Coffee cup

The role of caffeine, water, milk, sugar and other products in the quest for the perfect cup.

Here we have a quick glance at the other major ingredients in making the elusive “perfect cup” of coffee. The quality of the coffee is essential, but the involvement of these other elements, products and techniques can be critical to the final outcome of your drink.

Each of these factors has a light side, and a less than flattering dark side, but it can be fun to change the variables to see how the coffee is affected.

Water

The simple fact is: bad water = bad coffee. Water is the most important component after the coffee beans, as it makes up such a high proportion of the drink.

Purity

Your water should be clean, tasty and freshly drawn. The longer it has been sitting about, the less life there’ll be in it.

Minerals

You can never go too far with the idea of “pure” water, because an absence of any mineral content is bad for the coffee’s taste. On the other hand, bottled mineral water is not suitable either for brewing coffee. It will skew the flavour and increase the likelihood of scaling your equipment.

Filtration

However, there is nothing wrong with filtering your water, particularly from the tap. Water can have all sorts of taints and impurities, cloudiness and chlorine tastes. A water filter will sort these out, and help your coffee.

Hardness

Water that is either too hard or too soft will upset the flavour of your coffee, and hard water will cause scaling in your equipment. Hardness is measured in ppm (parts per million) and somewhere in the region of 75ppm (softer) to 200ppm (harder) should be fine. Hard water can be softened, which is why many professional coffee machines have water softeners as well as water filters attached to them.

Caffeine

Caffeine was quite possibly the reason why coffee was noticed in the first place, and why coffee has remained popular throughout the centuries. However, the aroma, taste and flavour of coffee have overtaken caffeine as the most important factor in the consumption of the finest coffees, particularly as the quality of beans, roasting and packaging improves.

Caffeine the insecticide

Caffeine is a natural insecticide, hence its presence in the coffee plant and why it’s at its highest concentrations in the coffee bean (the invaluable seed).

Caffeine the stimulant

Tired in the morning? Needing a bit of a boost, mentally and physically? For any seasoned coffee drinker these factors slip into play every now and again. But we coffee lovers know when to stop, and drinking coffee late in the day is not a great idea. The trick is to enjoy a quality coffee in the morning when your taste buds are at their sharpest, and to avoid caffeine filled Robusta at all times.

The taste of caffeine

Caffeine has a bitter taste, and even though it’s not hugely noticeable when it’s there, you tend to notice it when it’s not there. Its absence upsets the balance of taste, so that the coffee’s sweetness can sometimes becomes a little bit too cloying in decaf coffees.

Caffeine and soft drinks

These would include caffeinated drinks and energy drinks. Not exactly classy beverages but they’re firmly embedded in western society. At least it gives a home to all of the industrial quantities of caffeine extracted from coffee during decaffeination.

Milk

Many Grumpy Mule coffees are well worth trying black and without milk, but there’s no doubting that coffee and milk make a perfect marriage.

The introduction of milk to coffee can do plenty of things: it can add body and textures; it can add variety to the taste; it can also act to tone down, or mask, bad tasting coffee! Cappuccinos, lattes and the like just wouldn’t be what they are without the addition of some sweet, creamy milk.

Sugar

Lots of people cannot drink coffee without sugar, but part of the reason for this is to improve the taste of bad coffee. Coffee that is too strong, too bitter, has no natural sweetness to it (if harvested unripe) or lacks intrinsic flavour will inevitably benefit from the addition of a sugar or two.

If the coffee cherries were grown at good altitude – allowing time to develop natural sugars – and harvested when fully ripe, then all that is needed is careful roasting to caramelise the sugars and develop the natural sweetness in the coffee.

A properly made espresso, with its chocolaty bittersweet flavour or a brewed coffee using the pick of the crop from a top farm will have a natural, balanced sweetness to it and hopefully there will be less need to reach for the flavour enhancers.