Can You Brew Coffee Freely with High-Quality Beans? Why Does Pour-Over Coffee Emphasize Water Pouring? What's the Difference Between Large and Small Water Flow?

To facilitate communication with customers, most coffee shops prepare pour-over coffee openly in front of customers. This has led to some misunderstanding about the focused pouring technique of baristas. There's a saying in the industry: "As long as the beans are good, the coffee will taste delicious no matter how you brew it." Consequently, some friends mistakenly believe that with quality ingredients and stable extraction parameters, any pouring technique can produce delicious pour-over coffee, making the pouring process seem unimportant.

However, this is quite the opposite! Pouring is actually an extremely important "extraction parameter." Just like chefs use their wok-tossing skills while stir-frying to ensure even heating, coloring, flavor absorption, and thickening, they apply different forces at precise moments for stirring. Applying this analogy to pour-over coffee pouring makes perfect sense! The purpose of pour-over coffee pouring is actually quite simple: to evenly extract all the coffee grounds. Although this might sound straightforward, to achieve this goal, we need to control the water flow from different angles to ensure all coffee grounds are extracted evenly without extracting undesirable compounds.

As we know, coffee beans contain 30% soluble substances, but not all of these 30% need to be extracted. Nearly a quarter of these substances are undesirable and unpalatable. Of course, under-extraction is also problematic. Therefore, after fixing other parameters, we need to manipulate water flow from various angles to achieve an appropriate extraction rate—and this is what "pouring" is all about! Regarding pouring, FrontStreet Coffee believes there are three main aspects to control: "pouring range," "pouring height," and "water volume."

Pouring Range

What FrontStreet Coffee often refers to as "large circles" and "small circles" represents changes in pouring range, ensuring all coffee grounds receive even extraction! If we only pour at a fixed point, we cannot rely solely on capillary action to ensure all coffee grounds achieve proper extraction. The water flow we pour has penetrating power, and we need this force to stir the coffee grounds, allowing their aromatic compounds to be better extracted by hot water. (Center pouring)

If we use other patterns like Z-shaped, cross, or figure-8 pouring methods, it's easy to cause uneven extraction due to irregular pouring. Therefore, pour-over coffee typically uses a reliable circular pouring method to ensure all coffee grounds are extracted evenly! "Large circles" and "small circles" are adjustments to the pouring range based on the condition of the coffee bed at different stages. It's worth mentioning that the faster the circular motion, the more stirring occurs, increasing extraction efficiency. We need to determine the pouring speed based on different brewing methods and the condition of the beans. (Small circles)

Pouring Height

The height of pouring determines the strength of the water flow's penetrating power. When the pouring height is higher above the liquid surface, the penetrating force is stronger, and the coffee grounds experience more agitation, which allows more substances to be extracted by hot water. Therefore, higher penetrating power leads to higher extraction rates, and vice versa.

However, pouring from too high can cause two problems. First is heat loss. The moment hot water leaves the kettle spout, it comes into contact with a large amount of air, which "steals" some of the heat from the water, causing it to cool down to some extent. Cooling means reduced extraction efficiency, so this is the first point we need to pay attention to (which can be good or bad depending on the situation)! The second problem is fine particles! During grinding, collisions between coffee beans and other objects (coffee beans, grinder burrs) generate fine particles. Fine particles also have their own pros and cons: the advantage is that an appropriate amount can add more complexity to coffee; the disadvantage is that due to their fine size, they can easily clog the filter paper, especially when stirred by large water flows. Saturated fine particles will sink to the bottom with the stirring of large water flows, potentially clogging the filter paper and possibly causing over-extraction of the entire coffee. Therefore, the size of the water flow must also be decided based on the situation!

Water Volume

What FrontStreet Coffee often refers to as "large flow" and "small flow" refers to the amount of water poured in a given period—simply put, how many milliliters per second. However, there's no strict regulation on how many milliliters per second constitutes a large flow versus a small flow, so generally, adjustments to water flow are made based on our current pouring rate!

For example, if FrontStreet Coffee's current pouring rate is 5ml per second, then to use a large flow, we would increase it to 6-7ml per second; for a small flow, we would decrease it to 3-4ml per second! The reason for these adjustments is that different flow sizes have their own advantages! Let's start with small flows: due to the smaller amount of water poured, small flows take longer to pour the target volume compared to large flows, which gives hot water more extraction space, thus extracting more coffee substances. Large flows, due to the larger amount of water poured, often exceed the filter's drainage speed, causing the coffee bed and water level to rise! Not only does the drainage become faster, but it also allows hot water to extract more evenly from all coffee grounds. The disadvantage might be under-extraction due to too short extraction time.

Therefore, in many cases, we don't use a single pouring method throughout the entire process but instead combine different techniques. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, pouring height and circular range need to be determined through observation. Even the best beans can't withstand improper handling—proper extraction is still the best way to maximize the value of beans. Therefore, we must not underestimate "pouring" as an extremely important "extraction parameter"!

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