Acidity of Coffee

When it comes to coffee, people usually use the word acidity for the stomach acidity caused by coffee. But do you know what is the acidity of coffee? Well to explain this, let me give you one example. What happens when you drink soda? You feel a tingling sensation on your tongue. Right? This is what acidity of coffee means. As you drink coffee the sensation you feel at the backside or at the roof of your tongue depends on the degree of acidity. The goodness of the coffee is evaluated on the basis of flavor, body, aroma and acidity. A coffee without acidity is like a plain soda without any carbonate. You can also take the example of wine, as wine is judged on the basis of its dryness, the coffee is judged on the basis of its acidity.

Many people relate acidity of coffee with the stomach acidity caused by the coffee. Well, pH of coffee is nowhere related to the acidity of coffee. This is the reason why the coffee makers avoid giving the acidity content in the coffee label. They denote the degree of acidity as vibrant, tart, crisp, tangy, bright, lively, sharp, etc., but never use the word acidity. Without acidity, the coffee will be tasteless and lifeless.

Factors Which Decide the Acidity of Coffee

The acidity of the coffee can be natural or it can be modified according to the company's need. It depends upon many factors like where it is grown, how the beans are processed, how they are roasted, how it is brewed, etc. These all factors play a very important role in maintaining or changing the acidity of the coffee. Following is the description of the factors which will show you how a high or low acidity coffee is formed.

Area Where the Coffee is Grown
If we see the acidity of coffee on the basis of geography, then coffee grown in the high altitude is rich in acidity. You can get naturally high acidity of coffee here. The places which are about 4000 feet or above are able to produce a high acidic coffee. Apart from this, volcanic soil can also increase the acidity of the coffee. Hence, if we see geographically Kenyan coffee is more acidic than the Mexican coffee. But acidity can be modified in such cases also. Which means you can get low acidic coffee in Kenya and high acidic coffee in Mexico too.

Processing Coffee Beans
The coffee beans are processed using two methods, dry method and wet method. In dry method, the coffee beans are harvested and are left in the sun to dry. As the seeds become dry, the skin leaves the pulp which is removed later. Whereas in the wet method, as soon as the beans are harvested they are soaked in the water which facilitates the smooth removal of the skin from the pulp. Now the difference in both the methods is, the dry method gives low acidity coffee and wet method gives a high acidity coffee. So, by this we can say that we can get high and low acidity coffee from the same harvest just by changing its processing.

Roasting Coffee Beans
After the processing of the coffee beans, the duration of the roasting process of coffee beans can also change the acidity. The longer you roast the coffee beans the acidity of coffee will decrease and the less you roast the higher it will be in acidity. The dark roast coffee like French, Espresso and Italian coffee are less in acidity than the less roasted Cinnamon and American coffee. So we can say that if the same harvested beans are roasted in different degrees, they may differ in the acidity level.

Brewing of coffee
The freshly brewed coffee will show a high acidity than the stale coffee. Longer the coffee is stored, lesser will be the acidity and taste. Hence, we can say that the same coffee beans with the same harvesting and roasting process may differ in acidity if stored for a long time. Scroll over 'brewing coffee' for detailed information.

I hope by now you understood the meaning behind the term acidity of coffee. So, enjoy the ultimate taste of refreshing and energizing different types of coffee available in the market and find out which level of acidity you like in your coffee.