New Research Promises a Less Bitter Cup of Coffee

There is nothing better than a nice smooth cup of coffee and nothing worse than a bitter one. But the days of bitter coffee may soon be coming to an end thanks to researchers in the United States and Germany who say they have discovered the chemicals in coffee that seem to be, in the large part, responsible for the bitterness in our morning cup of coffee.

Other researches have approached this problem and they have been able to identify somewhere in between 25 and 30 different compounds that might be contributing factors to coffee's bitterness. But the main cause was not found until this study took place.

Caffeine is considered by many to be a major cause of the bitterness, but that is not so. It only accounts for about 15%. Try a cup of regular and decaffeinated coffee and you will not notice much difference in relation to the bitterness factor.

How the coffee is roasted, on the other hand does play a big part. The stronger the roast, the more bitter and harsh it will be. When coffee is roasted for a long time, it causes chemical reactions that form very bitter compounds.

The panel that took part in the survey was sensory trained to detect the degree of bitterness in the coffee. The researchers used the most advanced chromatography techniques. Chromatography is a method used by chemists to separate a mixture by passing it though medium that allows the different components of the mixture to move through it at different speeds. Using these methods, the researchers were able to determine that there are two main categories of compounds that cause the bitterness in coffee. Those two are chlorogenic acid lactones and phenylindanes. They are both antioxidants that are found in roasted beans, but not in green, unroasted beans.

They have known for some time that these two compounds existed in coffee, but until now they were not known as a source of the bitterness.