How to Drink Pour-Over Coffee Generally_How to Adjust Pour-Over Parameters_Pour-Over Coffee Bean Price Report

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You often wonder why, despite following every step carefully, your hand-pour coffee never tastes quite right! Why is it so bitter? There are many reasons: water quality, grind size, technique, water temperature are all variables...

1. Control Water Flow: Understanding the Secrets of Pour-Over Kettle Construction

Pour-over kettles on the market come in various shapes and designs. When choosing one, pay attention - a good, stable kettle must have the following construction features:

1. Kettle Body: A design that's wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, with the spout starting at the bottom of the kettle body. This prevents water flow from fluctuating due to the spout starting point being higher than the water surface during pouring. The kettle capacity should be around one liter to ensure sufficient water flow when brewing larger quantities of coffee.

2. Kettle Spout: The curve from the spout's starting point to the outlet should be gentle with a longer path to ensure smoother water flow. The lower edge of the spout should be beak-shaped to make water flow direction easier to control.

3. Handle: The handle's shape for comfortable gripping, the effect of water level on center of gravity during pouring, and wrist comfort are all key factors in choosing a pour-over kettle. Therefore, before purchasing, try holding it to ensure smooth operation and personal comfort.

The key aspects of pour-over kettle construction lie in the body's design shape and the spout's curve and size. Simplified pour-over kettle designs are often less detailed, making water flow prone to fluctuation and affecting pouring uniformity. When the water stream is too thick, the impact force is greater and can easily damage the coffee bed structure in the filter; when the water stream is too thin, it extends the overall extraction time, causing significant temperature drops and reducing extraction rate.

2. The Relationship Between Pouring Methods and Concentration

We often distinguish between two pouring methods: "interrupted pouring" and "continuous pouring." ("Interrupted pouring" means stopping after each circle to let the coffee-flavored liquid mostly drip down before continuing to pour, stop, and drip - repeating this process several times. Any interruption in pouring is called "interrupted pouring," which produces coffee with higher concentration. Conversely, when pouring continues without interruption, it's "continuous pouring.") However, those who make pour-over coffee should realize this distinction is far from sufficient. If you want more stable pour-over quality, you must consider the time factor - that is, limiting the time for "pouring" plus "dripping a fixed amount of coffee" within a certain range to minimize unstable environmental factors.

The operation method of "time limitation" is not complicated at all - just add a timer when you're pouring and observe how much time you use to brew the target amount of coffee liquid. For example, if you use 15g of coffee grounds and aim to brew 240g of coffee within 2 minutes, start the timer when you begin pouring and see if you can achieve this goal.

Afterward, taste and observe whether the coffee that finished dripping within this range meets your preferred strength requirements, and try to remember the flavor characteristics; if you find the coffee too strong, try shortening the time limit by ten seconds. If it's too weak, extend it by ten seconds, still brewing to 240g. Repeat this operation multiple times and taste to see if the coffee flavors become more consistent.

You might find that even with similar dripping speeds, perhaps one or two out of five times have similar flavors, while the other times show significant differences. At this point, you should study the issues of "coffee bed condition" and "water stream intensity."

The coffee bed condition in pour-over coffee cannot be overlooked - this must be emphasized! The coffee bed plays a subtle role, one of which is providing resistance to allow hot water to remain in the filter cup long enough to ensure sufficient flavor components are extracted. The coffee bed must also have certain supporting strength to fulfill its "barrier" function. To prevent weakening the coffee bed's support, you must properly control "water stream intensity," "pouring position," and add "stable circular pouring technique" to form a complete "pouring technique."

Correction Methods When Pour-Over Coffee Tastes Off

(Note: "tasting off" here refers to three situations: when pour-over coffee tastes too weak, too strong, or has too many unpleasant flavors)

1. Correction Methods for Pour-Over Coffee That Tastes Too Weak:

1. Keep everything else the same, just adjust your grind size finer. This increases the number of water-absorbing particles and retains hot water longer, naturally increasing the coffee concentration.

2. Keep everything else the same, try increasing your coffee grounds (with the same grind size as before) by 3-5 grams. This can increase the coffee bed thickness and enhance its water absorption, thus increasing concentration.

3. Keep everything else the same, switch to darker roasted coffee beans. Generally, darker roasted beans have better expansion and water absorption capabilities, allowing hot water to remain in the coffee bed longer to extract more components and achieve higher concentration. However, note that the coffee's flavor will change slightly due to the different roast level - in general, we recommend not making such adjustments.

4. Keep everything else the same, adjust yourself by slowing down pouring frequency. Originally brewing 240g of coffee in one minute forty-five seconds, you can adjust to two minutes or two minutes ten seconds. If still not strong enough, continue adjusting accordingly.

5. Keep everything else the same, you can use hotter water in your pour-over kettle than before. Higher temperature water has relatively higher extraction capability and can extract more flavors. However, this method must never be used on overly dark roasted coffee beans, otherwise... it will be bitter enough to kill you! Remember this!

2. Correction Methods for Pour-Over Coffee That Tastes Too Strong:

1. Directly add water to the strong 1:8 - 1:10 coffee liquid.

2. Keep everything else the same, just adjust your grind size coarser. This reduces the number of water-absorbing coffee particles, shortening the time hot water passes through the coffee bed, thus lowering coffee concentration.

3. Keep everything else the same, reduce your coffee grounds (with the same grind size as before) by 3-5 grams. This makes the coffee bed thinner, reducing its water absorption and thus lowering concentration.

4. Keep everything else the same, switch to lighter roasted coffee beans. Medium-light roasted coffee beans have relatively weaker expansion and water absorption capabilities. The extraction time for hot water in the coffee bed becomes shorter, naturally lowering the coffee concentration.

5. Keep everything else the same, just speed up pouring frequency. Originally finishing 240g of coffee liquid in two minutes, you can adjust to one minute fifty seconds. Taste the coffee texture and continue adjusting accordingly.

6. Keep everything else the same, just lower the extraction temperature to weaken water's extraction capability, making the flavor milder and weaker. However, this method will also cause your coffee to lose those flavors that can only be extracted at relatively high temperatures - it's up to you to weigh the trade-offs.

3. Correction Methods When Coffee Has Too Many Unpleasant Flavors:

1. Keep everything else the same, lower the extraction temperature to reduce the extraction rate. This way, those unpleasant flavors in the coffee won't be extracted too much. However, this method is essentially self-deceptive - while reducing the extraction rate, the good flavors in your coffee also won't come out, so a cup of coffee brewed this way isn't something to look forward to.

2. Keep everything else the same, change your coffee beans! Try coffee beans from several different roasters for comparison. Because some unpleasant flavors in coffee are likely caused by improper roasting, no matter how you adjust the brewing parameters for such beans, you're only treating symptoms, not the root cause.

3. Keep everything else the same, change your brewing water source. Poor water quality can also make your coffee taste all sorts of weird and unpleasant flavors. If you want to brew a good cup of coffee, don't skimp on water purification equipment.

4. Keep all steps the same, switch to a grinder with different burrs and compare the differences in the brewed result.

Pour-Over Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted single-origin pour-over coffee beans offer full assurance in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high value - a half-pound (227g) package averages around 80-90 RMB. Calculating based on 15g per cup of single-origin coffee, one package can make 15 cups, with each cup costing only about 6 RMB. Compared to cafés selling cups for tens of RMB, this represents exceptional value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A Guangzhou-based roastery with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online store services at https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473