What are the characteristics of Matsuya-style, Kawano drop-by-drop, and volcano brewing methods? How should dark roast coffee beans be brewed?

When it comes to Japanese coffee, besides the dark, oily appearance of extremely dark-roasted coffee beans, the gentle and elegant pouring method is also an impression that comes to mind. Indeed, most of our current pour-over coffee brewing methods are rapid and "robust," as this allows us to obtain a richly layered cup of pour-over coffee in the shortest time possible. Therefore, the slow-pouring Japanese brewing method forms a stark contrast, appearing more elegant and refined. Thus, today FrontStreet Coffee will share several of the most classic brewing methods in Japanese coffee.

Kono-style Brewing

The Kono-style drip method originated in 1973. As its name suggests, it was invented by the Kono family, who founded the well-known Japanese coffee equipment manufacturer "Kono." The Kono family particularly loved mellow, dark-roasted coffee, so they used the brewing effect of flannel filters as a reference template to design and invent the Kono dripper. Then, to make the brewed coffee even richer, they further refined the brewing method and developed the drip method, showing their deep love for rich, dark-roasted coffee.

The reason this brewing method is called the drip method is largely because, during the brewing process, the initial pouring method is not the usual continuous injection of hot water, but rather a continuous stream of distinct water droplets constantly dripping. This action extends the blooming time during brewing, allowing the carbon dioxide in the coffee to be fully released, enabling the subsequent hot water to better extract the flavor compounds from the coffee. When the filter paper is completely saturated with coffee liquid (or when the dripping coffee from the dripper changes from droplets to a stream), it indicates that blooming is complete. At this point, we can change our pouring method and quickly extract the aromatic compounds from the coffee using a large water flow. (For a more detailed introduction to the drip method, you can refer to this article: "The Drip Method")

Matsuya-style Brewing

It can be said that Matsuya-style brewing is a unique representative among Japanese brewing methods because it has three extremely striking brewing characteristics: ultra-long blooming time, ultra-high pouring height, and super-concentrated coffee liquid that needs to be diluted with water.

The extended blooming time allows coffee beans of different freshness levels to have the same extraction efficiency; pouring from an ultra-high position ensures that the injected hot water has a precise temperature even without a thermometer; the super-concentrated coffee liquid is because under the ultra-high extraction efficiency, flavor compounds don't need much hot water to be fully extracted, so by increasing the coffee-to-water ratio, a pot of high-concentration coffee liquid is obtained, which can then be diluted to your preferred taste through bypass. (For those who want to learn about Matsuya-style brewing, you can refer to this article: "Matsuya-style Brewing")

Volcano-style Brewing

Among these three methods, Volcano brewing is the most visually spectacular. This method causes the coffee bed to continuously release gas during the brewing process, creating a scene reminiscent of a volcanic eruption, which is truly magnificent!

Similarly, Volcano brewing also requires blooming and degassing first, followed by the extraction of flavor compounds. However, the difference lies in the fact that during the flavor extraction phase, the hot water is not poured all at once, but is divided into several segments. Each time, water is poured lightly in small circles in the center of the dripper, with a 5-second interval before pouring the next segment, until the target water volume is reached. During this process, we can observe the coffee bed expanding due to the injection of hot water, then contracting as coffee liquid permeates through, then expanding again with more hot water, contracting again as more liquid permeates, repeating this cycle. Because Volcano brewing has higher extraction efficiency, it also uses a relatively high coffee-to-water ratio, so the final extracted coffee liquid will also be highly concentrated and need to be diluted through bypass. (For those who want to learn about Volcano brewing, you can refer to this article: "Volcano Brewing")

However, regardless of which of the above brewing methods is used, they are all more suitable for dark-roasted coffee beans because they were all developed around how to extract rich, mellow dark-roasted coffee. If you also enjoy calm, rich, bitter coffee, then why not try these Japanese brewing methods? I believe that with these brewing approaches that differ from the usual, you will gain a unique experience.

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