There's lots of information available about the influence of various parameters on coffee taste, but it's scattered across the internet. On top of that, most answers and articles are packed with paragraphs of text and data to support the writers claims and findings. That's wonderful, but it makes it very time consuming to dig through them.
It'd be nice to have a clean composition and presentation of a selection of the most important parameters that define coffee taste. You know, with fancy graphs about coffee developing a bitter or sour taste over time or temperature, different extracting methods, or qualitative relationships. If there's no such thing available, we could compose it ourselves.
I've found a few of those here and here already, one even with a fancy graph.(though without axis units) To narrow down my search a bit, i'm looking for parameters that affect the coffee in the post-roasting stadium, as I won't do the growing or roasting myself. I'm using arabica.
I'm thinking of the following parameters:
- Storage temperature
- Methods of grinding
- Grain size when grounded
- Time between grinding/brewing
- Water temperature at brewing
- Type of water used for extraction(mineral/tap/decalcified)
- Methods of extraction
- Filter material/size etc.
- Contact time of coffee with the water
- Time between brewing/consuming
- Coffee temperature at consuming
And how they affect:
- Caffeine content
- Bitterness, acidity/sourness, saltiness, and sweetness
- Aftertaste
- Heaviness of the feel in your mouth