[Illustrated Guide] Pour-Over Coffee Watering Tutorial: How to Pour Water, Proper Height, and Circular Motion

A few days ago, a customer came into the shop and asked: What are the requirements for pouring water when making pour-over coffee? Does the pouring height matter?

Conventional Pouring Height

When asked about how high the water stream should be during pouring, I instinctively paused for a moment! Indeed, there's no exact standard for this. Some people like to keep the water stream close to the liquid surface when making pour-over coffee, while others prefer to raise the stream higher. If I had to give a range, it would be approximately 0-7cm. FrontStreet Coffee's requirements for pouring are very simple: the water stream should be vertical, the circular motion should be stable, and the water hitting the surface should create no bubbles.

What's the Best Pouring Height?

According to FrontStreet Coffee's pouring requirements, it's difficult to maintain both a vertical water stream and bubble-free impact when pouring from above 10cm. (With the same water flow, when you gradually raise the water stream to a certain threshold, the end of the stream becomes a water chain, which introduces bubbles when it hits the liquid surface. This requires increasing the flow rate, but due to the design of pour-over kettles, excessive flow creates an arc, meaning it's not perpendicular to the liquid surface.)

When considering how high the pouring should be, we introduce a new question: How much can high versus low water streams change the flavor of coffee?

FrontStreet Coffee conducted an experiment on this topic. The experiment involved brewing coffee using 2cm and 10cm pouring heights respectively, while keeping other parameters as consistent as possible. The results showed that pouring close to the coffee surface produced coffee with higher concentration and richer aroma compared to pouring from a greater distance.

Previously, it was believed that the higher the water stream, the stronger its impact force, and thus the stronger its stirring ability. Based on this understanding, higher water streams should theoretically extract more flavor, resulting in higher concentration. However, the experimental results were quite the opposite.

The reason is that the effect of impact force is far less significant than that of temperature. When pouring from a high water stream, it's exposed to a larger area of air during the pouring process, causing it to cool faster than a low water stream. Although its stirring ability is stronger than that of a low stream, the lower temperature when it enters the coffee grounds slows down the dissolution of coffee substances. Additionally, because of the stronger stirring force, the water drains slightly faster. Therefore, the coffee concentration ends up being slightly lower.

You Might Already Know How to Pour Water

Therefore, we understand that during brewing, the height of the water stream affects the actual extraction temperature. Regardless of the pouring height, it's not a major issue as long as it's paired with compatible brewing parameters. For reference, you can look at Japan's Matsuya-style brewing. You might be shocked when you see a 30cm-high water stream, but when you understand the entire brewing approach, you'll appreciate the compromises made due to the limitations of that time.

Just as FrontStreet Coffee typically uses 91°C water temperature when brewing light-roasted coffee beans, combined with a 4-5cm pouring height to achieve the desired coffee flavor (of course, this also depends on other parameters like grind size and water-to-coffee ratio).

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473