How to Taste for Extraction

This is our second installment in a blog series about the weighty topic of coffee extraction. Today’s subject is arguably the most important part: how to taste for extraction. After all, the whole point of extraction is finding the sweet spot where a coffee tastes the best.

You can read more about what extraction is in last week’s blog post. Today we’re going to break down how to taste when a coffee is under-extracted, over-extracted, or perfectly extracted (the goal!). This process becomes second nature once you’ve been in coffee for a while: think an experienced barista who dials in a new espresso during a busy rush. They can quickly taste and asses where a coffee is at and how it needs to be adjusted to improve the extraction.

Let’s start with under-extracted. You’ll remember from our previous post that when a coffee is under-extracted it means not enough solubles have been pulled out of the grounds by the water. Since the extraction was stopped too soon, it won’t have enough flavor, and it will be especially lacking in sweetness.

Under-extraction will have a too-quick finish. It will taste sour and sharp with no roundness or sweetness. Sometimes it even tastes salty. Look for that sour pucker-y feeling in your mouth like when you bite into a lemon wedge. Not pleasant! Once you practice tasting under-extracted coffees, you’ll be able to visualize how the coffee is falling short, and you can almost picture what it would taste like if it were extracted longer. You will wish for more flavor and sweetness.

All of these factors combined equal the taste of under-extraction!

Now let’s talk about the taste of over-extraction. You’ve gone too far and pulled too many solubles out of the coffee grounds. What does that taste like?

An over-extracted coffee will taste bitter, astringent, and thin. It will have a dry quality like cardboard or paper. Look for a hollow finish. You can almost picture how there’s nothing left to taste in the coffee: it will taste empty at the end. As you taste the coffee it might taste okay in the beginning, but the finish will overshadow most if not all good tasting notes. If you have over-extracted it, the sweet tasting notes will be overpowered and washed out by the excess extraction.

Those tasing experiences sound pretty unpleasant huh? They are. Typically when you’re tasting a coffee that’s under or over-extracted, it won’t be fun. The overall unpleasant tasting experience should be an indicator to you that you need to make an adjustment. Tasting is a very important part of extraction!

Okay, so what does a perfectly extracted coffee taste like? Let’s talk about the good stuff!

A coffee that is extracted well will taste sweet, balanced, well-rounded, ripe, and syrupy. It won’t be sour or salty or bitter or drying. It will have a balanced acidity— this is acidity in a good way! Not overpowering or harsh, but acidity that adds to the complexity of the flavor. Most importantly, look at the finish. A coffee that is extracted perfectly will have a pleasant, flavorful, sweet, lingering finish.

Yum! Who’s craving a syrupy sweet shot of espresso right about now?

Stay tuned for our next and final installment of this series on extraction next week when we dive into how to adjust in order to dial a coffee in to be perfectly extracted.