Water for Coffee
You might not give much thought to the water you use to make your coffee. The flavor of the coffee is so much stronger than the water that the flavor of the water is barely noticeable. However, the flavor and mineral content of your water is actually a key factor in the taste of your coffee. Water that has dissolved minerals at more than 100 parts per million can make your coffee bitter. On the other hand, coffee made with water with less than 50 parts per million can be bland.
You need the right proportion of minerals because the flavor of the coffee is derived from oils in the beans. The combination of heat and minerals extracts the oil during the steeping process that turns it into a beverage. It’s the same way salt in a stew extracts juices from the meat to flavor the gravy. If you don’t have enough minerals to pull out the oil, your coffee with be flavorless. If you have too many minerals or the water has excessive chemicals, it can cause a chemical reaction with the coffee, making it bitter.
Some people go to great lengths to test their water for hardness and buy special kits to adjust the minerals and ph. However, you don’t really need to do this unless it’s something you want to do. If your water tastes alright to you when it’s at room temperature, it’s probably alright for coffee. If not, there are some things you can do. What you don’t want to do is use distilled or reverse osmosis water. Both of these choices have too little mineral in them and will result in flat, tasteless coffee.
There are three ways that you can get better tasting water without making worse tasting coffee. Some people like to use spring water because it’s free of chlorine and other additives but still has minerals. You can also buy a pitcher with a charcoal water filter on top to remove the chemicals but not the minerals. The third way is to buy a coffee maker with a built-in water filtration system, but you will have to change the filters from time to time. Any of these methods is an improvement over extra hard water and excessive chlorine.
brewed on Feb 19th, 2010
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