Is Your Coffee Bitter and Astringent? How Does Coffee Grind Size Affect Flavor?

Is Your Coffee Too Bitter or Too Astringent?

Many newcomers to coffee assume that bitterness equals richness, and that richness equals aroma. When we meet customers like this, we patiently walk them through the range of flavor profiles: a heavy body does not automatically mean good aroma, and bitterness is not always inevitable. For someone who has never studied coffee, though, a flavor wheel is genuinely useful. Once coffee is in your mouth, you can start to name what you taste.

With that in mind, many enthusiasts — especially those just beginning to explore tasting — can start learning pour-over with coffees that have clearly defined characteristics, such as Brazil, Mandheling, and Yirgacheffe.

Brazil represents the flavor profile of the Americas;

Mandheling represents the flavor profile of Asia;

Yirgacheffe represents the flavor profile of Africa.

Everyone wants a coffee that is sweet and smooth, with an explosive aroma and a lasting aftertaste, and they want that cup every single time.

Plenty of variables shape how coffee tastes: time, temperature, brewing equipment, and more. But beyond good beans and good gear, the factor that matters most to a good brew is the grind setting.

Now that you have chosen your beans and equipment, let's talk about grind size: how fine should coffee beans actually be ground?

Using the Fuji Royal grinder as an example, the ideal grind for pour-over is between settings 3 and 4, comparable to fine granulated sugar.

Many brewing guides describe grind size as "salt-like coarseness" or "fine-sand coarseness."

Those descriptions are hard to translate into an exact range. The most reliable approach is to grind a small amount yourself and compare. Mandheling typically wants a "fine-sand" coarseness, cold drip wants "sugar" coarseness, and a medium-light roasted Yirgacheffe should be slightly coarser than sugar.

The Right Grind Makes Better Coffee

The secret to good coffee lies in extraction — but what does extraction actually mean? It is the process by which flavor and aroma compounds in the beans are released into the water and combine with it, producing a delicious cup.

Those compounds, however, carry different flavors. Some bring sweetness, some bitterness, some fruit, and some astringency. They also dissolve at different points in the brew.

Medium-fine is roughly white granulated sugar — the common supermarket white sugar, a little coarser than the finer grades. Pour-over usually lands on a medium-fine grind because it is so widely applicable. As a coffee lover, you should experiment with your grinder until you find the medium-fine setting that suits you best.

Todd, the 2014 and 2016 US Brewers Cup champion, told us that the order in which compounds are extracted from coffee is:

Acidity, sweetness, bitterness, and finally astringency.

This means that by controlling the extraction rate, you control how many compounds end up in your cup — in other words, you decide how your coffee tastes. Whether you brew pour-over or espresso, this is the fundamental principle behind building a recipe, and grind size is part of it, because it shapes the brewing process.

Image source: Come True

Different origins, varieties, and processing methods all affect the taste. Using FrontStreet Coffee beans as a reference:

Personal Experience

Consider altitude: Beans from relatively lower altitudes have a looser texture and resist extraction less, so they usually take a medium grind — Brazil and Mandheling, for example. High-altitude beans are harder and resist extraction more, so they usually need a medium-fine grind — Panama, Costa Rica, Yirgacheffe, and Kenya.

Consider roast level: For dark roasts like Brazil and Mandheling, use a medium grind.

For light or medium-light roasts, use a medium-fine grind.

Consider the date: During the degassing window of 7–14 days, a medium-fine grind is typical. After more than a month, go coarser — though the specific setting should still be judged from the individual bean.

With a V60 dripper, the coffee bed is thicker and the contact time between coffee and water is longer. Fine particles tend to collect at the bottom, and a long soak can easily pull out bitterness and astringency, so it's important to control the amount of fines. If your grinder produces too many fine particles at a given setting, a flour sifter can help you keep the fines within an acceptable range.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Yirgacheffe is one of the clearest examples of the African profile described above, and a good place to start is the FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe everyday bean. It is known for white jasmine florals, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body, and its friendly price makes it a common first step into specialty coffee. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in the Sidama zone of southern Ethiopia, sitting at roughly 1,700–2,100 meters, with the trees planted above 1,800 meters — among the highest coffee regions in the world.

If you want even more clarity in the cup, the FrontStreet Gedingding Cooperative bean comes from the Worka region at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe. It uses the traditional washed process, and because the fruit is removed before drying, its inherent aromatics come through plainly: clean, bright citrus and lemon acidity with jasmine fragrance. It carries none of the traditional bitterness, which is exactly why so many coffee lovers fall for it on the first sip.

And if you prefer the fruitier, sweeter side, the FrontStreet Red Cherry is a fully ripe-cherry natural: only fully ripe, sound fruit is picked, dried on raised beds with regular turning, then hulled after three to five weeks. It keeps the classic Yirgacheffe citrus acidity while adding the tropical fruit of a natural, with berry juiciness, honeyed sweetness, and a creamy smoothness.