Beginner's guide | How to make a cup of coffee that people want to drink?

Coffee is becoming more and more popular, but modern people seem to only pay attention to how to drink better quality coffee, how to identify flavors, how to appreciate black coffee, what ratio of coffee powder to water to use when brewing... but forget how to prepare a perfect cup of delicious coffee for themselves.

Drinking the coffee you are most looking forward to is the most enjoyable thing for every coffee lover. So what conditions should be met for a cup of coffee that makes people want to try it?

Let’s take a look at the beginner’s brewing guide first!

Fold the filter paper

Step 1:

Fold the filter paper and put it into the filter cup.

Hot water filter paper

Step 2:

Rinse the filter paper with hot water until the entire filter paper is wet, thereby removing the filter paper smell.

(Although there is only a little water used to rinse the filter paper, don't forget to pour it out before proceeding with the subsequent actions)

Make a small hole in the coffee powder

Step 3:

Pour in the coffee powder, distribute it evenly, and rub a small hole in the center with your pinky finger.

Pour hot water into the small hole

Step 4:

Use 87 to 92 degrees hot water, first pour some hot water into the small hole, then slowly diffuse it to the surrounding coffee powder in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction until you feel a little dripping, and then steam it for 30 seconds.

(Steaming allows the coffee powder to absorb hot water and expel carbon dioxide, which helps the extraction of aromatic substances later)

The coffee powder will swell up.

Step 5:

The coffee powder will swell up during steaming (the fresher the coffee powder, the more it will swell), until it is about to collapse, then you can pour in hot water.

Spread in a circle in the middle

Step 6:

When hand brewing, use the center as the center and slowly spread out in circles, allowing the hot water to diffuse horizontally in the coffee powder to extract rich coffee flavor.

(When hand pouring in circles, don’t pour directly to the outermost circle. This will cause the hot water to fall directly along the edge of the filter paper cup. Not only will it fail to extract the coffee, but it will dilute the concentration of the coffee).

Step 7:

Before the hand brewing is finished, you can slightly raise the pot, shake the pot in the middle of the coffee powder to increase the brewing pressure, and use hot water to pressurize and stir the coffee powder for the final extraction before the end.

Let the water in the filter paper drip slowly

Step 8:

Collect the water and let it drip out slowly from the filter paper. When it drips into the coffee with your favorite coffee powder and water ratio, you can pick it up and enjoy it.

If you want to make a cup of coffee that people want to drink, it is no longer enough to just add water carefully, nor is it enough to just change to a better grinder to improve the taste of the coffee. A cup of coffee that people want to drink needs to meet the following three key elements:

1. Brewing techniques and methods

2. Coffee roaster’s coffee roasting technique and personality

3. Coffee bean production, processing methods and varieties

1. Brewing techniques and methods

There are three very important factors in brewing techniques and methods, namely brewing time, brewing water temperature and water flow.

a. Brewing time

The brewing time determines the flavor of coffee to a large extent. Generally speaking, the longer the extraction time, the stronger the coffee flavor, the higher the concentration, and the more obvious the sourness, sweetness, and bitterness of the coffee. On the contrary, if the extraction time is shorter, the coffee flavor is softer, the concentration is lower, and the sourness, sweetness, and bitterness of the coffee are less obvious. Therefore, it is recommended to brew coffee for a shorter time in normal hand brewing. Brewing time that is too long will easily extract bad coffee flavor.

b. Brewing water temperature

The water temperature is inversely proportional to the roasting degree. That is, the darker the roasted coffee, the lower the water temperature. Therefore, the brewing water temperature can be determined according to the roasting degree. The recommended brewing water temperature is as follows:

Light roast: 90-92 degrees Celsius

Medium light roast: 87-90 degrees Celsius

Medium roast: 85-87 degrees Celsius

Medium-dark roast: 83-85 degrees Celsius

Dark roast: 80-83 degrees Celsius

c. Water flow

The water flow is closely related to the mellowness of coffee flavor. If the mellowness is too high, the coffee will taste bitter, and if it is too low, the coffee will have a sour taste. Therefore, you need to control the brewing water flow when brewing coffee. Generally, the greater the water flow, the more insoluble substances will pass through the pores of the filter paper, thereby increasing the mellowness.

2. Coffee roaster’s coffee roasting technique and personality

For a good cup of coffee, roasting accounts for 80% of its importance. A cup of coffee makes people want to drink it. In addition to a good-looking roaster, more important is the roaster's roasting technique and personality. Each roaster has his own unique roasting personality, and the biggest personality is his own ideas about the taste of coffee. A professional roaster will observe the color and listen to the sound during the roasting process and can control the entire flavor of the coffee. The professional level of the roaster determines whether the roasting process is interesting enough. An experienced roaster will "perform" the roasting process to the fullest, and after roasting, he can let people taste it immediately to see if it tastes what they expect.

3. Coffee bean production, processing methods and varieties

Even the flavor of coffee from the same coffee producing area will be different, especially for a single producing area. The natural environmental conditions will be different every year, and the taste will inevitably be different. In addition, there will be many coffee estates in each single producing area. Under different environmental conditions, the quality of coffee beans harvested in each estate is also different. In addition, the coffee processing methods in each producing area are also different. For example, the coffee processing methods used to process coffee have different flavors in the final product. Finally, when it comes to coffee varieties, coffee varieties also vary according to the different planting locations, planting methods, and planters.

If you want to make a cup of coffee that makes you want to try it, it’s not just about recommending which coffee is the most popular. Perhaps proper communication will also make it easier for you to drink the cup of coffee you are most looking forward to.

Finally, let me share some tips for hand-washing practice:

1. Wrist & Arm Strength

This can be said to be the most important factor in the stability of hand pouring.

Anyone who has had some exposure to the American hand-brewed coffee culture in recent years would have noticed a peculiar phenomenon: in several representative coffee shops, the brewers are all burly men with thick hands and well-developed muscles. If they were not wearing suits and being neatly dressed, they would be mistaken for fitness coaches in a moment.

Therefore, if you want to increase the stability of your hand punch, you can lift dumbbells to strengthen your wrists and arms.

2. Tips for practicing holding the pot with both hands

For those who are seriously lacking in one-handed strength, or those who do not want to become muscular men for hand brewing coffee, it is generally recommended to hold the kettle with both hands. However, the stability of holding the kettle with both hands involves the coordination of both hands. If the coordination is not good, it is not easy to improve the stability.

It is important to remember:

The left hand is just for assistance! It is recommended that people who hold the kettle with both hands focus their hand strength on controlling the flow rate. As for filling the water in a circle (if you use the circle method), you can practice exchanging the center of gravity with your feet, and tilting your body forward, left, back, and right in sequence to create a whole-body circle effect. As long as your hands are fixed in the same position in front of your chest, the position of your upper body and the position of your hands holding the kettle will not change during the circle. You only need to change the center of gravity of your feet and tilt your body to complete the counterclockwise circle filling of "center, left, back, right, front" (the same principle applies to clockwise).

3. It is recommended to practice the coarse-mouthed kettle from the beginning

The reason is simple. If you are good at practicing with a wide-mouthed kettle, you can also achieve a thin flow; but no matter how well you practice with a narrow-mouthed kettle, you can never have a large flow (if you have tried it, you will know that when the water flow from a narrow-mouthed kettle is large, it will become very impactful and difficult to control).

If you only practice with a narrow-necked kettle, and then encounter beans that require a large flow rate and want to learn how to brew with a large water flow, don’t you still have to practice again?

4. Practice flow control first, then practice flushing range

Only when the flow rate is well controlled can the water drip where you want it to. Don't worry about whether it hits the edge of the filter cup. Once you can grasp the location where the water drips and the water column does not fluctuate, you will soon be able to control the flushing range with ease.

At this point, someone may ask: Aren't pouring water and drawing circles done at the same time? If you want to practice, just practice them at the same time. Why do you have to practice them in two stages? The meaning here is not to practice them in two stages. The movements are done at the same time. When practicing, keep the size of the water column unchanged and keep flowing, and move within a certain range. It's just that in the first stage, you only focus on flow control. After practicing well, you can focus on the flushing range in the second stage.

Learning the basics well does not necessarily mean you can brew good coffee. But to brew good coffee, you must have the basics. Therefore, beginners only need to master the basics first, and then learn various extraction methods. Then, when you get good beans, you can easily master the key factors to brew good coffee.