How to Make Coffee at Home - Pour Over Coffee Equipment Hario V60 Dripper, Aeropress, and Moka Pot Recommendations

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Making Coffee at Home

Making coffee at home is actually not a complicated matter. It basically depends on your coffee needs and budget. Coffee is a beverage, essentially similar in nature to tea. Many times when we go to cafés, it's purely because "I just want to have a cup of coffee."

Some people might ask FrontStreet Coffee, "Do I need to buy expensive equipment to make coffee at home? How can I choose the brewing method that suits me best?" Let FrontStreet Coffee explain the common home brewing methods for you to choose from.

Pour-Over Coffee

Suitable for: Those who love to explore coffee

Generally composed of a pour-over kettle, filter cup, and filter paper. Making pour-over coffee allows you to get slightly different flavored coffee with each brew, and this is also the daily brewing method used at FrontStreet Coffee stores. Water temperature, blooming time, water flow rate, pouring technique, number of pours, grinding setting, and other details are all factors that affect the flavor of pour-over coffee.

Hario V60 Filter Cup

This is a very popular brewing device, named after its shape—a cone with a 60-degree angle.

It can bring you a clean and rich flavor expression. By adjusting parameters such as water temperature, grind size, and coffee-to-water ratio, you'll also get different tasting coffee. Tips: For your first attempt, you can choose to use medium-fine ground coffee, after 30 seconds of blooming, use a fine water stream to pour in concentric circles over the coffee grounds. (For more V60 filter cup brewing methods, you can also follow articles published by FrontStreet Coffee)

Kalita Wave Filter

Kalita's wave filter is similar to the V60, but the principle is quite different.

First, the bottom of the wave filter has a flat surface with three small circular holes. This design detail also affects water flow, allowing water to contact coffee grounds more evenly for stable extraction and balanced taste.

The usage of this device is the same as the V60—using medium-fine ground coffee, after blooming, pour in concentric circles over the coffee grounds. Note that whether you choose a fast or slow water flow, the consistency should be maintained from beginning to end, and avoid pouring onto the edges of the coffee grounds and filter paper. Of course, you can try different pouring methods, such as multi-stage pouring—adding small amounts of water multiple times to complete the brewing.

Clever Dripper

Suitable for: Those who seek convenience and prefer balanced taste

The operation of the Clever Dripper is simple with relatively few variables. The Clever Dripper is another convenient, simple, fast, and stable good choice besides the AeroPress.

Invented by a Taiwanese person, this coffee device brews coffee using a concept similar to brewing tea. First, place filter paper in the Clever Dripper and rinse it with hot water to warm the cup, then drain the water through the clever device (pushing the middle valve up automatically opens the valve, hence the name Clever Dripper). As for the coffee grind setting, FrontStreet Coffee would recommend using medium-roasted coffee beans for a more balanced taste, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Bird of Paradise, FrontStreet Coffee's Huilan, or FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Candy.

Its usage method is slightly different. First, whether to wet the filter paper is up to you. After pouring coffee grounds into the filter, first inject a small amount of hot water, then you can stir or choose not to stir. After blooming, inject hot water according to the coffee-to-water ratio. Here, it's not required to pour in concentric circles. After pouring is complete, you can stir to help extraction. When the steeping time ends, place the filter cup on the sharing pot, and the valve will automatically open, completing the coffee extraction.

AeroPress

Suitable for: Those who are obsessed with high body coffee taste

The AeroPress was born for convenience—a portable device that can quickly make a cup of coffee. It has an annual World AeroPress Championship. But rather than a competition, it's more about everyone wanting to celebrate this great invention in this way. Its玩法多变, highly operable, with no absolute rules.

Coffee made with the AeroPress has a full body and offers much room for experimentation. The AeroPress is very easy for beginners to get started with.

AeroPress Standard and Inverted Brewing Methods/Differences

FrontStreet Coffee believes the biggest difference is that when you use the standard method, coffee is filtered out while pouring water, which affects the integrity of the taste; while the inverted method can avoid this problem.

As for AeroPress brewing parameters, if you ask FrontStreet Coffee for standard AeroPress brewing parameters, we'd have to say sorry (shrug.jpg). However, we do have two insights: the material of the AeroPress determines that it dissipates heat slowly and loses less temperature; but too high a temperature can easily lead to over-extraction, while too low a temperature can result in under-extraction. Use a lower water temperature: using temperatures in the range of 84 degrees plus or minus 2 degrees can achieve a smoother, more balanced taste.

Moka Pot

Suitable for: Those who are heavy lovers of espresso

The Moka pot is also called an "Italian drip pot." Like the French press, it's a common coffee brewing device.

The Moka pot has three chambers—the bottom chamber holds water, the middle holds coffee grounds, and the top chamber holds the brewed coffee. Each layer has a metal filter screen. After placing the Moka pot on a stove to heat, steam will increase the pressure in the bottom chamber, causing water to pass through the middle coffee grounds layer, and finally settle in the top chamber as brewed coffee. Usually, the last portion of coffee from the Moka pot is not used.

Compared to the 9 atmospheres of pressure of espresso, although the Moka pot uses 1.5-3 atmospheres to brew coffee, it's still more aromatic and rich than other coffee brewing methods and can retain crema, making it very popular. If you want to easily extract coffee with crema, FrontStreet Coffee believes that freshly roasted medium to dark roast coffee is particularly important. Here we recommend FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Espresso Blend, FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Espresso Blend, and FrontStreet Coffee's Sunflower Warm Sunshine Espresso Blend.

French Press

Suitable for: Those who want to drink coffee in the simplest, simplest, simplest way

This should be the most well-known and simplest coffee brewing device in the world.

Most French presses on the market are affordable, and they're simple to make. Large-capacity French presses can also make multiple servings of coffee at once. In terms of taste, it has high body, but cannot fully showcase all the flavors of coffee beans.

If you've noticed the surface of brewed coffee, you can find that coffee itself contains oils. French press involves putting coffee grounds into a French press and steeping them in hot water for a certain time before extraction. Unlike pour-over paper filters which remove some of the coffee's oils, French press doesn't filter out these oils, so compared to pour-over, it will have different aroma and taste.

Chemex

Suitable for: Chemex is especially suitable for artistic youth & those who want to brew multiple servings of coffee at once

A large Chemex can brew 8 servings of coffee at once. For coffee, what's most noteworthy about this filter cup is the special filter paper it uses.

Chemex专用滤纸质地更厚，在最后的滤纸总会保留更多的油脂。然而因为Chemex器具的深V设计，因为口感的一致性比较难掌握。不同于其他手冲器具，Chemex更适合使用中粗研磨刻度。咖啡的味道特别干净，风味明显，但是难以保证一致性，需要练习。

Home Coffee Machine

Suitable for: "Refined players" who are deep & heavy lovers of coffee

Home coffee machines can mainly be divided into four types: fully automatic espresso machines, semi-automatic espresso machines, drip coffee machines, and capsule coffee machines.

Fully Automatic and Semi-Automatic Espresso Machines

Fully automatic machines don't require manual operation and can automatically grind beans, fill coffee, and make coffee—just put in coffee beans and enjoy coffee. They have rich features but correspondingly more complex structures and higher maintenance costs. Semi-automatic machines are called the most professional coffee machines, with extraction more outstanding than fully automatic ones. But they require manual filling and tamping of coffee, placing higher demands on the operator. Compared to fully automatic machines, they have simpler structures and easier maintenance.

For such equipment, due to pressure extraction, combined with extremely fine grinding and high water temperature, if you choose lightly roasted coffee beans, they can easily show sour and astringent tastes. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends prioritizing specialized espresso beans, especially those with nut, cocoa, cookie, chocolate, and caramel flavors, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend, FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend, FrontStreet Coffee's Basic Blend, and FrontStreet Coffee's Sunflower Warm Sunshine Blend.

Drip Coffee Machine

Drip coffee machines are also known as American automatic machines.

Drip coffee concentration is relatively light, and operation is also simple, taking 5-8 minutes to produce the finished product, making it very suitable for home and office use. But because it uses atmospheric pressure hot water, it cannot extract coffee oils, and the coffee concentration is not high. If you don't want to drink instant coffee but aren't pursuing espresso, then a drip coffee machine would be recommended.

Capsule Coffee Machine

If you want to drink espresso but fear the hassle, then the capsule coffee machine is the best choice.

Just use coffee capsules with one-button operation, and you can enjoy the deliciousness of espresso. Some capsules can also be paired to make specialty coffees.

The drawback is the higher usage cost—while one serving of espresso from fully automatic and semi-automatic machines costs 1-3 yuan, capsule costs range from 3-9 yuan. Additionally, capsules from different brands are not compatible. Choosing a capsule coffee machine is actually choosing a system—the capsule system determines the number and types of capsules you can enjoy later, as well as the price of capsules. Home coffee machines can make the high-body espresso you love, while also cultivating yourself as a barista.

Conclusion

The above is a general introduction to devices suitable for home use. They all have one thing in common—as long as you master simple brewing techniques, you can get a cup of coffee that belongs to you!

Important Notice :

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