Beginner's Guide: How to Make Pour-Over Coffee Taste Better? Key Points for Brewing Single-Origin Coffee!

The Art of Coffee Swirling: A Secret to Better Flavor

Whether brewing iced or hot coffee, FrontStreet Coffee often performs a peculiar small action after brewing - swirling the sharing pot like decanting wine, making the coffee liquid spin.

This has led many guests sitting opposite to ask FrontStreet Coffee about the specific purpose, and without exception, they all receive the same answer: "This allows the coffee's delicious flavors to present themselves more quickly."

The Science Behind Coffee Consistency

The purpose of swirling varies depending on the brewing method, but most of the time, FrontStreet Coffee's purpose for shaking coffee liquid is to improve the consistency of the coffee itself. As we all know, our extraction goal is to use water as a solvent to dissolve flavor compounds from the coffee. The amount of dissolved coffee substances gradually decreases as the extraction process progresses. Anyone who has observed coffee dripping from the filter cup will notice that the coffee liquid's color gradually changes from deep red to light brown, with visibility increasing from low to high. This is proof that the amount of dissolved substances is continuously decreasing.

The reason for this is that coffee's soluble substances are limited, accounting for only 30% of its own weight. Therefore, the amount that water can dissolve gradually decreases - after all, there's nothing left to extract. So why does FrontStreet Coffee mention this? It's simple: because coffee liquids of different concentrations don't quickly merge after brewing is complete! FrontStreet Coffee once conducted an experiment comparing the difference between shaken and unshaken coffee after brewing. The results showed that shaken coffee was stronger and more concentrated in both taste and concentration than unshaken coffee.

Benefits of Proper Coffee Swirling

The reason is that liquids of different concentrations create layers due to concentration differences, and without convection, their fusion speed is relatively slow. By manually swirling the sharing pot to spin the coffee liquid and create convection, different concentrations of coffee can quickly merge, resulting in uniform performance in both taste and concentration. If you pour the liquid from the pot into another cup in one go after brewing, the swirling action is unnecessary. However, if you're dividing the coffee from the sharing pot into several small cups or pouring it into small cups multiple times to drink slowly, it's best to give it a swirl after brewing to improve the overall consistency of the coffee. Otherwise, the first cup poured will definitely be relatively less concentrated and taste less rich.

Additional Benefits: Temperature and Aroma

Beyond making coffee taste and concentration more uniform, swirling also accelerates the cooling rate of coffee. In the experiment mentioned above by FrontStreet Coffee, the coffee temperature was also measured. Results showed that coffee swirled for 10 seconds was about 2°C cooler than unswirled coffee. So if you want to quickly drink coffee that's not too hot for your mouth, you can use swirling to cool it down rapidly. This is especially useful when making iced pour-over coffee, as swirling can help the coffee quickly reach the target temperature.

Additionally, swirling increases the volatilization speed of coffee aroma. We can see in many settings that baristas will swirl coffee before presenting it to guests for aroma appreciation - the purpose is to release more aroma, allowing guests to smell more fragrant notes. In conclusion, we now understand that the main purpose of swirling after brewing coffee is to better integrate the coffee, making it more uniform. At the same time, swirling also accelerates temperature reduction and increases aroma volatilization, allowing us to experience the coffee's delicious flavors more quickly.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473