How to Brew Coffee with a Gaiwan? What Grind Size for French Press Coffee? Common Coffee Brewing Methods!

Brewing Coffee with a Gaiwan: An Unconventional Approach

Although there are numerous professional tools available for making coffee, coffee enthusiasts have never been satisfied and continuously explore alternative vessels for brewing coffee.

Recently, for instance, the coffee community has started trending toward using traditional Chinese tea gaiwans to brew coffee! This has attracted considerable attention, and FrontStreet Coffee frequently receives questions from customers about gaiwan coffee brewing. The inevitable question in every conversation is: "Can you really make delicious coffee with a gaiwan?"

Understanding the Gaiwan

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the gaiwan! Essentially, a gaiwan is a three-piece cup set consisting of a lid, bowl, and saucer, traditionally used for brewing tea. It can indeed be used to brew coffee because making delicious coffee isn't as complicated as one might imagine. As long as we understand the fundamental principles of extraction, making great coffee with any vessel becomes straightforward. This brings us to the question: What makes coffee "delicious"?

Defining Good Coffee

Generally speaking, only coffee that meets standards across multiple aspects can be considered delicious. For example, it should achieve flavor balance: sweet, sour, and bitter notes should be harmoniously coordinated without any single taste being prominent, jarring, or harsh, with rich and natural aroma layers and no obvious negative flavors. In terms of mouthfeel, it should be smooth and clean, without giving a thin sensation... In summary, to brew such delicious coffee, we need to use appropriate parameters to control the dissolved coffee substances, thereby achieving suitable extraction rate and concentration. Whether using pour-over, espresso, or any other brewing method, all rely on parameter adjustments to control coffee flavor. Therefore, brewing delicious coffee with a gaiwan follows the same principle: finding the right extraction parameters for both the brewing method and the beans.

The Immersion Method Advantage

Fortunately, gaiwan coffee brewing follows the immersion method, similar to French press and clever dripper! This means we don't need to research suitable parameters from scratch – we can directly apply the formula originally used for French press brewing.

However, since the gaiwan lacks filtering tools like filter screens or filter paper, and the vessel itself has a mature brewing system, its usage differs slightly from the French press. So next, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to use a gaiwan to brew a great cup of coffee!

Brewing Guide

Since gaiwans don't have large capacity, we need to determine the amount of coffee grounds based on their capacity. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's gaiwan has a capacity of 200ml, so at a 1:15 ratio, we can use a maximum of 12g of coffee grounds. Therefore, we'll use 12g of coffee beans for this brewing session!

The coffee beans used for this brewing are Hacienda La Esmeralda - Natural Diamond Mountain, as many friends have been fond of this bean recently, so FrontStreet Coffee chose it for this sharing session~

Extraction parameters:

• Coffee amount: 12g
• Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
• Grind size: Ek43 setting 10, 75% retention on #20 sieve, fine sugar texture
• Water temperature: 96°C
• Steeping time: 9 minutes

First, let's warm the gaiwan with hot water! Pour hot water to one-third of the gaiwan, then pick it up and rotate to heat it evenly before discarding the water.

Then we pour all the coffee grounds and hot water into the bowl according to our settings and start timing the steep, waiting for four minutes!

At the four-minute mark, we gently press the lid against the surface coffee grounds. This accelerates water absorption and helps them sink, reducing the amount of coffee grounds that will be poured out later, resulting in a cleaner coffee taste.

After pressing, replace the lid. Then we simply wait until the 9-minute mark arrives, at which point we can adjust the lid position to prepare for pouring~ Move the lid to reveal a 2-3mm gap, then use your thumb and middle finger to pinch both sides of the bowl rim while pressing the lid knob with your index finger. Tilt the bowl 90 degrees, and the coffee will begin to pour out evenly. (You can also drink directly from the gaiwan, but be careful of burning your mouth)

When you can see obvious and large amounts of coffee grounds about to be poured out, it indicates that most of the coffee has been poured. At this point, we can return the bowl to upright position and begin tasting this delicious coffee brewed with a gaiwan~

Honestly, the coffee brewed with a gaiwan is truly – no different from that brewed with a French press... Because the extraction method and parameters are identical, the coffee tastes equally delicious. The entry offers full berry sweet and sour notes, followed by distinct citrus and chocolate flavors, with an oolong tea-like aftertaste and honey-like texture. As the temperature slightly decreases, the coffee's sweetness becomes more prominent, developing apricot-like flavors with rich layers – delicious!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473