The clean taste of coffee depends on the sodium content of its extraction water

Abstract

It is known that using high-purity water such as distilled water or Milli-Q water for extracting coffee changes the taste. Further, since the purity of ice manufactured by an ice-making system is also high, we investigated whether the taste would change when coffee was extracted using water produced from melted ice. Sensory evaluation showed that coffee brewed with the melted-ice water had an improved clean taste. Content analysis of chlorogenic acid, caffeine, cations and anions showed that the coffee brewed with melted-ice water had a low sodium content. When sodium was added as an organic-acid salt to the coffee extraction water, taste sensor analysis revealed that the salty taste increased and the clean taste of coffee decreased. Therefore, this suggests that the clean taste of coffee depends on the sodium content of its extraction water.