Five Reasons Your Coffee is Not Low Acid

Five Reasons Your Coffee is Not Low Acid

You're thinking, how would I know, whose coffee are you drinking? Well, that’s easy to know because out of the 1,600+ coffee roasters in the entire United States, less than 20 attempt to be low in acid. That is .0125% are producing low acid coffee. That means the likelihood of you drinking high acid coffee is 99.9875%

Why are so many roasters producing high acid roasts? Although there is some humor intended here, with my top five reasons, please keep in mind that in my 13 years in the coffee industry, I have met my share of other coffee roasters, roasting trainers, roasting manufacturers, and even coffee importers that roast a lot. This is not my first rodeo.

So here we go. The drum roll please….. The top “Five Reasons your Coffee is Not Low Acid”.

Reason 1: It takes too long to roast it. Most roasters concern themselves with having many batches of coffee that they produce per hour. Slow roasting coffee reduces production by more than 50% and increases labor costs significantly.

Reason 2: You would never taste blueberries or apple notes in the coffee. Those unique “bouquets” of flavor notes, are very popular and trendy now, so most roast profiles are getting lighter in roast and shorter in duration in order to capture those “flavors”.

Reason 3: Who wants to take twice as long to do the same amount of work? Slow roasting requires considerably longer roasts almost 2 to 3 times longer than a typical roast.

Reason 4: Roasting involves managing a big hot machine that will make you sweat a lot, plus there is a lot of standing involved. It is very true that production roasting can be physically demanding.

Reason 5: Most coffee roasters have never heard of slow roasting coffee and when they do, they think it is preposterous. Why do they say that? See numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Bonus Reason: Slow roasting coffees weigh less because of the actual loss of more moisture during roasting. The percentage loss in a slow roast can be more than 20%. That loss in weight costs money when you sell a product by the pound.

Every now and then, a little laughter is needed, but sometimes a little humor can also illustrate a larger point. Most of the low acid coffee roasters do not slow roast their coffee. Instead they use treatments and additives, which is probably one of the reasons that only a couple coffee companies in the United States are committed to slow roasted, low acid, and organic coffee.

The incredible flavor of slow roasting coffee is reason enough to slow roast, not to mention all the customers that write us and tell us they can enjoy drinking coffee again.

-Mavericks