April 2020

When someone is talking about acidity in coffee, they are referring to the range of flavors the coffee offers and not pH levels. Acidity consists of citric, malic, or tartaric acids the bean expresses when you brew it. The quality of acidity shows up in the flavors you taste. Lighter or Single-origin roasts are more likely to express smoother flavors, while darker roasts are more robust and often mentioned as brighter.  How coffee is roasted can change the perception of that bean’s acidity. Darker roasts can show caramelized sugars, as lighter roasts show more fruity or juicy flavors.  If you want to see the difference in acidity (pH-wise), try putting a cup of soda, orange juice, wine, and water next to each other. This will make it easy to tell how coffee’s pH level of acid is lower than most beverages you consume daily.  

Your beloved coffee wants to taste its best.  Open the bag and smell the aroma of coffee is like no other, yet your coffee has an enemy.  This enemy takes the freshness out of your delightful treat and the flavors start tasting flat and unrecognizable.  So lets talk about the 5 different things that reduce the freshness of your coffee: Air, moisture, heat, light and grinding (yes grinding.  Give us some latitude here and hear us out). To preserve the flavor of your freshly roasted beans store them in an air tight, opaque container at room temperature. Be careful and avoid your beans being close to appliances that may heat up your beans or storage containers that that allow a lot of light.  Like wine, coffee likes a cool place where the temperature is consistent and not humid.  Avoid clear canisters that make your coffee look great and will compromise the flavor and make sure the canister is air tight.  Grind when you plan on using the beans and grind only what you plan on using.  As soon as the beans are ground, they start loosing their flavor immediately and you will taste the difference within hours if not sooner.