What Techniques Matter in Coffee Brewing? Are Coffee Beans More Important Than Extraction Methods?

Thanks to the development of self-media, learning any brewing method today has become remarkably easy. From illustrated tutorials to video explanations, various educational resources are available, providing numerous entry points for beginners who are just starting to explore coffee. However, as these "quick-fix tutorials" have proliferated, many novices have fallen into a misconception: when coffee doesn't taste right, their first instinct is to change their brewing technique.

"Fine powder stirring fast extraction method," "Japanese drop-by-drop method," "high-fineness fast brewing method," "world champion brewing method," "single-pour tornado technique"... Have you noticed something? Although these brewing approaches vary significantly, they share one common trait: they all emphasize the "brewing" aspect as the key to expressing coffee flavors, attempting to highlight particular pleasing characteristics in coffee—such as sweetness, body, or juicy sensations—by altering techniques.

In reality, these flavor differences expressed through "brewing" are essentially extraction frameworks that brewers have developed based on their understanding of various parameters and specific coffee beans.

As we know, during the brewing process, the dissolution rate of flavor compounds follows certain patterns: acidic substances emerge first, followed by sweet components, and finally bitter compounds. To better "control" ideal flavor components, experienced brewers设法 change water temperature, grind size, extraction time, and even pouring methods and drip equipment to indirectly control the release of these substances, thereby creating two different flavor experiences from the same coffee bean.

In the pour-over process, water flow through the coffee bed primarily serves to wash and extract. When pouring stops, the liquid level gradually decreases with flow rate, but water continues to act on coffee particles, now providing an immersion extraction effect. Generally, more segments mean more washing cycles, resulting in higher extraction efficiency. Correspondingly, the alternation between washing and immersion increases, thus extending the total extraction time.

For example, three-stage pouring can be seen as a process of wash-soak-wash-soak after blooming. Compared to the single-pour method with only "wash + soak" steps, the coffee bed is agitated more frequently and for longer periods, resulting in higher extraction efficiency for mid-range compounds, thus producing richer sweetness than single-pour brewing.

Take FrontStreet Coffee's recently brewed Santa Vinny coffee beans as an example: without changing other parameters, single-pour brewing presents bright, clean citrus acidity, while using the daily three-stage method produces additional mature berry and apricot-like full sweetness.

The Foundation of Flavor

FrontStreet Coffee understands that a delicious coffee is profoundly influenced by its origin, variety, processing method, roast, and extraction—which is also a significant reason why single-origin coffee captivates so many people. Brewing sits at the end of the entire coffee chain, so there's actually limited room for adjustment. Changes in technique, parameters, or equipment can at most create relatively minor flavor differences, mainly in body, sweetness, cleanliness, and aftertaste.

Without revealing bean information, FrontStreet Coffee had the daily writing baristas blind-taste the two cups of coffee mentioned above. Everyone detected subtle flavor differences, but ultimately guessed they came from the same "ingredient." This demonstrates that while pouring techniques influence how coffee's outstanding characteristics are expressed, the primary credit still belongs to the beans themselves.

The Limits of Technique

Take another example: when FrontStreet Coffee brews a dark roast coffee with unappealing flavors, if the aroma itself lacks complexity and the taste predominantly features caramelized characteristics, then even the most elaborate techniques and parameters cannot make it significantly more enjoyable. Simply put, brewing techniques can only enhance good coffee—they cannot transform poor quality into excellence.

A Conservative Approach

For this reason, when FrontStreet Coffee educates others about brewing, we typically prioritize more conservative extraction frameworks—using the simplest methods with minimal variables and the most stable techniques and parameters to express coffee bean flavors. If you're pursuing coffee with higher sweetness, more acidity, or particular aromas, consider making different bean choices, as the flavor differences will far exceed those created by varying brewing methods.

FrontStreet Coffee

No. 10 Bao'an Front Street, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

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