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 Huakui Coffee Beans

Making Huakui 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 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, the oxidation process accelerates. If the aroma dissipates severely, the coffee's natural flavor disappears. Freshness significantly affects the flavor and texture of the final cup. All foods deteriorate over time, and coffee also gradually loses its proper flavor and aroma as it undergoes 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. Sweetness, bitterness, acidity, and body are in excellent harmony, with diverse layers and a rich aftertaste. Coffee that has been stored too long, however, tends to develop an unpleasant smoky flavor, and the oils become mixed and unpalatable due to spoilage, creating off-flavors. It's therefore best to choose beans in their optimal drinking window (7-10 days after roasting) and brew within 5 minutes of grinding. For this session, we chose Huakui beans roasted on August 1st.

2. Grind Size

Ideal grinding means most coffee particles are the same size and shape, allowing for more uniform extraction during brewing. In reality, however, no grinder achieves 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, the problem isn't serious. If there are many, brewing results in "coarse particles being under-extracted while fine dust is over-extracted."

Why does this happen? Large coffee particles dissolve slowly, so they haven't finished extracting - the good flavors haven't emerged yet, 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 is larger than rock sugar (larger than the largest granulated sugar available on the market).

3. Coffee Distribution

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

4. Water Quality

Pour-over coffee is 98% water. Water quality is divided into "soft" and "hard." Water hardness refers to the content of dissolved mineral substances in water, generally measured by calcium and magnesium content. The higher the content, the greater the hardness. Hard water contains more carbonates, which may contribute more bitter flavors to coffee. Tap water is generally harder and has a 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 either. If the water has any off-flavors, they 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 affecting coffee taste. Water that's too hot will make the coffee's bitterness stronger. High temperatures quickly burn fine coffee powder, generally described as "burnt coffee" to precisely describe coffee extracted at high temperature where flavor control is defective.

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

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

6. Water Flow

Bloom Water Injection:

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

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

(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 and 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 bed becomes thick, and if the penetration force is insufficient, water will remain on the surface.

What is a 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 a 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 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 release another wave of 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 it.

First Stage Water Injection:

(1) Pour penetrating water.

A penetrating 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 pour, the better. The higher the pour, the greater the water flow's impact force, and the harder it becomes to maintain a stable circular motion, causing increased disturbance during extraction and preventing uniform extraction, which increases harsh and astringent flavors.

If the stream is too low, the pour-over kettle easily hits the dripper. But if using a low-pour method, don't circle too slowly or pause, as this will cause lower-level coffee powder to roll up. A penetrating stream has a state of being thick at the top and thin at the bottom. The water from the kettle spout should be wide, ending in 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), the surrounding coffee powder won't dissolve completely and effectively; if you circle to the edge of the dripper, water easily bypasses the coffee powder and flows directly into the carafe, causing under-extraction of the entire cup. When injecting water, circle from the center outward, keeping the stream about 1cm away from the dripper edge.

(3) Circle speed.

Circling too fast causes 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, slightly faster circles generally produce brighter flavors, while slightly slower circles produce softer flavors.

Second Stage Water Injection

Again 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 bed drops by one-third or half, then continue injecting water. This can adjust the flavor of pour-over coffee, making the taste stronger. Interrupting the water flow can therefore 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 also begin to expand. As the water at the bottom flows out, the entire powder layer descends. When coffee powder particles haven't absorbed much water yet, they are relatively light, so most of the coffee powder floats 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 particles 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 declines too fast, you don't need to add water, because when the water flow drops faster than the particles, it means the water is washing the coffee powder particles and preventing them from settling into a static state.

When the water level decline slows down, it means the coffee powder particles have begun to deposit at the bottom, causing blockage and slowing the decline.

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 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 bed with no residue on the walls. For medium to medium-dark roasted coffee, I choose to leave some residue on the walls, looking like small pits or a slight collapse in the middle.

Example: How We Brew Huakui 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 a 30-second bloom, vertical stream injection, slow circling to 120g for stage separation, finish brewing at 226g with a 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.

Huakui Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted Huakui 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. Calculated at 15g per cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to café prices that often run to dozens of yuan per cup, this is a truly conscientious recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For a medium-roast bean that rewards careful brewing, FrontStreet Strawberry Candy is a natural match. Blending a Costa Rican honey-process coffee with a washed Panama Geisha and roasted medium, it delivers orange-blossom honey and a rounded sweetness, and it is flexible enough for cold brew, pour-over, and espresso. Brew it on a V60 at 90°C with a 1:15 ratio and you'll taste the same jammy, fruit-forward character this guide describes.

FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate is another excellent medium-roast choice for pour-over. This yellow Bourbon from Brazil's largest-producing terroir is clean and gently sweet, showing creamy peanut, chocolate, toasted-bread, and sugarcane notes after a medium roast - a forgiving bean for beginners learning to control water flow and grind size.