Seven Major Factors Affecting Pour-Over Coffee_How Much Impact Do Coffee Beans Have on Pour-Over Coffee

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For a long time, the variable factors that affect pour-over coffee have been divided into: 1. Pour-over coffee beans; 2. Grind size; 3. Water; 4. Equipment; 5. Blooming time;

Pour-over Coffee Beans

Choosing coffee beans that suit your taste is an important standard in determining whether your cup of pour-over coffee is "delicious." Many people say it's too weak, has astringency, or has off-flavors—we first consider the coffee beans. If the coffee beans are roasted too lightly, they tend to develop astringency because they'll be undercooked. Therefore, I still recommend beginners choose medium-dark roast beans, and wait until you've mastered the techniques or really want to drink light roast beans before buying light roast beans to try. So, stop worrying about whether your pour-over method is wrong, but start choosing beans that suit you from the beginning. The knowledge of coffee is very deep, and it's also a magical plant—don't try to achieve it all at once, immediately challenging beans with low controllability.

Grind Size

There are various types of grinders on the market, and good grinders can ensure the coffee grounds are uniform in size. If the coffee grounds are uneven with too many fine particles, the resulting coffee's taste won't be pure enough. ("Pure" here means clean) So what exactly is the appropriate coarseness for pour-over coffee beans? The answer is: medium grind, about the size of sugar granules. If the coffee grounds are too coarse, hot water will flow through too quickly, making it difficult to extract the aromatic substances from the coffee. If the coffee grounds are too fine, the filter can easily become clogged, causing water and grounds to soak for too long, resulting in bitter and astringent coffee. Many beginners often fall into a misconception, thinking that coffee should be ground as finely as possible, but the result is quite the opposite—the control of coarseness is the most important factor in allowing a coffee to express its correct flavor.

Of course, before making adjustments to the grind setting, first you must understand the beans you're using. If you're using medium-dark roasted beans, such as Mandheling, then adjusting to a finer setting might bring richer aroma and body, but it will also bring bitterness and astringency. If you adjust coarser, it might bring some grassy aromas, but Mandheling that loses most of its body is incomplete, so you must debug the setting again and again until you adjust it to a taste you find satisfactory. If you're using medium-light roasted beans, such as Yirgacheffe, then using too fine a setting might produce strong acidity and very severe astringency, which easily leads to over-extraction, especially noticeable when you extend the extraction time. If you use too coarse a setting, it might bring bright acidity, but the aroma and sweetness in Yirgacheffe will also become much duller. Therefore, the appropriate setting is so important for a coffee bean—each coffee's optimal flavor expression requires different settings because grinders vary greatly, including grinders of the same model having differences, so settings must be adjusted by your own taste buds. After all, whether it tastes good or not is very subjective.

Freshness

"Freshly ground" is the first condition for good coffee; it ensures the coffee's flavor. Once coffee is ground into powder, it accelerates the oxidation speed of the coffee grounds, and the aroma begins to dissipate after 40 seconds. If the coffee grounds' aroma loss is severe, naturally the coffee's flavor will disappear.

Leveling

After pouring coffee grounds into the dripper, you need to shake it gently to spread them evenly—this is a very easily overlooked step, or using too much force, shaking too many times, both are not advisable. The evenness of the coffee bed determines the uniformity of pour-over coffee blooming and extraction, directly affecting the coffee's taste.

Water

Water Quality

A cup of pour-over coffee is 98% water, and the range of soluble solids (TDS) in water should ideally be between 100-250ppm. Don't use tap water, don't use tap water, don't use tap water! Using filtered water is fine, or mineral water works too, but be sure not to use unknown brand mineral water—if something goes wrong, the editor is not responsible.

Water Temperature

When answering questions in the background, the editor is often shocked—some beginners don't pay attention to water temperature, this is not acceptable, pay attention to water temperature, pay attention to water temperature, pay attention to water temperature! For pour-over, generally choosing water temperature between 85-95°C is fine. Water temperature that's too high will make the coffee's bitterness stronger, while lower water temperature will make the acidity stronger. Recommendation: Dark roast coffee beans are suitable for 80-85°C temperature, while medium-light roast coffee beans are suitable for around 90°C water temperature for extraction.

Water Flow

For pouring water, just pay attention to two points: one is stable flow rate, and the other is not to continuously pour water at a single point for a long time, except for the center. Additionally, common errors you might have:

A. The water column is too large, and the water column direction is too tilted, which will cause the water flow to wash a hole in the side of the coffee bed, allowing it to escape directly from the filter paper, causing insufficient coffee extraction.

B. The water column is pulled too high, causing the water flow to destroy the coffee bed structure, easily introducing air bubbles, leading to uneven coffee extraction. It will also cause the water column to have too much contact with air, affecting the water temperature, so the water column must be as close to the coffee as possible.

C. Unstable water flow, the water flow fluctuates between strong and weak, sometimes rushing violently, sometimes dripping intermittently, causing uneven soaking of different areas of coffee grounds, affecting the coffee's taste.

Coffee-to-Water Ratio

The editor won't even explain how important the coffee-to-water ratio is—your frequent questions of "Why is my coffee so weak?" "Why is it so strong?" are very likely because of your water-to-coffee ratio, kids!! Since different people have different tastes and requirements for strength, but we can refer to the Golden Cup extraction theory, where the golden extraction concentration range is 1.15%-1.35%, with water ratio around 1:13 to 1:15. However! Basically, coffee-to-water ratios suitable for Asians from 1:13 to 1:18 are all acceptable!! Some people simply pursue intensity with very little water, but it's not pleasant to drink. Conversely, some people expect to extract more substances with more water, not realizing that the later the extraction, the more diluted it becomes, resulting in insufficient concentration. When you get a new bean, you can start with 1:15, then adjust accordingly based on your taste buds~

Equipment

Dripper Material and Shape

Currently, common drippers on the market include V60 conical single-hole drippers, KALITA three-hole trapezoidal drippers, and basket-shaped drippers. Different drippers will produce different flavors—you can't simply and crudely say which dripper is good or bad, there's no distinction between good and bad!! You can only say they have different expressive abilities. What matters in drippers is the material—material is very important for preserving coffee aroma. Currently, common materials on the market include resin, ceramic, glass, stainless steel, pure copper, copper-plated, silver-plated... each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Filter Paper

Please choose high-quality filter paper! It doesn't have to be unbleached, as long as you recognize major brands, no odor, moderate thickness, it's fine. Many people use cheap, inferior filter paper to save money—it's very thin, prone to leakage, and some filter paper has very slow filtration speed, where you see water being poured but no downward flow, which inevitably leads to over-extraction, affecting the taste. Everyone wonders why they bought good coffee but the taste isn't good. The reason lies in the filter paper.

Pour-over Kettle

╮（╯▽╰）╭, the pour-over kettle was mentioned before—anyway, you should choose according to your skill level. Beginners still recommend a long-spout kettle, and be careful to keep the lid on when pouring, otherwise the temperature drops while you're pouring, so don't come asking me why your coffee is so acidic...

Blooming Time

Blooming actually uses the steam generated by hot water to open the fibrous structure in the coffee grounds, so that coffee extraction can be more complete. Friends who have the conditions can try extraction without blooming—you'll definitely get the taste of insufficient extraction with watery flavor. Generally, blooming uses relatively little water—just pour from the center with a small stream of water in circles outward until the coffee grounds are moistened, then let the coffee grounds expand and breathe on their own. Blooming time is generally 15-35 seconds—dark roasted beans should have correspondingly shorter blooming times, while light roasted beans can have correspondingly longer blooming times. Moreover, the bloom dome will be smaller when blooming light roasts, and larger when blooming dark roasts. The reason blooming requires a smaller water flow is that if the water flow is too large during blooming, it will damage the wetting structure of the coffee grounds' surface layer, and the water hammer effect from too large a flow will wash many fine particles directly to the bottom of the dripper, affecting subsequent coffee extraction.

Pour-over Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted single-origin pour-over coffee beans have full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, the cost-performance ratio is extremely high—a half-pound (227 grams) package averages around 80-90 yuan. Calculated at 15 grams per cup of single-origin coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to café prices that often reach dozens of yuan per cup, this offers extremely high cost-performance.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small storefront but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and unknown beans, while also providing online store services. 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