What is Extraction?

A very commonly used term in the specialty coffee industry, extraction is extremely important to the taste of your coffee. But what is extraction in relation to coffee? It can be a complicated subject, but we’re going to break it down for you in a short blog series over the next few weeks.

The definition of extraction is “the action of taking out something, especially using effort or force”. This may seem like a simple concept; for example when a dentist pulls a tooth it’s called an extraction. However, the use of the word extraction in regards to specialty coffee, specifically espresso, becomes more complicated. At a base level it is as simple as the above definition: extraction is the action of water taking solubles out of coffee.

A simple concept becomes complicated when you add all of the variables that can affect coffee extraction, the fact that there’s a sweet spot for good extraction for every coffee, and taste.

Before we move on, we should be super specific about coffee extraction. Roasted coffee is full of soluble chemicals that equal flavor. Water is the solvent we use to pull those flavors out, creating that beautiful brew we all know and love so well. As you know, we don’t brew whole beans of coffee, we grind the beans up, creating more surface area from which to extract all of those tasty compounds.

So extraction in regards to specialty coffee is the act of water pulling the tasty compounds out of ground coffee.

We’ll talk more in depth later about grind size and how to control how much or how little you extract from that coffee. We’ll also talk more later about how to taste a coffee and determine whether or not it’s over or under extracted or perfectly extracted.

Wait. What do those words mean you may be asking?

Over-extracted means you’ve pulled too many solubles out of the ground coffee; you’ve extracted too much to the point that it doesn’t taste good. The thing with coffee is that you don’t want to extract every single flavor: some of them aren’t that tasty.

Under-extracted means you haven’t pulled enough solubles out of the ground coffee; you’ve stopped the extraction before you got to the good stuff basically. The other thing with coffee is that you have to extract enough solubles to get the good flavors out: you can’t stop too short or it won’t taste good.

Extraction is a science, sure, but it’s also a bit of an artform when it comes to specialty coffee. In order to understand that artform and perfect it, you have to learn the science behind it. We hope this brief blog post has helped break down exactly what extraction is in regards to specialty coffee. Check back here next week to learn how to taste for the perfect extraction.