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Misconceptions in Self-Learning Pour-Over Coffee: How Many Have You Fallen Into?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, With the development of specialty coffee, pour-over coffee has become a common sight in various styles of cafés. Thanks to its advantages of pure flavor, low entry cost, and simple operation, it has become the preferred choice for many people who are learning coffee on their own. In today's information-rich era, the avenues for self-learning pour-over coffee have only increased, not just...

Introduction to Pour-Over Coffee

With the development of specialty coffee, pour-over coffee can now be found in cafes of various styles. It has also become the preferred choice for many people to learn coffee brewing on their own, thanks to its advantages of pure flavor, low entry cost, and simple operation.

In today's era of advanced internet information, there are increasing ways to learn pour-over coffee on your own. Not only are there integrated extraction theories with key points highlighted, but there are also tutorials covering various equipment, steps, techniques, and details. However, precisely because this "free" knowledge is often scattered and lacks systematic organization, many self-learners easily fall into operational misconceptions.

Misconception No. 1: Being "Close Enough" with All Parameters

Many newcomers to pour-over coffee will establish a pouring framework before actual extraction, but when it comes to practical operation, they don't strictly follow the originally set parameters for brewing. "It's okay if the coffee grounds are off by a few tenths of a gram," "It's fine to let the boiled water sit for a while," "The water amount looks about right, a little more or less doesn't matter"... If each parameter deviates slightly, the final coffee flavor will have "more than just a little" difference.

For beginners, after establishing a brewing framework, it's crucial to strictly follow the originally set parameters for brewing. Only by doing so can you eliminate various unstable factors from the source when later "reviewing" your parameters, making it easier to identify the reasons why the coffee doesn't taste good.

Misconception No. 2: Starting the Timer Only After Blooming

Blooming for 30 seconds is a point mentioned in almost all tutorials, but some advocate pressing the timer only after completing the bloom pour, while others believe timing should start when the pour begins. The time difference between these two approaches is about 7-9 seconds.

Typically, what we call extraction time refers to the total duration from the starting point of brewing to the end of dripping. Once water and grounds contact, extraction has already begun, so the moment the first drop of hot water falls into the coffee grounds is the starting point of blooming, and timing should begin then. If you only start timing for 30 seconds after completing the pour, the actual blooming time will extend to about 37-39 seconds, and the total extraction time will also be longer than the estimated value.

Misconception No. 3: No "Hamburger" During Blooming Means Stale Beans

In many promotional advertisements or video tutorials, you can see that when hot water is poured into coffee grounds, it slowly rises to form a "hamburger-shaped" bulge, which looks very satisfying and is one of the main manifestations of extracting fresh beans. Over time, some beginners have come to "assume" that brewing fresh coffee must produce a "hamburger" during blooming, and if it doesn't bulge, it means the beans are no longer fresh.

In reality, light roast coffee beans featuring floral and fruit flavors inherently have greater hardness, with complete and dense structures. They degas more slowly when encountering water, so they won't produce obvious bulges. Additionally, when coffee grounds are ground coarser, the coffee particles will be larger, requiring more time to become saturated with water, resulting in poor degassing effects and thus smaller expansion.

Misconception No. 4: Must Pour in Clockwise Circles

Circular pouring is our most common form of agitation, with uniform circles from inside to outside to fully extract soluble flavor compounds. Many newcomers, after learning about circular pouring, immediately fall into another blind spot—the direction of the circles. In this regard, FrontStreet Coffee has brewed two pots of coffee with identical parameters, only changing the direction of pouring circles, and found no significant difference.

Theoretically, whether pouring clockwise or counterclockwise won't produce significant changes. Circle size, water flow height, stream thickness, speed, pouring time, water flow stability... these are all factors that can affect the final flavor performance of the coffee, while the direction of circles is just an extremely subtle influencing factor. As for whether to choose clockwise or counterclockwise pouring, this completely depends on personal habit, as long as you maintain a consistent circular direction.

Misconception No. 5: Removing the Dripper Before Coffee Finishes Dripping

Some brewers heavily rely on stopping the flow during daily brewing. They always feel that the last 10-20ml of the brew is the source of bitterness and often choose to "discard" it. Other brewers, being too cautious, like to stare at the extraction time on the electronic scale. If it exceeds 2 minutes without finishing dripping, they quickly remove the dripper to "protect" the coffee in the server below from being affected.

In either case, stopping the flow means the coffee-to-water ratio is incorrect, with less actual coffee liquid than the set value. FrontStreet Coffee has experimented that, according to the normal 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio for pouring, tasting the stopped tail-end coffee liquid did not reveal negative flavors such as bitterness or harshness. Blindly relying on "stopping the flow" instead loses some flavor compounds, causing the coffee to lack aftertaste. If the tail liquid we brew is indeed distinctly bitter, we should consider how to optimize brewing parameters rather than blindly relying on flow stopping.

Misconception No. 6: Always Discussing Golden Cup Theory Before Sensory Experience

Some friends, after learning concepts like extraction rate and concentration, tend to cling to a bunch of "standard data," always emphasizing terms like over-extraction or under-extraction before tasting, while ignoring the true charm of pour-over coffee: flavor.

First, for beginners who have just started learning pour-over, FrontStreet Coffee does not advocate the view that "a slight difference in parameters leads to a huge difference in taste." We suggest starting from your own sensory experience to determine whether adjustments are needed, then decide the adjustment direction based on needs and abilities combined with conservative brewing parameters. If one doesn't understand many extraction logics well and still has poor water control skills, yet blindly pursues so-called "professionalism," it's probably difficult to find effective progress in their learning journey.