What is mellowness?

Often you will hear coffee lovers talking about the Body, and it often appears in the cupping table. So what does Body mean? Body is the taste that we experience when drinking coffee is the tip of the tongue, and it is also the mellowness we mentioned in our mouth. The definition given by Scott Rao in "The Professional Barista's Handbook" is, "The weight of a drink The sense of fullness or taste buds feel.”

Mellowness is one of the elements of taste, but it is not highly replicable. Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood writes in the book, "Sometimes the sticky taste is not very full-bodied, and sometimes juicy can also give a high-mellow taste." Therefore, Body is not our taste. A certain iconic taste, but a feeling. But its existence affects the overall taste of a cup of coffee. That is because the flavor of coffee is a product of many factors-taste, aroma, texture, and possibly even sound and vision.

As a barista, Body is one of the three major parts of coffee that coffee drinkers usually pay attention to, along with bright acidity and some distinct flavors.

Body dissolution rate

If we want to highlight the taste of the body, then we must talk about extraction. This step is also the process of extracting compounds rich in flavor and aroma from dry coffee powder and dissolving them into water.

In the extraction process, substances are roughly divided into soluble and insoluble substances. Soluble substances are those that can be diluted in water; insoluble substances are solid substances and oils, substances that remain suspended in liquid and cannot be completely dissolved in water, as well as protein molecules and coffee fibers. It is these substances that cannot be completely dissolved in water, especially oils, that enhance the body's feeling of this cup of coffee.

Why do some coffees have a stronger sense of body? In fact, there are many reasons why some coffees have a higher sense of body than others. From the first beans, to the later processing methods, roasting processing, and final brewing methods are all aspects that affect the mellowness of coffee beans.

Green beans with high mellowness

Some coffee beans are naturally endowed with higher body. For example, when I tasted Maracaturra from El Socorro in Guatemala (a mixture of Maragogype and Caturra, the particle size is similar to that of the elephant bean, it can grow up to 22 meshes), and found that it has a peach flavor. A hint of whiskey, with a caramel feel, and a round and full body in the mouth. The most respected Geisha in the coffee industry, this coffee is famous for its exquisite, tea-like mellowness.

If you get a low-bodied coffee variety, you have three choices: follow the low-bodied characteristics of this coffee, try to emphasize its full-bodiedness through processing, roasting, and brewing; or through blending Beans to improve the mellowness of coffee.

Washed coffee often shows a finer taste, and the clear and clean flavor is better than the taste.

Sun-treated coffee can be expected to have a thicker and rounder taste.

Honey treatment will also be linked to the mellowness. Generally speaking, if the pectin layer of the outer layer of the coffee fruit is retained during processing, the higher its body will be. The black honey processed coffee will have a syrupy taste and sweetness.

How to bake out the full body?

Raw beans can be roasted to strengthen or reduce their body, depending on how you want to use the beans. First of all, we must first clarify one thing. Darker roasting is usually considered to be more mellow. However, as Matt Perger said, the color of coffee beans is not necessarily related to the roasting. Baking is a complex process that combines a variety of conditions. A good roaster can control the temperature and emphasize the flavor characteristics they want through baking.

For example, Sweet Maria’s, a raw bean maker, will control the time from the baking to the first burst to emphasize the body they want. If the process is done correctly, the development at the first burst can increase the body. The raw soy maker said in a post: "This syrup-like taste is related to carbohydrates. The development at the first burst increases the strength of the body."

In addition, Rob Hoos mentioned in the book "Controlling the Flavor Characteristics of Coffee" that if the roaster uses the Maynard reaction, more caramelized substances are produced, in other words, it is to increase the body of the coffee.

However, if the coffee beans are over-roasted during roasting, this development may stagnate and the roasted coffee will produce a roasted blemish. This creates a bland and monotonous drink. It is necessary to balance everything that happens in the beans during roasting in order to make coffee with good flavor characteristics through roasting.

How to make a full body?

How much fat the brewing utensil and filter paper will eventually penetrate into the cup has a great influence on the Body. Since the fat brings about the mellowness, the fat you leave on the brewing technique and filtering process will have a great influence on the brewed coffee mellowness, and these brewing techniques are very different.

A scale is usually used for hand punching, which usually presents two extremes: high body thickness but low cleanliness, high cleanliness and low body thickness. For example, the coffee brewed by the French filter press has a high mellowness and low cleanliness; on the other hand, hand-made coffee generally has high cleanliness. Philharmonic is well-known for its flexibility in brewing changes: you can use it to produce mellowness or cleanliness, depending on your mood.

One of the reasons for the high mellowness of the French filter press is the metal filter. The filter paper will absorb a large amount of fat in the coffee, while the metal filter allows the fat to be filtered into the coffee. The Chemex filter cup is the opposite of the French filter press. The brewed coffee has a clean flavor, probably because of its thick filter paper. If you have a metal filter and filter paper at the same time, you have more flexibility to determine the taste of the coffee.

Of course, there is espresso coffee. This type of coffee has a higher mellowness, because the ratio of brewed powder to water is higher than other brewing methods, and espresso will extract the oily substance of coffee powder through pressure, and this pressure will create Crema, this layer is a combination of oil and caramelized substances, which is the cause of the mellowness.

You can create more or less mellowness by adjusting the ratio or strength of the brewing powder to water, but pay attention to the under-extraction or over-extraction. Over-extracted coffee tastes hollow. Don't ignore that many beverages are blended with milk, which will affect the body.

Body: This may sound simple, but it is actually very complicated. But this is one of the many fascinating factors of the specialty coffee wave, giving us the ability to understand coffee and to explore how to control these variables to get the right flavor.

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