Is pour-over coffee dead? I don’t think so

Let me ask you: How many people go to a coffee shop and specifically order a cup of hand-poured coffee, and are interested in learning about the origin and flavor of the coffee? Yes, but very few. Apart from hand-poured coffee lovers, most people prefer to order a familiar latte, cappuccino, or mocha. Does this mean that the hand-poured coffee culture has declined?

Is pour-over coffee dead?

At least that’s what foreigners think now. Foreign media reported that as many third-wave coffee leaders such as Stumptown, Intelligentsia, and Blue Bottle were gradually acquired by large groups, specialty coffee had to start thinking about how to serve consumers more efficiently, that is, brew more cups of coffee in a shorter time, as it moved from a niche customer base to a wider consumer base. Inefficient hand-brewed coffee was also becoming less and less valued.

As Intelligentsia’s CEO said:

Customers like the barista to make them a cup of coffee, but waiting 5-7 minutes for a cup of special coffee is too long nowadays.

More and more coffee shops have simply stopped selling pour-over coffee and are focusing only on espresso and other beverages; some, because of their past brand effects (such as Blue Bottle), still insist on selling pour-over coffee; some coffee shops take a compromise approach, with baristas responsible for selecting and grinding beans, but machines doing the water pouring, such as the Modbar automatic pour-over system shown above.

Anyone who has experience with hand-poured coffee should agree that hand-poured coffee is indeed a product that is difficult to achieve economic benefits. Imagine that during a busy weekend lunch time, there are already about 10 orders for drinks waiting, and suddenly a customer orders a hand-poured coffee. You have to temporarily leave the coffee machine and spend about 10 minutes preparing a cup of hand-poured coffee. 10 minutes is enough to prepare at least 2-3 cups of espresso drinks.

In addition to not being economically viable, other reasons for the decline of hand-brewed coffee include: inconsistent quality (manual operation is definitely not as stable as machine operation), too few baristas with relevant skills and knowledge, and many people think that the visual entertainment effect of hand-brewed coffee is not as good as coffee art.

Coffee shops in Australia and the United States often use batch brewing, which is to use drip machines such as American coffee machines to brew large quantities of black coffee to replace the expensive labor.

Does that mean machine-brewed coffee is definitely inferior to coffee brewed by a barista?

The answer given by Australian coffee tycoon Scott Rao gave those coffee shop owners a wake-up call:

“In the 1,000 cups of data, the batch brew scores we obtained were significantly higher than the barista brew scores (pour over), not lower; and the number of good-tasting batch brew cups was higher than the number of good-tasting barista brew (pour over) cups.”

Of course, this data does not deny the significance of the existence of baristas. Scott Rao also pointed out in the same experiment that in extreme data, baristas can get about 5 points more flavor scores than batch brewing.

What does a 5-point flavor score mean? It's probably the difference between the second place in a barista competition and the top 32.

Will the development trend of hand-brewed coffee be automation?

Hand-poured coffee has two disadvantages that prevent it from becoming popular in coffee shops: unstable quality and long brewing time. The former depends on the skill of the barista, while the latter is a defect of the brewing method itself. From a business perspective, both of these may harm the interests of the store. However, those stores that position themselves as "boutique coffee shops" have to include hand-poured coffee in their menus anyway, after all, this is an element that highlights the third wave of boutique coffee. How to strike a balance between brand style and economic benefits? Some stores choose automatic hand-poured coffee machines.

For example, there is a boutique coffee brand called "FISHEYE Fisheye Coffee" in China, which mainly produces fully automatic hand-brewed coffee machines, but has been favored by the capital market. At the beginning of this year, it announced that it had completed a round A financing of tens of millions of yuan.

Last year, Taiwan launched a home-use fully automatic hand-brewed coffee machine - iDrip, which claims to be able to perfectly replicate the brewing techniques of many world champions, but the specific brewing effect and market response remain to be seen.

In fact, fully automatic coffee machines have been around for a long time. You can see them in some famous fast food restaurants or hotel kitchens. The most common ones are convenience store coffee and McCafé. The core design concept of these machines is "brewing the most consistent coffee in the shortest time." The "consistent taste" here does not mean "delicious," so these large automatic coffee machines are for the general public. The characteristic of boutique coffee is "niche," so the automatic hand-brewed coffee machines that have become increasingly popular in recent years are also niche: they cannot brew a large amount of coffee at one time, but baristas can control many parameters to bring out the best flavor of coffee beans.

Generally speaking, automatic hand-brew coffee machines have the following functions to simulate the manual brewing process:

Coffee powder-water ratio setting: After determining the desired ratio, the machine will inject the corresponding amount of water according to the weight of the coffee powder.

Water Heating and Thermostatic Settings: These machines can regulate the water temperature and keep it at the ideal temperature.

Water filling times and circle filling settings: The machine can simulate the water filling action of human hands, such as the number of "water filling-stop" and even the circle filling action. Setting the water filling times is important, but whether the simulation of the circle filling action is also so important is a matter of opinion.

Recipe storage: This is the key to maintaining consistent quality. No matter which barista is on duty, they only need to follow the same recipe.

Body design: This can’t be called a function, but the novel and eye-catching design can become part of the cafe style.

When all settings are in place, the coffee brewed by the machine is of stable quality and tastes good. Excluding the price of the machine, does this mean that automatic hand-poured coffee machines can completely replace manual labor? From the perspective of practitioners, there is no reason to reject automatic hand-poured coffee machines, but customers may not think so.

Coffee is an art that uses all the senses to enjoy: the temperature of the cup, the aroma and taste of the coffee, and the visual enjoyment. The visual enjoyment can be the latte art, the way and equipment of hand-brewed coffee, or the concentration of the barista. If all the steps are handled by the machine, the coffee will be a little less "human" , and the difference in feeling is as big as the home-cooked meals cooked by mothers and canned food. Some people say that after the machine handles most of the steps, the barista has more time to communicate with customers. Some people disagree with this: I don’t even make it from AZ by myself, so how can I have so many topics to talk to customers?

It is too arbitrary to say that "hand-poured coffee is dead". Although hand-poured coffee is gradually declining, there are still some niche coffee players who continue to try and research the field of hand-poured coffee. Just like the tea ceremony, in addition to exploring the flavor of tea, it also pays attention to steps and mood, so the tea ceremony still attracts new enthusiasts and has not been eliminated. Isn't this the same as hand-poured coffee?

How to obtain consistent coffee quality and make baristas more efficient, while not simplifying the role of "baristas" to machine operators, is a difficult problem that the industry must choose. Although automatic hand-brew machines have become a trend, there are still some "idiots" who insist on manual work and are willing to brew coffee cup by cup. "Efficiency" and "craftsmanship" coexist in the market, and customers can also have more choices, so why not?