What Does Coffee's Soup Color Mean? Can You Drink Cloudy Coffee? Why Is Some Coffee Clear While Others Are Cloudy? What Materials Are Coffee Filters Made Of? What Are the Advantages of Coffee Filter Paper?

The Color of Coffee: Can Coffee's "Soup Color" Determine Quality?

Customers often discuss coffee-related topics at FrontStreet Coffee's stores, such as coffee origins, brewing parameters, steps, or coffee flavors. Occasionally, some friends explore more niche topics—for example, the "soup color" of coffee.

"Soup color" is a professional term from tea evaluation, referring to the color and visual characteristics presented after tea is brewed. This is one of the standards people use to judge tea quality. So for coffee, can soup color also serve as a standard for determining quality?

Obviously not. Coffee's soup color is influenced by many factors, such as extraction method, filtering equipment, coffee's roast degree, and coffee concentration. These have little correlation with coffee quality, so coffee's soup color cannot serve as a defining standard for its quality. However, cloudy coffee inevitably tends to make friends associate it with poor quality. So today FrontStreet Coffee will share how these factors affect coffee's soup color.

Deep vs. Light, Black vs. Red: Coffee Color

FrontStreet Coffee will start by discussing coffee color! I believe everyone has noticed that when using the same parameters to brew different coffees, these coffees don't have identical colors! For example, some are brownish-red, while others lean toward black. The main determinant of coffee color is the roast degree—when coffee is roasted darker, the brewed color becomes blacker; when coffee is roasted lighter, the brewed color is lighter. The image below shows two pour-overs brewed by FrontStreet Coffee using light roast coffee beans Frontsteet Ethiopia·Horse King (left) and dark roast coffee beans Frontsteet Sumatra·Golden Mandheling (right). Everyone can compare their differences.

In addition, coffee concentration also affects color. When coffee concentration is higher, the color saturation of the coffee is deeper; when coffee concentration is lower, the color is lighter. We can see this clearly from the difference between espresso and Americano coffee.

The "Cleanliness" of Coffee

Next is coffee's cleanliness (referring to the visual characteristics of the coffee liquid)! Many friends still have this misconception: when coffee color is darker, the coffee will be cloudier; when coffee color is lighter, the coffee will be cleaner. In reality, coffee cleanliness is not affected by color depth but is related to the water-soluble degree of extracted substances. For example, with pour-over coffee, when we use filter paper for brewing, the final coffee obtained is often transparent and clean, appearing very clear. Whereas if we use metal filters or flannel filter cloth for brewing, the resulting coffee will be somewhat cloudier by comparison, not as transparent. The reason for the difference between the former and the latter lies in the filtering performance of the filtering tools.

In the previous article about non-woven filter paper, FrontStreet Coffee introduced that filter paper has excellent filtering performance, capable of filtering out most substances other than coffee, such as coffee grounds and oils. Therefore, coffee brewed with it is very clean. Tools like metal filters and non-woven filter paper, due to their larger gaps, cannot filter some extremely fine coffee grounds and oils, so the brewed coffee becomes cloudy due to the presence of these substances. The cloudiness of espresso, moka pot coffee, and French press coffee is also caused by this.

However, this doesn't mean these tools are inferior to filter paper. The presence of some fine particles can enhance coffee's body, while oils can impart more aroma to coffee. Although not as clean to drink as coffee brewed with filter paper, they will have more outstanding body and aroma (just a little). In summary, we can understand why coffee's soup color cannot serve as a judgment standard for coffee quality—it only reflects coffee's roast degree, concentration, and the filtering performance of tools used. Avoid making sweeping generalizations~

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

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