"The reason given is that adding the salt improves the flavor of the coffee. As it turns out, there is a chemical basis for this practice. The Na + ion diminishes bitterness by interfering with the transduction mechanism of that taste. The effect occurs below the level at which the salty taste would be registered."
People would give me strange looks upon mentioning salt to lower bitterness of coffee, a chip would do the trick. " Rim a Cocktail Glass with Salt—It's an Easy Way to Elevate Your Drink. This classic technique adds flavor and finesse to your favorite cocktails, especially a margarita"
That's really more of a hack, there are better ways to avoid bitter coffee. If you use a light or medium roast and can adjust grind size and temperature, the coffee doesn't have to be bitter.
The effect of salt is quite limited, changing the other parameters is much more powerful. But yes, it requires different equipment that not everyone has or requires more manual effort than a simple coffee machine.
It's actually on the page (far right middle) and it expired in 2015, which is 20 years after filing (plus any extensions due to delays).
Actually, applications before 1996 can be a bit trickier since they (and their children) can be extended for quite a while (that's what some IP firms did in the early 2000s) by delaying their issuance. Patents were originally good for 17 years after issuance (or 20 years from filing if that was longer), whereas now it is only 20 years from filing.
That's really interesting because I have been putting milk in my coffee only recently, realizing I'm only doing this because it feels easier on my guts and thinking what could be done with stuff that isn't milk.
Then I'm looking at these ingredients and they actually look what they fortify milk with... Calcium carbonate, check, KOH, check [2] - Magnesium Hydroxide, I don't think they add that. I think Potassium Chloride might be an additive in feed for dairy cows but it's not an additive.
You can add e.g. natron / baking soda / sodium bicarbonate to tap water and you have DIY alkaline water.
Also helps to soften hard water, as calcium carbonate falls out of solution - which is then filtered in the coffee filter when brewing with a pour-over. No tinkering with the Britta filter required! :D
Coffee (even decaf) on an empty stomach can cause irritation for some people. It does for me.
You may also have a mild food sensitivity/allergy to coffee specifically. (Yes, testing for food sensitivity is somewhat problematic, and often indicates the presence of intestinal permeability.)
It's acidic. So hard on the stomach, especially if you're not consuming anything else. Try an antacid with it and see if that helps make you feel not as bad. If so, then discontinue coffee.
Five cups equals 2.5 liter? Then I assume you are American, where these huge quantities are more normal. And usually not that strong coffee either (on the contrary). The Spanish sometimes use 'CAFE' as an acronym: Caliente (hot), Amargo (bitter), Fuerte (strong) and Escaso (small amount).
For reference, a Starbucks "grande" is 16oz. Starbucks has 6 sizes and the grande is the larger of the two middle sizes. A quick search of the first page of results on Amazon for "coffee mug" shows most of them are 16-20oz.
Five, 16oz cups is 80oz, and there's 33oz in a liter.
I'm not trying to disagree with you, just describing how I got my number, which is different than your reasonable implication.
It seems to be less about the pH, per se, but about the effect that those particular chemicals have on the stomach. Some of them cause the stomach to produce more acidity. It may not even be the acidic chemicals themselves, but other coffee molecules that are extracted in roughly the same temperature/pressure regime.
The mechanisms are hard to trace, since there are so many chemicals involved and the actual production of stomach acid so complicated. But you know what the doctor will say when you tell them that it hurts when you go like that.
I drunk 7 on average. With milk. They are tasty. I basically drunk them instead of tea which has too much caffeine for me and causes me too loose sleep, get anxious, and get facial muscles twitches and feel like something very wrong is happening. No ill effects from decaf in my case.
Do you drink tea as well? Tea contains a lot of caffeine when compared to decaf. You might also try another decaf. The amount of caffeine in different brands may vary. I could drink 7 cups of decaf Lavazza without feeling any caffeine at all and I'm very susceptible to it. I can't suffer even a single cup of normal coffee per day or few teas without getting anxious and twitchy fairly quickly.
About 1/20. I could drink 7 cups of decaf per day on average for weeks without feeling any caffeine while a single cup of normal coffee consumed at any point in a day can pretty much ensure sleepless night in my case.
Putting basic chemicals into an acidic solution to make it less acidic is trivially obvious. The interesting question here is what this does to the taste of coffee, which can be heavily influenced by the water. I would have suspected that this would affect taste significantly, and probably not in a good way.
They have a taste test in the end and claim that some of the versions taste better than their plain water. Not sure how much I'd believe this, especially as they don't specify their "plain coffee" and what the properties of the water were. In general softer water tends to be better for coffee taste than hard water.
There can be a substantial difference in the flavor of coffee based on the composition of the water used to brew it.
Softer water doesn't necessarily mean better or worse tasting coffee. Just different tasting coffee. Hardness of the water impacts extraction yield from the coffee. Alkalinity will have a huge impact on the acidity, or "sour" notes in the coffee and you can adjust this to taste.
I've experimented a bit with adding some bicarbonate to very acidic espressos. It mutes the flavor a little bit but completely kills the harshness that made it unpleasant. It is not a fix for under-extraction though, it fixes beans that are just not good for espresso.
A tiny bit of salt works wonders for very bitter espressos from overly roasted beans.
But on the end buying beans I like is easier and makes even better coffee than those hacks.
Careful, this will increase the power of your coffee by ~2.5x. So you will either need to water it down or drink less of it.
Cold brew is surprisingly easy to make. All you need is a French press. I think you are technically supposed to do it with a coarser bean grind, but it’s possible to just leave ground coffee with a certain ratio to water on the counter in the French press overnight and you are done. Press the coffee and the morning and it’s ready. Afterwards you probably want to decant it if you don’t drink it all though
I use Grady's pitcher packs, and I use half the recommended number of packs per pitcher, so it's less concentrated than normal. I also found they do decaf pitcher packs, so that I can avoid all that caffeine.
I also mix this about 50/50 with milk alternative, currently that would be Ripple brand.
Personally, I would never do cold brew in a French press. Any container will do, so long as you use the appropriate amount of coffee, and it is appropriately filtered (they make special filters for this). But I don't like using glass containers for this stuff -- to easy to drop and make a right royal mess of broken glass and coffee grounds and such splattered all over the place. So, I use non-breakable containers instead.
Using an AeroPress is an easy way to create low acidity coffee at home. I used to drink drip and french press and had to stop due to stomach discomfort from the acidity, but thus far have not experienced those effects with the AeroPress. Compared to the other methods, the grounds are exposed to hot water for less time, resulting in an overall less acidic brew.
Is it really stomach discomfort though? At a pH above 5 you’re still way above what a healthy stomach should be. Perhaps it was your esophagus that hurt?
For sure, I was using stomach discomfort as a broad euphemism to mean the overall unpleasantness I experienced from drinking coffee compared to days when I abstained. Anecdotally, I have a friend who quit coffee for similar reasons who also took up drinking AeroPress brew successfully.
Around 15 seconds. This is on the low end of extraction time, official instructions say between 10-30 seconds, although it's really to your preference, and some people prefer a minute or longer.
With drip coffee or french press, you're looking at steeping times around 3 to 5 minutes.
Who would have guessed that adding Tums to coffee neutralizes it's acidity? It should not be possible to get this patent. We really need a science "expert" advisory committee to the patent office.
Having a patent doesn’t mean it’s enforceable though. If it’s ever challenged it can just be nullified without wasting the resources to scrutinise every single parent.
isn't this the same as the Scandinavian method of mixing grounds with egg shell and whole egg...into a slurry, boiling, settling than pouring?
I'm not brave enough to try it - my light roast pour overs are delectable without going this route, but apparently one of the best ways to reduce acidity.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadhttps://www.thoughtco.com/does-salt-in-coffee-reduce-bittern...
"The reason given is that adding the salt improves the flavor of the coffee. As it turns out, there is a chemical basis for this practice. The Na + ion diminishes bitterness by interfering with the transduction mechanism of that taste. The effect occurs below the level at which the salty taste would be registered."
I tried the salt trick once; it works, and makes coffee disgustingly not bitter.
Actually, applications before 1996 can be a bit trickier since they (and their children) can be extended for quite a while (that's what some IP firms did in the early 2000s) by delaying their issuance. Patents were originally good for 17 years after issuance (or 20 years from filing if that was longer), whereas now it is only 20 years from filing.
I knew it changed right around 1995 or 96, though.
Then I'm looking at these ingredients and they actually look what they fortify milk with... Calcium carbonate, check, KOH, check [2] - Magnesium Hydroxide, I don't think they add that. I think Potassium Chloride might be an additive in feed for dairy cows but it's not an additive.
[2] https://www.vynova-group.com/blog/potassium-derivatives-dair...
Also helps to soften hard water, as calcium carbonate falls out of solution - which is then filtered in the coffee filter when brewing with a pour-over. No tinkering with the Britta filter required! :D
(Brand doesn't seem to matter, I tried many, and I have no problems drinking just water, or tea)
You may also have a mild food sensitivity/allergy to coffee specifically. (Yes, testing for food sensitivity is somewhat problematic, and often indicates the presence of intestinal permeability.)
Orange juice is more acidic and less associated with stomach problems (but not unassociated).
Five, 16oz cups is 80oz, and there's 33oz in a liter.
I'm not trying to disagree with you, just describing how I got my number, which is different than your reasonable implication.
The mechanisms are hard to trace, since there are so many chemicals involved and the actual production of stomach acid so complicated. But you know what the doctor will say when you tell them that it hurts when you go like that.
The argument I got from a chemist once was something like "Yes, but they take all the toxic chemicals out of the beans after processing". Yikes.
Now that I think of it, I do feel bad one or two days after I stop drinking cola.
Perhaps it is the caffeine but it's acting in a different way, more like an addiction.
https://www.ncausa.org/Decaffeinated-Coffee
They have a taste test in the end and claim that some of the versions taste better than their plain water. Not sure how much I'd believe this, especially as they don't specify their "plain coffee" and what the properties of the water were. In general softer water tends to be better for coffee taste than hard water.
Softer water doesn't necessarily mean better or worse tasting coffee. Just different tasting coffee. Hardness of the water impacts extraction yield from the coffee. Alkalinity will have a huge impact on the acidity, or "sour" notes in the coffee and you can adjust this to taste.
https://awasteof.coffee/how-to/mixing-water/
https://coffeeadastra.com/category/water-for-coffee/
https://www.scottrao.com/blog/lotus-water-drops
And is a functional requirement of a bunch Specialty Coffee Association stuff.
A tiny bit of salt works wonders for very bitter espressos from overly roasted beans.
But on the end buying beans I like is easier and makes even better coffee than those hacks.
Cold brew is surprisingly easy to make. All you need is a French press. I think you are technically supposed to do it with a coarser bean grind, but it’s possible to just leave ground coffee with a certain ratio to water on the counter in the French press overnight and you are done. Press the coffee and the morning and it’s ready. Afterwards you probably want to decant it if you don’t drink it all though
I also mix this about 50/50 with milk alternative, currently that would be Ripple brand.
Personally, I would never do cold brew in a French press. Any container will do, so long as you use the appropriate amount of coffee, and it is appropriately filtered (they make special filters for this). But I don't like using glass containers for this stuff -- to easy to drop and make a right royal mess of broken glass and coffee grounds and such splattered all over the place. So, I use non-breakable containers instead.
Followed by diabetes, and death.
With drip coffee or french press, you're looking at steeping times around 3 to 5 minutes.
[1]: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230130090347.h...
I'm not brave enough to try it - my light roast pour overs are delectable without going this route, but apparently one of the best ways to reduce acidity.