How to Adjust Pour-Over Coffee Brewing Techniques: The Right Way to Adjust Coffee - Basic Coffee Knowledge

The Impact of Different Coffee Factors on Flavor

Within the coffee industry, there's a saying that a delicious cup of coffee consists of: 40% coffee variety, cultivation, and processing techniques; 30% coffee roasting quality; 20% brewing equipment and water quality; and the remaining 10% is brewing knowledge and technical ability.

This saying suggests that in the process from variety selection, cultivation, processing, roasting, to brewing, the earlier stages have increasingly greater impact on coffee flavor, while brewing—being the final stage—has relatively minimal influence on the coffee's flavor profile.

However, this doesn't mean that the 10% attributed to brewing knowledge and technical ability is unimportant. From the perspective of variety selection and cultivation, these factors directly determine the lower limit of a coffee's quality. Good coffee varieties, growing environments, and processing methods result in a high flavor floor for the coffee. Roasting then determines the flavor direction—for example, light roasts with citrus and floral notes, medium roasts with high sweetness and good balance, or dark roasts with rich, nutty, and dark chocolate characteristics. These flavor directions cannot be altered through brewing methods.

What Can Brewing Actually Change?

Brewing cannot miraculously transform a light roast with citrus and floral notes into a coffee with rich, nutty, and dark chocolate characteristics, nor can it make Catimor variety coffee taste like Geisha. However, with sufficient brewing knowledge and technical ability, you can allow the coffee's inherent qualities (determined by the other 90% of factors) to be fully expressed and achieve optimal flavor. You can also adjust brewing parameters and techniques to select flavors within the delicious range that suit your preferences.

For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Asalia, using FrontStreet Coffee's standard brewing method of 15g coffee grounds, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, 80% pass-through rate on a #20 sieve, 90°C water temperature, and three-stage pouring (30g/95g/100g), expresses the most prominent notes of dark plum, lemon, and cherry tomato brightness.

However, some customers prefer this coffee to be sweeter. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas might increase the water temperature to 91°C and adjust the three-stage pouring to 30g/120g/75g. Higher temperature improves extraction rate, increasing sweet and bitter compounds from the middle to later extraction stages, while increasing the middle-stage water volume concentrates the extraction of more sweet substances. This adjustment highlights the cherry tomato and honey sweetness in FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Asalia coffee beans.

Another example is FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia COE #22 coffee beans, which FrontStreet Coffee acquired in an auction last year. This coffee is renowned for its rich tropical fruit notes and prominent sweetness. FrontStreet Coffee's standard brewing method uses 15g coffee grounds, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, 80% pass-through rate on a #20 sieve (note: while the sieve pass-through rate is the same at 80%, the grind settings differ for various coffee beans), 91°C water temperature, and three-stage pouring (30g/95g/100g).

Some customers dislike the fermented notes and prefer a cleaner profile. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas adjust the water distribution during brewing by pouring 40g of water during the bloom stage—this amount, exceeding twice the coffee grounds weight, saturates the coffee grounds thoroughly. The excess water allows some water to pass into the lower chamber before fully extracting coffee compounds, resulting in a cup with more acidic notes. The second stage involves pouring 185g of water directly with a small, steady circular motion, making the entire cup lighter with prominent berry notes while reducing fermented characteristics.

FrontStreet Coffee shares these coffee brewing adjustment methods not for everyone to memorize specific values, but more importantly, to understand the principles behind them. Just as brewing knowledge and technical ability only account for 10% in a delicious cup of coffee, this is the only portion that coffee enthusiasts can actually adjust. Whether a "90%" coffee can express 92% or 98% of its potential depends on everyone's mastery of that remaining 10% factor.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473