Why Do Japanese Brewing Methods Prefer Large Doses of 20g or More? What Is High-Concentration, Low-Extraction?

Do you remember the Japanese-style brewing that FrontStreet Coffee shared with everyone the day before yesterday? If you clicked through the link in the article to learn more about brewing, you would have noticed that regardless of the brewing method used, the amount of coffee grounds employed is quite substantial. This brings up the question: "Why does Japanese-style brewing favor using large amounts of coffee grounds?"

Why Japanese-Style Brewing Uses Large Amounts of Coffee

Why does Japanese-style brewing favor using large amounts of coffee? It's quite simple - because they, like FrontStreet Coffee, cannot tolerate bitterness. Although Japanese people have a particular fondness for dark-roasted coffee, what they truly appreciate are the caramel aromas brought forth by deep roasting, the silky and rich mouthfeel, and the sweet aftertaste that emerges upon swallowing. These are the true charms of dark-roasted coffee, not the genuine bitterness extracted from over-extraction.

Japanese coffee beans are notoriously dark-roasted. One can imagine how loose the structure must be for dark-roasted beans that are approaching the carbonization zone - their brittleness is such that they would shatter at the slightest touch, even leaving oil residue on your hands! Such beans not only double the extraction efficiency but also tend to produce a large amount of fine particles during grinding. Therefore, "coarse grinding" is necessary to reduce fine particles and avoid over-extraction!

By adjusting to a coarser grind, you can both reduce the number of times the grounds are ground (thereby decreasing the amount of fine particles) and decrease the surface area of coffee grounds in contact with hot water, correcting the extraction efficiency that was "forced" to increase. However, the only drawback is that the gaps between coffee particles are significantly increased. (After all, the grinding is truly very coarse!) But at that time, there weren't slow-dripping pour-over cones like Kono that could slow down the water flow rate, so excessively large gaps would accelerate the water flow, making it difficult to extract the essence of dark-roasted coffee. Thus, in situations like this, the Japanese came up with the idea of accumulating more coffee grounds to reduce water seepage speed.

High Concentration, Low Extraction Principle

The accumulation of coffee grounds increases the thickness of the coffee bed within the filter cloth/filter screen. When the coffee bed thickness increases, water needs to spend more time passing through it, which allows the water to extract more substances from the coffee bed. However, it's important to note that the water volume doesn't increase with the amount of coffee grounds, so the resulting coffee liquid will have a higher concentration. This is precisely what we now commonly refer to as "high concentration, low extraction." (For more on what high concentration, low extraction means, you can refer to this article → "High Concentration, Low Extraction")

The coffee-to-water ratio we typically use today is generally 1:15 or 1:16, which allows coffee to have an appropriate concentration and extraction rate, making it more palatable and acceptable. The coffee-to-water ratio in Japanese-style brewing is generally around 1:10 or even lower. More extreme methods, like Matsuya-style brewing, can reach a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:5, followed by dilution with water. The reason for adopting such methods to extract coffee is also to avoid the extraction of bitter flavors from the tail end. When concentration is increased, coffee doesn't require excessive extraction to obtain flavor compounds.

Characteristics of Japanese-Style Brewing

Typically, besides using large amounts of coffee grounds, Japanese-style brewing has another standard feature: longer extraction times. To allow this small amount of hot water to extract substances from the coffee to the maximum extent, they appropriately slow down the water flow, giving hot water sufficient extraction time. This ensures concentration while also allowing the coffee to have a higher sweet aftertaste. Although the final coffee serving is small, as soon as you take a sip, you can feel the rich caramel aroma of dark-roasted coffee bursting in your mouth, a silky smoothness reminiscent of Dove chocolate, and a very distinct sweet aftertaste.

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