“We can just have a simple coffee”, someone told me the other day. I smiled and said “I’m sorry, but you can’t be further away from the truth”.
Is there anything simple about coffee?
Coffee has many facets and is far from simple. Actually, it could be considered to be the most complex beverage in the world due to its many variables throughout the production and extraction process. Let me delve into some of the variables before elaborating further on the water since it is a very important variable to consider.
- Bean Origin: Not all beans have the same chemical composition
- Bean Roast: The chemical composition of the bean changes during roasting and therefore different roasting methods creates different chemical composition
- Grinding: The finer the coffee is ground, the longer it takes for the extraction process. The larger the surface area of the ground coffee the faster the extraction
- Dry mass of Coffee grindings: different extraction composition
- Temperature of extraction dictates both rate and composition of the extraction
- Pressure of extraction: similar effects as temperature
- Time of extraction: the longer the time the more the extraction
- The water: the chemical composition of the water plays a very important role
The water is probably the most important variable in making coffee. With all things considered, we’d have no coffee without water. Read on for a brief and simple guideline for the ideal water chemical composition required to extract the best taste out of your Rossoro coffee capsule.
- Odour: clean, fresh and odour free
- Colour: clear and transparent without suspended particles
- Total chlorine: 0mg/l
- Total Dissolved Solids (TDS): ideally 150 mg/l but a range of 75-250 mg/l is acceptable
- Calcium Hardness: ideally 68 mg/l but a range between 17-85 mg/l is acceptable
- Total Alkalinity: 40 mg/l or as close as possible to this
- pH: 7 is the ideal but 6.5 – 7.5 is acceptable
- Sodium: 10 mg/l or as close as possible to this figure
