Coffee 34/50

Salt

Not the 1970s Strategic Arms Limitation Talks during Cold War. Neither a practical joke to spoil someone's coffee. What I mean is the old trick to cut the bitterns of coffee with good old NaCl.

This is really nothing new. "Old folks" have known it for decades. By adding just hint of salt fools the receptors and thus cuts the bitterness caused by Chlorogenic Acid Lactones and Phenylindanes.

I tested this myself, with two cups of coffee. I added little salt into one, and then flushing my mouth with a glass of water in between, I tasted the both. Not so dramatic, but indeed it seems to work. But be careful not to add too much! Only few grains of salt per cup is enough. Better to start too carefully than generously.

And this also brings into my mind what my mother once told me. When she was a little girl, she truly believed salt works as an opposite for sugar. If something is too sweet, then adding salt would make it less sweet, and vice versa. Although, I say they do work together. At least for us Finns, who love that terrible candy called salmiak.