Have you ever thought about the acidity of your coffee? The acid in coffee is what gives it the bright vibrant flavors that we all know and love. It can also play havoc on anyone with a sensitive stomach, leading to heartburn or acid reflux symptoms. Thankfully, you don’t need to cut out coffee entirely. You just need to be cautious and drink low acid coffee instead.
Finding the best low acid coffee is a useful way around the problem. Because this type of coffee is low in acidity, it won’t set off the same side effects, allowing you to enjoy your drink without fear.
Thankfully, low acid coffee is becoming more common. Coffee producers are realizing the importance of this style and they’re stepping up. Some types of coffee are naturally low in acid, including coffee grown at low elevations and beans that are dark roasted.
Regardless of whether you choose coffee that’s designed to be low in acid or is naturally so, finding a good brand is essential. Far too many low acid coffee brands end up lacking in flavor or tasting like they’ve been burnt.being low in flavor and simply boring.
The entries on this list, on the other hand, are still bright and delicious, despite their low acidity. Don’t worry, they’re not likely to break the bank either (unlike these expensive coffee brands).
Low Acid Coffee Brands
Volcanica Low Acid Coffee
Volcanica Coffee Company is a gourmet coffee roaster, offering more than 100 types of coffee from around the world. These coffees are all roasted back at home in Atlanta, GA.
With so many products to choose from, it’s easy to find one that meets your needs. Indeed, Volcanica lists a selection of low acid coffees, including Guatemala Geisha Coffee, Kona Peaberry Coffee, and organically grown Peru Coffee. There is even low acid free range Kopi Luwak coffee, in case you feel like getting really adventurous.
If you can afford it, Volcanica’s Costa Rican Geisha coffee appears to be an excellent choice. Not only is the coffee low in acidity, but it also has a smooth body and distinct flavors. It holds up against higher acidity coffees, which is always excellent news.
The company’s Sumatran Gayo coffee is another good one to consider. This one comes from Indonesia’s Sumatra region. It has a sweet and heavy flavor, giving a delicious aftertaste.
Lifeboost Coffee
Lifeboost tops many lists of low acid coffee. This isn’t surprising either, as the company focuses on creating high-quality coffee that’s free from mycotoxins, grown in the shade, is USDA organic certified, and is low in acid.
The coffee is single origin too, with the beans being grown in a protected area in Central America. This approach gives the Lifeboost Coffee company plenty of control and transparency. As such, customers can be confident that the coffee lives up to its claims.
There are multiple roasts to choose from. While the medium and dark roasts should be lower in acid than the light roast, Lifeboost does claim that even the light roast will be gentle on your stomach.
There’s one issue though. Lifeboost’s products tend to be more expensive than regular coffee. This isn’t so surprising, given that they go to such lengths to make sure their coffee is high quality. Still, the price point might be an issue if your budget is limited.
Java Planet
Java Planet is another exceptional coffee brand. Like Lifeboost, they focus on creating a high quality ethically sourced product, one that tastes good and is also low in acid.
This time, there are multiple growth locations, including Columbia, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, and the beans are often grown at high altitudes.
However, there’s a tradeoff at play, as high altitude coffee does tend to taste better. Because of this, many companies will still grow their coffee at high altitudes, then do everything else they can to keep the acidity low.
Java Planet produces a variety of products, but only some of these are designed to be low in acid, including their regular coffee from Columbia and Guatemala, and their decaf coffee from Peru. Because there are so many products to choose from, you’ll need to shop carefully to make sure you end up with one that’s truly low in acidity.
Mommee Coffee
Mommee Coffee is interesting. The company specifically focuses on creating coffee for motherhood, including for women who hope to become pregnant, who are pregnant, who are breastfeeding, and those who are raising their children.
To do so, Mommee Coffee offers four different products: Decaf, Quarter Caf, Half Caf, and Full Caf. This makes it easy for customers to choose how much caffeine they want.
The most relevant feature for us today is that all of the products are low in acid. The coffee is also fair trade, water processed, and organic. This means that you can choose any product and be confident that it will be low in caffeine.
The company won’t be suitable for everyone, as it isn’t very up-front about where the coffee beans come from. Reviews also suggest that the coffee tends to be mild and creamy. It isn’t nearly as intense as most other types of low acid coffee, which could be a good thing.
Lucy Jo’s Coffee
This family-run coffee roastery operates out of New York and focuses on organic coffee. Roasting is conducted by hand in small batches, an approach that helps the company to maintain the quality of its products.
This is another company with a variety of coffees to choose from, including plenty of low acid ones. Examples include Organic Mellow Belly Low Acid Blend, Organic Sumatra Dark Roast, Organic Brain Storm, and Organic Peru. All of these products are low in acid, as are many others.
The main limitation is that the low acid coffees are all medium roast, medium dark, or dark roast. This isn’t the brand if you’re looking for something mild at all. Indeed, reviews point to rich and nutty flavors in the coffee.
If you’re not sure where to begin, check out the company’s low acid sampler. This contains nine different types of coffee, giving you the chance to experiment with the various low acid roasts and work out which ones you like the most.
Don Pablo
The site for Don Pablo Coffee talks about how the best roasting methods in the world aren’t much use unless the coffee beans are high quality as well. It’s an important point – one that’s often missed.
With Don Pablo, however, you have little to worry about, as the company focuses on making sure their beans and roasting processes are on point. Yet, surprisingly, the company is often overlooked when talking about low acid coffee.
Don Pablo offers a surprisingly decent selection of low acid options, including their Signature Blend, Cafe Cubano, Colombian Supremo, and even Bourbon Infused Coffee. However, the company is most famous for their Subtle Earth Organic Coffee. This one comes in a variety of styles and roast types.
It’s one of the few coffees on the market where all roasts are promoted as being low in acid. As such, you might be able to enjoy a light roast low acid coffee – a rare treat.
Still, the acid content is always influenced by roast strength. Even Don Pablo can’t avoid that pattern. So, if you have a sensitive stomach, you might need to stick to the company’s darker roasts instead.
Tieman’s Fusion Coffee
Tieman’s Fusion Coffee doesn’t provide many options. There are three main products to choose from: Tieman’s Dark Fusion Ground, Tieman’s Dark Fusion Wholebean, and Tieman’s Semi-Dark Decaf Fusion – Ground. A medium version is sometimes available too, although this one isn’t always sold on the company’s website.
What makes the company stand out is the fusion feature as the coffee is fused with a variety of other ingredients, including matcha green tea, goji berry powders, and rooibos red tea. The approach should increase the antioxidant content of the coffee, providing drinkers with more health benefits than regular coffee.
The company is so confident that the caffeine content and acidity levels are published for each of their products. For the regular coffee, you’re looking at a pH of 5.97 and a caffeine content of 71.11 mg per 8 ounces. The decaf version has a pH of 5.75 instead and the caffeine content is 4.75 mg per 8 ounces.
Reviews are generally positive, with customers saying that the fusion ingredients don’t take away from the coffee at all. Indeed, many people find that they can’t even taste the extra ingredients.
Simpatico
Simpatico is another brand with a broad selection of coffee. They rely on fresh Mexican coffee beans that are often grown at altitude and in the shade, to give you a truly delicious drink. The products are all USDA organic certified too, so there are no herbicides or pesticides to worry about.
This time there are four types of low acid coffee to choose from, including Medium Smooth Roast, Black & Tan Smooth Roast, Dark Smooth Roast, and Way Darker Smooth Roast. This gives you a decent range of roast levels – perfect for anyone who doesn’t like their coffee too dark.
The black and tan version is particularly interesting, as this is made up of half dark roast and half medium roast. It’s not a common style but could be a delicious alternative to a full bag of dark roast coffee.
That said, reviews of the dark roast tend to be positive, with customers highlighting the combination of a sweet and toasty aroma, with a mild finish. There’s clearly plenty to love about the flavor.
Puroast Coffee
Puroast Coffee has a heavy focus on low acid coffee. Seriously, much their site is dedicated to the low acidity and the antioxidant content of their coffee, with much less being said about where the beans are sourced from.
This type of focus has its good features and its bad ones. On the plus side, you know the company is taking efforts to keep the acidity low. This should mean a lower acidity than companies like Volcanica, where the primary focus is on high-quality coffee.
The flipside, of course, is that focusing on acidity could mean that the beans aren’t as good as they could be.
Thankfully, there are plenty of positive reviews. Many people talk about how they are feeling better after drinking the coffee, while others say that the flavor is strong and the coffee itself is delicious.
The company mostly focuses on a House Blend, which appears to be a medium roast. This is available fully caffeinated, decaf, or with half caffeine. There’s an organic version too.
There are other products listed on the site, including dark roast and even some flavored low acid coffees. The flavored ones could be worth trying, given that so few low acid coffee companies offer flavored products.
Folgers Simply Smooth
If you want something simple and convenient, then Folgers is difficult to beat. The coffee isn’t nearly as high quality or delicious as some of the other entries on the list. It isn’t as expensive either. Indeed, Folgers is a useful brand if you’re budget is limited.
Keep an eye out for their Simply Smooth range, which can even be found in K-cups these days. Their Simply Smooth coffee is designed to be easy on the stomach and may be lower in acid.
That said, there is a caveat here. Folgers coffee is comparatively low quality and it is instant coffee. While it may contain less acid than other types of instant coffee, this product still doesn’t stack up to the other entries on the list. Use this one only if you’re specifically interested in instant coffee.
Golden Ratio
Golden Ratio coffee is unusual. Truly. Their name highlights some of this, as the coffee does actually have a golden color.
This color comes from the roasting process, which is different than you might expect. The company intentionally keeps the temperature of roasting extremely low, lower than even blonde roast coffee.
By doing this, the coffee beans don’t produce much acid at all. The approach also creates a smooth cup of coffee, one that actually tastes more like a full bodied cup of tea than coffee. Golden Ratio coffee is prepared like tea too, making it much simpler than regular coffee.
Despite all these differences, Golden Ratio coffee may still offer most of the benefits you get from regular coffee. There’s a decent amount of caffeine present too, perhaps even more than with a normal cup of coffee (depending on how long you steep the bags of coffee for).
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