How-to tangy coffee
December 17, 2016 7:35 PM   Subscribe

I drink mostly bad gas station coffee. A few times, I've had coffee from proper coffee shops that tastes a bit tangy. I really like this. What is it that gives the coffee this tanginess/slight-sourness? How do I make this at home?

I currently have no coffee setup at home, so I'm starting from scratch here. I have hot water. Thanks!
posted by pilibeen to Food & Drink (19 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
There's a lot of variables at work for why coffee specifically tastes the way they do - the main factors are: extraction time, water temperature, coarseness of grind, amount of coffee, and acidity of the coffee itself (relating to bean origin and roast).

For the most part, tangy notes comes from the acidity of the coffee coming out first when brewed (which normally requires bitterness to balance it out with proper extraction) so deliberately underextracting your coffee will lead to more tangy notes. You can do this by experimenting with coarser grinds (less surface area slows extraction), using more coffee grounds while keeping the amount of water the same, increasing water temperature when brewing, and if using a French press, steeping less time than recommended. Lighter roasts are also said to be more acidic.

It might be helpful to brew a standard by the book cup to use as your control. Getting a French press or a chemex and a coffee grinder will be your first steps to being able to control these variables.
posted by Karaage at 7:51 PM on December 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


I think it depends a lot on the beans too. I would experiment with light, medium and dark roasts and see what you like best. I would guess a lighter roast would have more of those acid notes. Most fancier coffee will tell you the tasting notes, just like wine. Pick one that has notes that sound interesting to you.

This coffee mentions "tart red currant" as one of the notes, that might give you the tang you're looking for. You might want to try even just getting the different roasts at Starbucks or equivalent to see what type of roast you like without committing to buying a $15 bag of each...
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 8:01 PM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


You might also be describing differences in how coffee is roasted. Gas station coffee (which I prefer) tends to be a light or medium roast (although these days most highway-level gas stations also have a dark roast option, usually negelected and under-utilized so less fresh). Most Starbucks-type places serve darker roasts even as their basic drip coffee. Acidity explains sharpness or tang, but roasting affects bitterness and sometimes imparts a "burned" flavor (to my taste).
posted by spitbull at 8:02 PM on December 17, 2016


I'd say find a cup you like at Starbucks or equivalent and then buy the coffee -- most shops sell the beans that they serve as beverages. Then experiment with coffee making techniques knowing you have the coffee itself matched up. The biggest part of it is that different coffee varietals simply taste different. You like what you like.
posted by spitbull at 8:05 PM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think African coffees have a lovely citrusiness to them, as well as Sumatra varietals.
posted by annathea at 8:29 PM on December 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Ethiopian beans.
posted by capricorn at 9:03 PM on December 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


Gas station coffee (which I prefer) tends to be a light or medium roast

This isn't exactly right. They may have something slightly lighter than dark, but it won't be "light" compared to anything you'd find at a third-wave shop.

Really, you're going to want to find out how coffees you've liked have been brewed. Pour-over? French press? Then get that kind of setup at home. Plus you'll need a burr grinder (a handheld Hario is a great deal at $50). Most importantly though are fresh beans, ground when you're ready to brew. If your beans are >2-3 weeks old, you're not going to get fantastic results.
posted by paulcole at 9:31 PM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


When I've talked to coffee people, they describe this sour taste as 'bright' and 'acidic'. So, you may want to look for those terms when looking at coffee descriptions.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:00 PM on December 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


Just a heads-up, cold brew is low acid.
posted by aniola at 10:09 PM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Tangy roasts often come from beans that have been washed. Also, Central American and Mexican beans tend to be brighter and more tangy than darker roasts are.

I would ask your favorite coffee place what the roast is, and how to best brew it at home.
posted by dancing_angel at 10:57 PM on December 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


If you have a fancy-ish grocery store near you that sells coffee beans in bulk and lets you grind them there (actually, even a Trader Joe's normally has this), you could buy a lot of small quantities of different types of beans to experiment with. (And I agree with dancing_angel that your description fits what I think of with Mexican coffee beans.)
posted by lazuli at 11:14 PM on December 17, 2016


I agree with the suggestions for Mexican coffee beans, and I'd also suggest trying Hawaiian if you ever come across some for sale.
posted by mikek at 11:24 PM on December 17, 2016


Karaage's answer is a very good one. The easiest variables to control are beans, roast and extraction time. The interesting thing is that you can balance these against each other to find what you want. So, e.g., using a darker roast might enable you to get a decent result from a less complete extraction, enabling you to bring out the acid notes without producing something insipid.

Equipment: I worked as a barista for a few years, and, having tried applying that experience to various different home methods, have found that I can get good control over my results in a cafetiere ('French press' in the US and some other other places). For your purposes, I advise the use of a 8+ cup cafetiere, even if you're only half filling it. You want the broadest diameter jug you can find, to spread the grounds out and avoid too much pressure in the plunger action.

Method: I'd suggest first trying using a small amount of coffee (maybe 1 tablespoon per 3 or 4 cups), and pouring all the water over at once. Give the grounds one single stir to make sure they mixed in, and then leave the thing alone for maybe 2 minutes, so that the grounds can settle of their own accord. Then just push the plunger down. You should get no resistance except that of the water itself. This will produce a very light extraction.

Beans: A number of people have suggested trying African beans. I concur. But don't be too hidebound on type, source or roast.. Probably start with a medium roast and work up. Darker roasts can bring out acidity as well as base notes, and I think it's at least worth trying a smaller amount of a dark French-style roast as one of your approaches.

Something worth noting is that, on an espresso machine, one way to get tangy coffee is to put a lot of water through at fairly low pressure, because you continue getting acidity out of the beans even after other flavours have been extracted. You could try reusing a portion of the coffee grounds from your last batch in your new batch (say 50/50 old grounds to new). Again, much will depend on your beans and your extraction, but possibly worth trying.

The key will be to try a few different things here. You're looking for the flavour you like, and anyone else's guess as to what you're even looking for will be worse than your own. My suggestion is enjoy the experimenting process and keep notes of what you try; you will probably find worrying pretty quickly.
posted by howfar at 11:35 PM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


If you have a fancy-ish grocery store near you that sells coffee beans in bulk and lets you grind them there (actually, even a Trader Joe's normally has this)

Just remembered that Trader Joe's generally only lets you grind full bags of coffee. Whole Foods or various local organic-friendly markets often let you grind a smaller amount of coffee.
posted by lazuli at 11:42 PM on December 17, 2016


Just wanted to hop in and repeat the comment above - Central American coffee is often described as bright and tangy, with citrus (or berry) notes. They're often given a lighter roast because it helps bring these flavors out more.

As for preparation methods for the best flavor extraction: hand pour or french press would be my suggestions. Whichever method you go with, just do it like you're trying to perform a repeatable chemical process in a lab: if you do everything by the book, use filtered water at the proper temperature and amount, the proper extraction time, the proper grind, and all the rest, you can repeat it over and over again.
posted by destructive cactus at 2:50 AM on December 18, 2016


I've found that Starbucks' Blonde roast coffees, especially Veranda Blend, tend to be tangy like this.
posted by duoshao at 5:26 AM on December 18, 2016


Ooooookay... so, if you haven't figured out by all the responses so far, making good coffee can be quite the rabbit hole to go down. People tend to take their coffee pretty seriously, to the point of gospel in some cases. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Gas station coffee was ground days or weeks ago (or months even) before being put into the foil pouches and sent to your local Stop-n-Go. Once the beans are ground, oxidation sets in rapidly and robs the coffee of a lot of flavor, and this happens within a matter of minutes. The oils in the coffee can start to go rancid. When you go to one of the higher quality coffee shops, they grind the coffee right before brewing. That means that all of the flavor is still there. Depending on the shop, they may have more recently roasted coffee, which means even better flavors. (Beans start losing some oomph after about two weeks. Still drinkable, and it can be still pretty good, but it's not what it was.) This is why, if you want to try to get those tangy notes, you should grind beans at home.

People can invest a lot of money into their coffee equipment. You probably don't want to do this yet unless you decide that this is something you want to do. My advice would be to get an 8-cup French press. You can get one for $20 (or even the $8 one at Ikea.) Then get a cheap $15 blade grinder - this is something that coffee snobs would consider heresy, but you probably don't want to spend $50-100 on a burr grinder until you know you want to stick with this. You should get a little scoop with the press. Start water on the stove. Take the top & plunger off the press. Shortly before the water is done, put four scoops of coffee beans in the grinder. Grind them fairly coarse; this should only take a few short seconds. Dump the grounds into the press. As for the water, you want it just short of boiling. What we do is let the teakettle whistle, turn off the heat and let it sit for 30 seconds. Pour water over the grounds in the press. Let sit for four minutes. Then place the top and plunger back in, press the plunger down (you'll see the color change on both sides of the screen mesh as you push it) and once it's at the bottom, enjoy.

For beans, go to local shops, not Starbucks, or the local farmers markets. You should be able to find someone who roasts locally. Expect to pay about $15 a pound for local roasted stuff, which sounds expensive, but it only comes out to 25¢-50¢ per cup. I'm not bagging on Starbucks, it's just that the local roasters tend to have fresher beans and more variety, and they'll have good advice.
posted by azpenguin at 8:31 AM on December 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Coffee contains organic acids that can (in balance with sweetness and other flavors) give it a pleasant tang. Here are some tips that will help you find the coffees you enjoy.

1. BUY FROM A SPECIALTY ROASTER
To oversimplify it a bit, your gas station coffee is probably lower-quality coffee that has been roasted so dark that all you can taste is the roast. The coffees you buy at specialty shops are generally higher quality beans, roasted a bit lighter to emphasize the specific flavors of each bean (including fruit and acidic notes).

Imagine cooking burgers: one charred burger tastes much like another, but if you only cook them to medium, you might be able to taste differences between high and low-quality meat. So, if you want that tang, start by looking for a high-quality specialty roaster that will sell you coffee beans.

2. READ THE FLAVOR NOTES
"Acidity" is what coffee pros call this taste, but it's often described on the label with more enticing words. When you're buying coffee beans, look for flavor descriptors like bright, zesty, sparkling, tangy, juicy, or ripe. You should also look for words referring to citrus and other fruit. You can think of this as a rough scale from most tangy to least tangy:
- Very tangy: citrus (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, etc.), cranberry, tropical fruits (pineapple, starfruit, litchi), green apple
- Medium tangy: most other fruits (grape, red apple, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, cherry, plum, peach)
- Just a little tang balanced with lots of sweetness: dried/cooked/processed fruits (jam, raisin, prune, winey, dried cherry, cola, etc.)

To taste good, acidity has to be in balance with sweetness and the other flavors in the coffee. Imagine a glass of lemonade -- it's tasty and refreshing. Now imagine that same amount of lemon juice with all the sugar taken out -- that would be sour and unpleasant, right? The difference is the balance of flavors, not the amount of acid. Experiment to see what kind of balance you enjoy.

3. LOOK FOR COFFEE ORIGINS
Some coffee-growing regions are famed for their delicious acidity. A good place to start is with coffees from Ethiopia and Kenya. You can also find delicious acidity in coffees from Honduras, Guatemala, and Colombia, but you definitely want to read the flavor notes -- not all coffees from these regions are acidity-forward.

4. BREW IT UP
If you've got hot water, you're halfway there already. How much money are you looking to spend on a coffee brewing setup? This rabbit hole goes as deep as you like, but you can also start cheap and work your way up from there.

Your most basic setup is:
- Hot water (all set!)
- A pourover brewer (like this, this, this, this, or this) and matching filters
- Measuring spoons
- A timer - your cell phone or any kitchen timer will do.
- A brew recipe (here are a couple of good guides)

The most helpful upgrades include:
- A burr grinder. This Baratza Encore is, in my opinion, the best consumer-grade grinder out there right now. There are cheaper grinders available -- just make sure they have burrs. Don't bother with a blade grinder -- it cannot grind to a consistent particle size and it may actually decrease the quality of your coffee. If you can't afford a grinder, I'd recommend asking your local specialty shop grind for you and trying to use the coffee as rapidly as you can.
- A scale. Any kitchen scale that measures in grams will do.

4. BE MINDFUL OF PROCESSING METHOD
Coffee grows as a fruit that looks very much like a cherry -- the coffee bean is the pit of a little red fruit, and after it's picked, that fruit has to be removed before the bean can be shipped and roasted. There are several methods of "processing" that fruit pulp off the bean, and they do affect the type of acidity you'll taste in the cup. There are two major categories of processing:

- "Washed" coffee -- the pulp is mechanically separated from the bean, then washed off in a series of tanks. Washed coffees will tend to have a cleaner, brighter acidity. Washed coffees are also far more common and easy to find.
- "Natural" coffee -- the fruit is allowed to dry around the bean, and is then mechanically cracked off. Natural coffees tend to have a bold, fruity & funky acidity.

Try both kinds! You may find you prefer one or the other more. You can sometimes find a washed & natural version of the same Ethiopian coffee -- it's really fun to taste them side-by-side.

5. LEARN MORE
Coffee is a really amazing thing -- at every stage, from seed to cup, there is so much human effort that goes into making it delicious. If you want to learn more, here are some good places to start:

- Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel. This is what the coffee pros use to categorize coffee flavors, and it can help you enjoy your cup more and develop your flavor vocabulary. It's easy to use -- you start at the middle, and then follow the lines outward to help you get more specific about what you're tasting. I recommend printing out a copy and posting it near your coffee brewer. Learn more here.
- Specialty Coffee Association Chronicle - Coffee Science
- Some slow afternoon, ask the baristas at your local specialty shop. I promise, they will be just as excited as I am to answer all your questions about coffee.
posted by ourobouros at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Buy a cheap large moka pot and some decent ready ground Italian coffee (Illy espresso). Make a large pot at the weekend and freeze the coffee in a large-brick ice cube tray. In the mornings, put a frozen coffee block in a cup with some milk, whack it in the microwave for 2 mins on full. Bing - and you have decent, hassle-free, cheap coffee every morning. (that's how I do it anyway).
posted by guy72277 at 12:35 AM on December 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


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