How to Brew Rich, Multi-layered Coffee

Body, aftertaste, and balance are all coffee terminology that we can easily understand, but descriptions about complexity are few and far between. So, what is complexity?

What exactly is complexity in coffee? When something is endowed with "complexity," it stands out remarkably compared to other simpler things. The same is true for coffee—when it evolves multiple distinct sensations in the mouth, it brings more pleasurable experiences. This is complexity. Many friends might not understand the meaning of this statement, so let's break it down and understand it in segments.

We can start with the tastes of sour, sweet, bitter, and salty. When we drink pour-over coffee, if there's only one taste (sour or sweet) throughout the entire process from sip to swallow, even without unpleasant negative flavors, it won't be impressive but rather dull. However, if this coffee has a lively acidity when first sipped, then develops sweetness after entering the mouth for a while, and upon swallowing, reveals an aftertaste even sweeter than before—that is a manifestation of richness in flavor layers.

Secondly, there's the clarity of flavors, which refers to how easily they can be identified. Let's take fruits we commonly eat as examples: oranges, apples, and watermelons. If we juice them and cover the cups, tasting them blindly, I believe everyone can quickly identify their flavors. However, if we mix all three together, it becomes difficult to distinguish each individual flavor, creating a muddled sensation. The same applies to coffee—when perceiving many flavors, these flavors need to manifest to varying degrees to be considered complex. Otherwise, it will create confusion and evolve into a muddled experience.

How to Brew a Coffee with Rich Complexity?

1. Start with Coffee Bean Selection

First, we can choose beans grown at higher altitudes. The higher the altitude, the slower the coffee cherries grow, the more nutrients they absorb, and therefore the richer their density and flavor compounds. This is also one of the reasons why most Central American countries use altitude as a standard for grading coffee beans.

Next is processing: natural, honey, and anaerobic processes have more complexity advantages than washed processing. It's an advantage, not necessarily stronger in complexity than washed processing. This is because they have more fermentation time, allowing for more possibilities in compound development. Therefore, in terms of complexity, coffee beans with higher fermentation degrees would be a better choice.

2. Retention of Fine Powder

After coffee beans are ground, they will inevitably produce some fine particles smaller than 0.3mm. We can retain an appropriate amount of these fines. Because fines are a double-edged sword—excessive fines will clog the filter paper, causing over-extraction and producing bitter, negative flavors.

Only using the right amount of fines can add different flavors to coffee, thereby enhancing complexity. This is the result of uneven extraction—particles of different sizes have different extraction efficiencies. Fine particles naturally extract faster than larger ones, and when extraction degrees differ, the emerging flavors naturally vary as well. Finally, because of this "appropriate amount" term, FrontStreet Coffee conducted a special experiment and found that fines accounting for 5% of the total is the most suitable value. It neither over-extracts nor clogs, and can extract more flavor layers.

3. Increase the Coffee-to-Water Ratio

When concentration is too high, flavors will become blurred, creating a muddled sensation that makes it difficult to distinguish various flavors. Then we can appropriately increase the coffee-to-water ratio to solve this problem. For example, if you're currently using a 1:14 ratio but the flavors come out blurred, you can increase it to 1:15. If the flavors are still blurred, then increase to 1:16—it's very simple.

4. Poured in Stages

Since flavor compounds are released at different time periods, we can use staged pouring to select the intensity of flavor compounds we need, thereby achieving the desired complexity. At this point, some friends might ask: why not recommend single pour?

The commonly mentioned single pour has a shorter extraction time than staged pouring because the flushing efficiency during pouring speeds up water penetration, which means it mainly extracts the sour and sweet compounds released in the early stages. Staged pouring allows compounds released in the early, middle, and late stages to be extracted to some extent, so ultimately, staged pouring will have more complexity. Therefore, we can make appropriate adjustments based on the actual situation, and brewing a coffee with distinct layers will no longer be a difficult task.

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FrontStreet Coffee

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