Bitter sweet symphony

As a barista, one of the most common complaints you get from customers is that their coffee tastes bitter or burnt. As happy as you are to remake the coffee, you need to know what’s causing the problem, otherwise you’ll be serving the same bad-tasting coffee.

Coffee is an acquired taste and some people seem to enjoy bitter flavours more than the others, but there are different kinds of bitterness, some that we want in our cup and some we don’t. The simplest way to tell a good coffee from a bad one is by analysing the aftertaste. A good coffee may start bitter, but will have a sweeter finish and get smoother on your back palate, whereas a bad