How to Brew Guqiao Coffee? A Complete Home Brewing Guide - How Much Does a Cup of Guqiao 2.0 Coffee Cost?

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How to Brew the Perfect Hua Guai Coffee Beans

Making Hua Guai coffee beans taste delicious may seem easy, but there are actually many details to pay attention to, and every factor affects the taste. Why can others brew the same beans deliciously, while you follow the process exactly but can't achieve similar results? Let's discuss what factors can influence this.

1. Freshness

Many people choose pre-ground coffee powder for convenience, or grind a large amount at once and store it in the refrigerator. In fact, "freshly ground" is the first condition for good coffee, ensuring its flavor and mouthfeel.

Once coffee is ground, it accelerates the oxidation process of the powder. If the aroma dissipates severely, the coffee's natural flavor will disappear. Freshness significantly affects the flavor and texture of the final product. All foods deteriorate over time, and coffee also gradually loses its proper flavor and aroma, undergoing an acidification process. The main factors that promote coffee spoilage are oxygen, humidity, and sunlight.

The fresher the whole coffee beans, the more they emit a mellow, sweet, and pleasant aroma. The sweetness, bitterness, acidity, and body have excellent harmony, with diverse layers and rich aftertaste. However, coffee that has been stored for too long tends to develop an unpleasant smoky flavor, and the oils become mixed and unpalatable due to spoilage, creating a strange taste. Therefore, it's best to choose beans in their optimal drinking period (7-10 days after roasting) and brew within 5 minutes of grinding. For this session, we chose Hua Guai beans roasted on August 1st.

2. Grind Size

Ideal grinding means most coffee particles have the same size and shape, allowing for better uniformity during brewing. However, in reality, no grinder can achieve perfect consistency. Even with high-end grinders, the ground coffee will inevitably contain some coarser particles and fine powder. If these overly coarse or fine particles are few in quantity, the problem isn't serious. If there are many, brewing will result in "some particles being under-extracted while fine dust is over-extracted."

Why does this phenomenon occur? Large coffee particles dissolve slowly, so they haven't completed extraction yet - the good flavors haven't emerged, resulting in under-extraction. Small coffee particles dissolve quickly, having completed extraction long ago and beginning to release bad flavors wildly, resulting in over-extraction. To achieve balance, coffee particles should be as uniform in size as possible. The simplest method is to use a flour sieve to remove the fine powder.

Grind Size for Pour-Over Coffee

Generally speaking, coffee grind size can be divided into five levels: coarse, medium, medium-fine, fine, and very fine.

(1) Medium-fine grind: Suitable for lightly roasted beans. Fuji "ghost tooth" 3.5, granulated sugar size (the most common supermarket granulated sugar, slightly larger than regular sugar).

(2) Medium grind: Suitable for medium-roasted beans. Fuji "ghost tooth" 4. Granulated sugar (the largest granulated sugar available in supermarkets, this is the most common grind size). Medium grind is slightly coarser than medium-fine but not as coarse as full coarse grind.

(3) Coarse grind: Suitable for medium-dark roasted beans. Fuji "ghost tooth" 4.5

Coarse grind > Rock sugar (larger than the largest granulated sugar available on the market)

3. Coffee Distribution

After pouring coffee powder into the dripper, it needs gentle shaking to spread evenly. Too much force or excessive shaking should be avoided. A level coffee bed provides the foundation for bloom water injection, allowing the coffee powder to absorb water and release gases more evenly.

4. Water Quality

98% of pour-over coffee is water. Water quality is divided into "soft" and "hard." Water hardness refers to the content of dissolved salt substances in water, generally measured by calcium and magnesium salt content. The higher the content, the greater the hardness. Hard water contains more carbonates, which may contribute to more bitter flavors in coffee. Water from taps is generally harder and has poorer taste;

It's also not recommended to use pure water for making coffee, as coffee made with pure water often tastes dull and lacks layers. However, don't use unknown brand mineral water or bulk water. If the water has any off-flavors, it will be more noticeably amplified in the coffee. A more suitable choice is filtered water.

5. Water Temperature

Water temperature is also an important indicator that affects coffee taste. Water that's too high will make the coffee's bitterness stronger. High temperatures will quickly burn fine coffee powder, generally described as "burnt coffee" to precisely describe coffee extracted with high temperature where flavor control is defective;

Water that's too low will make the acidity stronger, and the extracted coffee will have some raw and sour flavors. However, low water temperature also has ways to make good coffee - by extending the soaking time of water and coffee powder, such as in cold drip coffee.

Recommendation: Light to medium-roasted coffee beans are suitable for extraction with water temperatures around 90-92°C, while dark-roasted beans are suitable for 86-88°C temperatures.

6. Water Flow

Bloom Water Injection:

Whether coffee aroma and layers can be fully released depends on water injection, requiring a penetrating water stream. Three-stage extraction is commonly used, but there are also incorrect techniques:

(1) Uneven water injection: The water stream is sometimes thin and sometimes thick, circles are not round, injection is asymmetrical. The consequences are that areas with more water overflow and penetrate through the filter paper; areas with less water cannot fully wet the coffee powder, causing over-extraction in areas with more water and under-extraction in areas with less water.

(2) Too gentle water injection: When injecting water, there isn't enough force to let water penetrate the surface powder layer, only moistening the surface, allowing water to slowly seep into deeper layers. This prolongs the time for bloom water to seep from the surface layer to the bottom layer, and some water will spread from the surface and flow away through the edge ribs. If coffee particles are tightly packed, water penetration speed will be very slow, and overflow is likely to occur. If there's too much powder, the powder layer becomes thick, and if the penetration force is insufficient, water will remain on the surface.

What is good bloom state?

When hot water is poured, the gas inside the coffee powder expands due to heat (coffee powder, when magnified, looks like a honeycomb with many gaps). After gas expansion, it begins to expel excess gas. Because gas continuously escapes, the coffee powder and hot water visually form a continuously expanding small hill. Meanwhile, besides gas escaping from inside the coffee powder, hot water also slowly seeps into the coffee powder's interior, causing some soluble substances to begin dissolving and forming high-concentration coffee liquid.

In the final stage of blooming, because most gas has been expelled and the overall temperature has dropped, some unexpelled air also begins to slightly contract. Visually, the small hill will gradually change from wet to a dry or slightly cracked collapsed state, which also represents the completion of blooming. This is the timing for the first water addition.

Bloom time is about 30 seconds, allowing the coffee powder to absorb water. Saturated coffee powder will expand and produce another aroma. The longer the bloom time, the stronger the coffee flavor. Usually, the bloom water amount is twice the coffee powder amount. For example, for 15g of coffee powder, pour about 30g of water to fully saturate the coffee powder.

First Stage Water Injection:

(1) Pour penetrating water

A penetrating water stream generally means that during each water addition, the stream should penetrate through the previously saturated powder layer, allowing the unsaturated particles in the lower layer to begin absorbing water. Penetrating water doesn't mean the higher the water stream, the better. The higher the water stream height, the greater the water flow's impact force, and the more difficult it becomes to maintain stable circular motion, causing increased disturbance during extraction and preventing uniform coffee powder extraction, increasing harsh and astringent flavors;

If the water stream is too low, the pour-over kettle easily hits the dripper. However, if using a low injection method, don't circle too slowly or pause, as this will cause lower-level coffee powder to roll up. A penetrating water flow has a state of being thick at the top and thin at the bottom. The water from the kettle spout should be wide, with the ending state presenting a sharp shape.

(2) Circle size

Circle size also affects extraction rate. If you only circle the small center area (about the size of a coin), it will cause the surrounding coffee powder to not dissolve completely and effectively; if you circle to the edge of the dripper, water easily bypasses the coffee powder and flows directly into the coffee pot, causing under-extraction of the entire cup. When injecting water, circle from the center outward, keeping the water stream about 1cm away from the dripper edge.

(3) Circle speed

If circling too fast, it will cause large disturbance; too slow, and the extraction time becomes too long, causing bitterness to emerge later. Taking light to medium-roasted beans as an example, generally speaking, slightly faster circles produce brighter flavors; slightly slower circles produce softer flavors.

Second Stage Water Injection

Also pour penetrating water, with slightly faster circling speed and increased water injection amount. The water level should be higher than the first stage, using water pressure to maintain a certain rate of water level decline. For example, with 225g of water, you can pause when reaching about 120-125g, wait until the water level on the coffee powder drops by 1/3 or half, then continue injecting water. This can adjust the flavor of pour-over coffee, making the taste stronger. Therefore, interrupting water flow can change the taste of pour-over coffee and also adjust the extraction rhythm.

Why do this? How to judge the second stage water injection through water level decline speed?

When water reaches the bottom, the bottom particles will also begin to expand. As the water at the bottom flows out, the entire powder layer also descends. When coffee powder particles haven't absorbed much water initially, because the particles are relatively light, most coffee powder will float on the water surface. As the water level drops, the surface will look like a bowl or a U-shape with a wide opening.

The speed of water level decline represents how much water the coffee powder particles have absorbed. Because the coffee powder in the dripper is initially lighter than water, the sinking speed of coffee powder particles will be slower than the water flow. When the coffee powder absorbs more water and becomes heavier, the coffee powder particles will quickly reach the bottom of the dripper and cause blockage, making the water level decline slow down or even stop.

What are the different states of water level decline?

When the water level decline is too fast, you don't need to add water. Because when the water flow drops faster than the particles, it means the water flow is washing the coffee powder particles, preventing them from being in a static state.

When the water level decline slows down, it means the coffee powder particles begin to deposit at the bottom, causing blockage and making the water level decline slowly.

When the water level stops declining, it means the bottom is completely blocked, and the coffee powder particles are essentially soaking in water. If this situation continues for too long, bitterness will follow.

Therefore, the timing for adding water is when the water level slows down or stops declining - start adding penetrating water.

Extraction Completion

The time is approximately 2 minutes. Observe the coffee bed. A state of relatively uniform extraction shows a level dripper with no residue on the walls. For medium to medium-dark roasted coffee, I choose to have some residue on the walls, looking like small pits or slightly collapsed in the middle.

Example: How We Brew Hua Guai Coffee Beans

Dripper: Hario V60

Grind setting: Fuji 3.5

Water temperature: 90°C, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15

Brewing method: Pour 25g water for 30-second bloom, vertical water flow injection, slow circling to 120g water for stage separation, finish brewing at 226g with larger water flow.

Total time: 2 minutes 5 seconds

The front aroma has obvious cantaloupe fragrance and strawberry jam. The entry brings a jackfruit-like gentle acidity. In the middle section, strawberry berry flavors emerge, along with some sucrose aftertaste. The layers are quite rich.

Hua Guai Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted Hua Guai coffee beans have full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high value - a 227-gram package costs only 98 yuan. Calculating at 15g per cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to cafe prices that often cost dozens of yuan per cup, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473