The best coffee beans for you.

Acidity in coffee is not easy to define. Many words come to mind: lively, tangy, sour, juicy, sharp, bright, fruity, or sparkling. Compare the acidity of a peach to that of a lemon. We get a different sensation. Some forms of acidic sensation we find more pleasing than others. Acidity, combined with all the other characteristics of our coffee, can make your brew more exciting and improve the sensory experience. That is if you love acidity. What impacts the acidic sensation we experience in our coffee?

The washed (wet) process)

In the washing process, the ripe coffee cherries are de-pulped, meaning the fruit flesh surrounding the coffee beans is removed. The coffee beans are then soaked in water. This soaking process leeches sugars from the bean. With fewer sugars in the coffee bean, you have an increased perception of acidity in your cup.

The natural (dry) process

In the natural process, the coffee bean is dried in the fruit flesh, leaving the coffee cherry intact. Sugars from the fruit flesh pass into the coffee bean, and the perceived acidity of the coffee is neutralised or balanced out.

Coffees grown at higher altitudes (above 1500 meters) are denser and have higher acidity. Why is that? The cooler climate at higher altitudes slows the growth of the coffee trees, and the fruit (where the coffee bean is grown) development makes it denser and tastier.

Throughout the roasting process, citric and malic acids diminish. Hence the darker the roast level, the lower the acidity. Conversely, lighter roasted coffees retain the acidity.

If you prefer more mellow, low acidity, the best coffee beans for you are grown at lower altitudes, naturally processed, and medium to dark roast. We suggest you try our most popular single-origin coffee Brazil Fazenda Pinhal or our Little Ripper crowd-pleaser espresso blend. 

If you are after good acidity, washed coffees grown at high altitudes are for you.  Even better, if you are a devotee of filter brewing, try lighter roasted coffees. They’ll let the acidity shine.

Customers often ask for a strong cup of coffee. The truth is that you are sitting in the driver’s seat when preparing your cup of coffee, how strong you’d like it. How so?

Take a roasted coffee bean. Approximately a maximum of 30% of that coffee bean when ground up and then coming in contact with water is soluble. To extract as many as possible of these so-called solubles depends on your grind size, water temperature, extraction method etc. - to name just a few.

When you start your extraction, lots of solubles are extracted and are very concentrated in your espresso. As the extraction continues and more water flows through the coffee bed, the rate of the extracted solubles declines. That means you are adding more water with fewer solubles ending up in your cup. As a result, your coffee becomes weaker.

So if you are seeking a ‘strong’ cup, aim for recipes with lower yields. For each gram of ground coffee, you want less espresso in your cup.

You might find that your strong extracted coffee lacks sweetness. For more sweetness, you need to extract more from your coffee. That extraction will only happen with more water and you end up with a less strong cup. Unfortunately, strength and extraction move in opposite directions.

An espresso has more strength than a pour-over coffee. Immersion brewing methods such as the clever dripper, plunger or inverted Aeropress produce more strength than pour-over coffee because the contact time between water and ground coffee is longer and more soluble compounds can be dissolved into your brew.

Grind size has an enormous impact on the strength of your coffee. For example, if you brew your coffee in a coffee maker (batch brew such as Moccamaster) at home, you'll find using finer ground coffee results in more strength than brewed with a coarser grind size. Why is that? With a finer grind, you slow the flow rate, which means your brew water is in longer contact with the coffee grounds to extract its soluble compounds. A finer grind size also creates a larger surface area for the water to dissolve the soluble compounds. So finer grind means more strength.

Be careful not to grind too fine, as you otherwise extract too many of the bitter-soluble compounds into your cup.

Vary the ratio of ground coffee to brewing water. For more strength, use more coffee and same amount of water or the same amount of coffee and less water. For example, instead of using 16g of ground coffee per 250 ml of brewing water for your V60 pour-over brewing, try 20g per 250ml of brewing water.

If you have been buying coffee from supermarket shelves, you might be accustomed to a strength rating on your pack of coffee. Let me burst that bubble. This strength rating has nothing to do with the strength of your coffees, as strength depends on your brewing method, grind size and amount of coffee you use in your brew.

A high strength rating on your supermarket coffee packaging often means that the particular coffee has been roasted rather dark, and you can expect more bitterness and burnt notes – flavours you might associate with a ‘strong coffee’. Try to avoid coffees with strength ratings on them. Most likely, quality and flavour profiles have not been the primary focus.