Is Pour-Over Coffee with Dark Roast Beans Delicious Without Bitterness? Understanding Flavor Differences Between Yirgacheffe and Mandheling

Understanding Coffee Roast Levels

Coffee beans must be roasted to become brewable raw materials, then ground and brewed to finally become a cup of coffee with fragrant aroma and rich flavor. Different roasted coffee beans have different characteristics, with roast levels roughly divided into: light, medium, and dark. The darker the roast, the fuller the flavor and body, the lower the acidity, and the higher the bitterness. FrontStreet Coffee will guide you on how to brew a medium-dark roasted coffee, with all the techniques you need!

The degree of coffee roasting depends on the color presented: light, medium, or dark. Although this is not the most accurate method to determine roast level—some coffees are naturally darker or lighter than others—it remains the most convenient way to judge roast levels. When purchasing coffee, you can expect different roast levels to have their own characteristics.

Light Roast: Best Preserves Original Coffee Characteristics

Light roast has a light coffee color, brownish appearance with less oil on the beans after roasting, and is the most obvious and bright acidity among all roast levels.

When coffees from different growing regions are presented as light roast, they best showcase the quality of each coffee. Most of what you taste is the original flavor of the coffee, which is why light roast beans are commonly used for cupping.

Medium Roast: Balanced Acidity and Body

Medium roast coffee has a darker brown appearance than light roast, and coffee oils may also be visible on the surface. This roast level allows roasters to bring out coffee flavors and aromas while balancing acidity and body. You can still taste the original flavor of the coffee from medium roast, but the bright acidity of coffee will be replaced by full body due to the roasting process.

Dark Roast: Presents Full Body and Strong Flavor

Dark roast has a dark brown or even nearly black appearance, presenting chocolate-like flavors, and you can see coffee oils on the exterior.

Dark roast coffee has rich oils on the surface.

When tasting dark roast coffee, you can almost only taste the flavors produced during roasting. The bright acidity of light roast coffee will be replaced by the full body of dark roast. After dark roasting, the original flavors of coffee almost disappear. It's difficult to taste regional flavor characteristics or processing method flavors in dark roast coffee.

Everyone's preferred roast level is quite different. Different roast levels present different characteristics of coffee. Knowing these can help you better understand coffees with different properties, whether you prefer light/medium/dark roast.

You can try different types of coffee with different roast levels. Only after trying can you know what roast level of coffee you like!

Grinding Coffee Beans

Grinding coffee beans is the first step in brewing coffee, but it's also a step where many people easily fail—either grinding too fine or too coarse, indirectly affecting the taste of the coffee. To precisely control the coarseness of coffee grounds, it's recommended to use an electric grinder with adjustable settings to accurately control the grind size. Taking the Fuji Mini grinder as an example, the optimal coarseness for pour-over coffee is between settings 3-4, and you can use fine sugar as a reference.

Taking the Fuji Mini grinder as an example, the optimal coarseness for pour-over coffee is between settings 3-4, with an 80% sieve pass rate.

Simply put:

Light roasted Zhummang: Needs fine grinding, 90-91°C water temperature

Dark roasted Mandheling: Needs medium to coarse grinding, around 88°C water temperature is sufficient

Different brewing methods and habits have their suitable grind coarseness. Distinguished by brewing method, Espresso is suitable for fine grinding, pour-over and siphon pots are suitable for medium grinding, while French press is suitable for coarse grinding. In terms of how long coffee grounds are steeped in water, the longer the time, the coarser the grind particles should be; the shorter the time, the finer the grind particles should be. However, this is just a general principle. Feel free to experiment more in daily practice, and you can definitely find the brewing method and habits that work best for you.

If the grind coarseness is uneven, because fine coffee powder is extracted by water faster than coarse coffee powder, it will create uncontrollable extraction time problems. That is, in the same amount of time, when fine coffee powder has been over-extracted due to being steeped in water for too long, coarse coffee powder is under-extracted due to insufficient steeping time. Such coffee certainly won't be a good cup of coffee.

Four Tips for Brewing Medium-Dark Roast Coffee

First: Low (Lower Temperature)

Medium-dark roasted beans are recommended to be brewed with water temperature between 86-88°C. Lowering the water temperature can slow down the extraction speed and reduce the extraction of bitter substances.

Second: Gentle (Gentle Water Flow)

Gently pour the water flow to reduce the impact of water flow on the coffee bed. Control the water level in the filter cup. After blooming, slowly pour water from a lower height, allowing the coffee grounds in the filter cup to be soaked. This can slow down the extraction rhythm, making it easier to produce coffee with soft mouthfeel and solid flavor.

Third: Slow (Slow Circular Motion)

Slowly pour water on the coffee bed from inside to outside and then from outside to inside. Too fast circular motion will increase the stirring effect of water flow on coffee, easily making medium-dark roasted beans more bitter. Minimize stirring of the coffee bed and try to let the coffee flavor be extracted through immersion. This can effectively control bitterness and astringency.

Fourth: Coarse (Coarse Grind)

Coarse grinding can reduce the contact area between coffee grounds and water, making it less likely for the coffee to extract bitter and astringent flavors at the beginning of brewing due to high-temperature water. Combined with slow brewing, extending the extraction time, and as the water temperature decreases in the later stages, flavor and body substances are slowly extracted.

Simply from the perspective of extraction principles, light roasted beans have relatively smaller cell expansion compared to dark roasted beans, and their water absorption is weaker. When water meets the cells, more time is needed to extract the desired substances. Basically, light roast can be ground fine, dark roast can be ground coarse. If your coffee becomes bitter and astringent, you can try adjusting the extraction method for medium-dark roasted beans through the above points.

Important Notice :

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