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Pour-Over Coffee Fundamentals: Mastering Multi-Stage Brewing for Enhanced Flavor Complexity

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, It's often said that while there are countless brewing methods, multi-stage brewing reigns supreme. As you explore pour-over coffee, you may have wondered: everyone emphasizes that multi-stage extraction can enhance the coffee's complexity, but what specific flavors are actually extracted during each stage of water pouring?

Coffee pouring

People often say that among the countless brewing methods, segmented extraction is the most reliable. As you learn pour-over coffee, you might have wondered about this question: everyone emphasizes that segmented extraction can better enhance the layered complexity of coffee, but what specific flavors does each water injection stage actually extract from the coffee?

Pour over coffee setup

Action speaks louder than words. FrontStreet Coffee will now break down each extraction stage of a pour-over coffee, then taste and compare them one by one to see what flavor characteristics each stage presents.

Flavor Performance of Different Extraction Stages

To clearly distinguish the flavors released at different stages, FrontStreet Coffee prepared a light-roast fruity acidic coffee and a medium-roast nutty coffee as brewing subjects, using a four-stage pouring technique. Four pre-warmed serving decanters were used to collect the coffee liquid from each stage.

Coffee Beans: Kenya Kirinyaga AA & FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Natural Typica
Amount: 16g
Total Water: 240ml (30ml, 70ml, 70ml, 70ml)
Grind Size: EK43 setting 10 (80% pass-through rate on #20 sieve)
Water Temperature: 90°C
Dripper: Hario V60 #01
Pouring Method: Four-stage

Pouring technique demonstration

Specific Procedure: First, inject 30ml of hot water for the first stage to bloom for 30 seconds. At about 25 seconds, quickly switch to the second decanter while zeroing the electronic scale.

After blooming, pour the second stage in circular motions from inside to out while lifting the coffee bed, targeting 70ml of water. When the water in the dripper is about to finish dripping, immediately switch to the third decanter, zero the weight and continue pouring the third stage of water, then wait for the coffee to drip... Repeat this process 3 times until all target water is poured, successfully obtaining two sets of coffee liquid from four different stages.

Multiple decanters with coffee

Due to the additional "changing decanters" and "taring" actions during the process, the total extraction time is extended. The Kenya coffee brewing time was 2 minutes and 18 seconds, while FrontStreet Coffee's Yunnan Typica drip time was 2 minutes and 26 seconds. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will taste each cup individually to record flavor characteristics, then taste them all mixed together.

Coffee tasting setup

Extraction Stages

Stage	Kenya Kirinyaga AA	FrontStreet Coffee Yunnan Natural Typica
First Stage (Bloom)	Flavor: Berries, plum, caramel, rich texture, prominent acidity and saltiness	Flavor: Nuts, caramel, herbal notes, highest concentration, mainly bitter and salty
Second Stage	Flavor: Grape, black plum, dark plum juice, cranberry, light floral notes, distinct juice sensation, but still high concentration with slightly bitter aftertaste	Flavor: Hazelnut cookie, chocolate, sugarcane juice, red grapes, clear flavors but subdued aroma, brief aftertaste
Third Stage	Flavor: Dark plum, hawthorn, citrus, rounded tea sensation, elegant aroma, sweet entry	Flavor: Almond, snow pear, melon sweetness, barley tea, slightly lower concentration, weaker flavors
Fourth Stage	Flavor: Olive acidity, green tea finish, overall taste is thin, weak aroma	Flavor: Almond, herbal notes, tea sensation, lowest concentration, like heavily brewed Pu-erh tea
All Mixed	Flavor: Dried cranberries, black grapes, snow pear tea, balanced texture, moderate acidity and sweetness, good juice sensation	Flavor: Hazelnut, sugarcane, cream, caramel cookies, nectarine, melon, rich aroma, balanced sweet, sour, bitter and flavors, full layers

What Substances Does Each Water Stage Mainly Extract?

In the process of segmented extraction, besides concentration being one of the main variables, the soluble substances that provide flavor also undergo subtle changes over time.

Based on the comparative experiment above, the first bloom stage serves two purposes: one is to provide the coffee grounds with a degassing and water absorption process to ensure uniform extraction later, and it's also the first step in obtaining acidity. However, due to the small amount of water injected, the concentration of this coffee liquid is very high, making the flavors appear muddy and salty-sour.

Coffee extraction process

The hot water poured in stages 2 and 3 is responsible for extracting the fruity acidic parts and main aromatic substances of the coffee. Fruit-acid type beans will release a large amount of floral and fruit acid components in this stage, while medium-roast coffees will often preferentially dissolve caramelized aromas and some fruit acid substances at this time.

In the final water rinsing stage, the coffee will more concentratedly release soluble substances that mainly express richness and sweet aftertaste. However, as the extraction process continues and even exceeds the ideal brewing time (over 2 minutes and 30 seconds), those woody, miscellaneous, bitter, and astringent tail components will emerge at this time - which is what we commonly call over-extraction.

Coffee brewing equipment

Application of Brewing Logic

Now that we understand the flavor substances each stage is primarily responsible for, the remaining task is to apply these extraction patterns to actual brewing cases.

For example, when we have a bag of coffee beans with very sweet flavor descriptions and want to fully extract the sweetness from the coffee, we need to increase the extraction rate within the range that avoids over-extraction. This can be achieved by increasing water temperature, grinding finer, extending brewing time, or increasing post-stage water rinsing.

Pour over coffee technique

If you want to highlight the juice sensation of a bean, under normal parameters for brewing light-roast coffee, you can focus the extraction on the early to middle stages where fruit acids are concentrated. Taking FrontStreet Coffee's typical three-stage method with 15g of coffee and 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio as an example, try a water distribution of "30ml, 130ml, 65ml" paired with large-flow circular pouring.

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