If I go to make coffee and find that the coffee is a little old, I'll sprinkle a little ground cinnamon in the grounds in the basket before brewing. I won't use enough cinnamon that you can actually taste it in the coffee, but it seems to cut the acidity and bitterness.
Does anyone know why this works? Is there anything other than cinnamon I can do this with?
I would say that the cinnamon restores some of those floral top-notes that have likely evaporated from older ground coffee, and hides some of the mustier, oxidized flavors.
Salt works just as well, as does a pinch of dried mustard. I have absolutely no idea why.
This is a guess... Cinnamon may decrease the ion charge of the water and thus make it less of a scavenger of the ions in coffee. I soak-brew coffee without cinnamon for 60 seconds. It takes 90 seconds to achieve the same flavor with cinnamon. This is worth it because the result is smoother.
Any chemists out there that can weigh in on this concept?
