Hot take: I put a pinch of salt in my coffee grounds and it wasn't what I expected

So I read this old tip about adding a tiny bit of salt to your coffee grounds before brewing to cut bitterness. I finally tried it last Tuesday with my morning pour-over (just a regular light roast from the local shop). I used maybe an eighth of a teaspoon, mixed right in with the grounds. The result was weird. It didn't make the coffee taste salty, but it did make the whole cup taste... flatter. Like it muted the bright, fruity notes I usually get from that bean and just left a kind of dull, smooth taste behind. I guess it did reduce bitterness, but at the cost of the flavor I actually liked. It felt like it was fixing a problem I didn't really have. Has anyone else played with this trick and found a way to make it work without killing the good stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

wade7801mo ago

Try a tiny pinch directly in your brewed cup instead, it fixed the flat taste for me.

the_emery1mo ago

Isn't it funny how the smallest tweak makes the biggest difference? Wade780 is totally right about that pinch fixing a flat cup, and it's like that with so many things. You can follow all the main steps perfectly, but the whole result just needs that one tiny personal adjustment at the end. It's the difference between something that's just okay and something that's actually good. Why do we always forget that the final touch is so important?