: what kind of feeling does "bright" in bright acidity quality refer to?

What Does "Bright" Mean in Coffee?

It's quite simple! The literal meaning of "bright" is usually based on visual perception, referring to abundant light, transparent space, or high clarity, high visibility, vivid colors, and other visual experiences that can bring open, pleasant, and positive psychological feelings. When it's used as a taste adjective, its meaning is similar to the feelings brought by vision, just脱离 from its physical meaning of light. Simply put, "bright acidity" describes a coffee's acid as very clean, very clear, with relatively high recognition, able to bring people a vitality and pleasant psychological feeling. (It can be used to describe objects other than coffee as well)

Usually, the taste characteristic of this acidity quality is that it has a relatively high acidity level, which is why it can have sufficient recognition. However, this acid is not as stimulating as drinking plain vinegar because there's enough sweetness supporting it from behind. It's like lemonade with sugar added has much higher acceptability than freshly squeezed lemon juice with nothing added. So it can also be understood that this coffee's taste has relatively high balance. Secondly, this coffee will have a relatively high cleanliness! The flavor expression is not turbid or blurry. Because the coffee itself doesn't contain any off-flavors, the coffee's acid/flavor is clear and transparent. In addition, "bright" acidity quality also symbolizes that the coffee's aroma is of the fresh type. Because only non-heavy, non-oppressive aromas can make us produce "vitality" and "pleasantness" psychological feelings. Finally, the mouthfeel - only when the coffee's mouthfeel is not so thick, relatively light, can the acidity quality be crowned with the "bright" style.

Coffees with Bright Acidity

When we think a coffee's acidity quality is very bright, we usually associate it with citrus fruits like lemon, citrus, grapefruit, or other fruit flavors like raspberry, blackcurrant, and pineapple. To borrow words from an online netizen, it's those fruit categories (not all) that make a "pop" sound when you bite into them, then you can feel freshness and tartness. We often can capture this flavor type or bright acidity quality in coffees from regions like Ethiopia, Kenya, Panama, and Colombia. So if everyone also wants to experience bright acidity from coffee, you might as well try coffees from these regions. For example, Kenya · Assalia, Ethiopia · Eto, and Esmeralda · Diamond Mountain from FrontStreet Coffee's bean list are all excellent choices.

Important Notice :

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