Low acid coffee for me

I’m pretty sure some of the people here already know how much I love coffee 😅 so much that I’ve written about it before (you can check here: Getting to know your coffee), and nothing is gonna stop me from writing about it again!!!! 

The thing is, my coffee is actually limited to iced coffee and cold steeped coffee. Why? Well, simply because it’s less acidic compared to hot brewed coffee. Normally, hot brewed coffee would have a pH of 4.5-5 and that’s already pretty acidic. But what about the fact that you take it every day? That’s already enough to upset your body’s pH balance and the next thing you know, you have acid reflux, and eventually, you might develop acidosis if you combine it with a highly acidic diet.

Source

My sisters are already experiencing acid reflux and to lessen the stomach irritation we’ve been talking about starting a mini cold brew station at home. Sadly McCafe is the only commercialized coffee place that offers cold brew but that’s simply because they rarely serve hot coffee when their market target is people in the teens to young adulthood. Those who have a preference for cold drinks compared to hot ones since it’s easier to consume while on the go. There’s very little adaptation towards low acid coffee tbh. 

Anyways, back to the main topic (I may have made a pretty far segway 😅😅😅). 

What makes coffee acidic? 

Besides the fact that coffee is naturally acidic since it has a number of antioxidants in its composition. Organic acids in your cup include Here are the nine main coffee acids: chlorogenic, quinic, citric, acetic, lactic, malic, phosphoric, linoleic, and palmitic. These are the “good,” acids that you taste with every cup and they’re mostly essentially needed for the diet. Each one of them contribute a certain taste to every cup but the difference in the kind of bean you use and the kind of beans you use

Ways to reduce coffee acidity:

Calcium and eggshells

This part might sound weird because what do calcium and eggshells have to do with this? Well, Calcium binds to some of the oxygen present in coffee. And since eggshells are basically made of calcium, they’re sometimes added to the roasting or brewing process. It sounds weird, yes. But if you are a fan of brewing but the acidity is becoming overbearing, maybe you should look into this method. It’s not such a bad method since the aroma is retained and I know that that luscious coffee smell is what some of us live for. Calcium is also found in milk. That’s why it’s one of the most common coffee additives out there. 

Low-land grown beans

Yes, geography can play a part in this but then sometimes it isn’t because of the actual geography, but more on the soil pH and nutrient constituent in that soil. It would be hard to elaborate this to most people but just think that if the ground is acidic, the plant will absorb that and the acidity affects the fruit, as simple as that. (it’s kinda why Starbucks and highland’s coffee really comes off as highly acidic to me since their beans are grown in mountains)

Cold brewing/steeping

This is actually the main point of this article XD 

Anyways, cold brewing/steeping is basically natural extraction through a solvent. It doesn’t require heating so that eliminates the release of some acids that come from heating. On a comparison between hot brew and cold steep, cold steep is honestly 67-70% less acidic. Yes, it still has a pretty acidic pH of 4.85-5.13 but compared to hot brewed coffee, that difference still has a lot of impact on the human body. Besides, there are earlier mentioned ways to lessen that acidity. 

I also want to point out that this does affect the taste of your coffee. It will have a sweeter taste and it won’t be that aromatic but then some actually prefer this. 

On a side note, the brewing process actually has a lot of debates since yes, hot brew liberates acids but destroys a few other organic acidic components of coffee (That’s why some say over roasting lessens acidity too) whilst cold brewing retains those acids and caffeine so the acidity shouldn’t vary that much since caffeine is also acidic in nature. Idk there are supremacists but I just want to enjoy good coffee that’s fit for my palette so no hate here, just coffee.