[True Beginner's Guide] Learn the Three Levels of Hand-brewed Coffee from Scratch

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This article is written for those who are new to coffee, or those who have been using hand brewing for a while and have some basic knowledge of it. As for advanced players who have trained their hands to be almost as good as machines, or professionals who are already very skilled, the reference value of this article depends on you personally.

Hand pouring is a very simple coffee brewing method. With a simple set of equipment and some practice, you can provide yourself or someone around you with a cup of delicious coffee. Some people say: "Hand pouring coffee is easy to learn but difficult to master." In my experience, this statement is basically correct, but on a deeper level, what kind of brewing method is not like this?

With the existing brewing tools, if you really want to be particular, I'm afraid that hand brewing is not the most troublesome extraction method!

The process of hand brewing from scratch that I know is roughly as follows: 1. Simulation period. 2. Basic period. 3. Practice period.

1. Simulation period:

Hand brewing is a long journey. For beginners without any basic knowledge, any schools or techniques mentioned in books or on the Internet are all fake. The taste you like is the most real one (of course, it will evolve as your taste experience accumulates). Therefore, it is recommended that you put aside the noise first, find your favorite taste, and then try to replicate it.

When you are just starting out and don’t have any basic knowledge, first find 10 stores online that you “seem” to be interested in. Don’t worry about the genre or the equipment used in the store. First try to find the one that tastes your best among these ten stores, and then use what the store uses. For example, try to get a set of the store’s roasted beans, hand-pour filter cups, hand-pour pots, and coffee grinders at home.

Don't just listen to how much the equipment in the store is worth. You don't need to spend a lot of money on hand-pumping. Also, don't look at how many certificates the store has, or what qualifications they have. Those are not yours, so they are all fake. Don't even care about what techniques and schools the store uses. For a newbie like you, those are completely meaningless.

The initial selection criteria is simple: ask yourself if you like the taste of this cup of coffee. If yes, then choose another one.

If you are unlucky and fail to find one after looking at 10 companies, you will have to look for 10 more.

Everything else seems to be fine, only the grinder is something that novices really need to think about, because except for the grinder, everything else can be spent within one thousand yuan. The grinders used by hand-poured coffee shops with a certain level of skill are at least at the level of Fuji Ghost Tooth. Those who are more particular will use better ones such as EK-43. Anyone would feel painful if they have to use grinders of this level at the beginning without knowing anything.

What the editor wants to tell you is that you must have a coffee bean grinder but don’t rush to get one at once. Anyway, your level is not good enough at the beginning, and you can’t taste the taste if you use a too good one. Just find a Pegasus, Eagle, or Cannon first. Just remember to maintain it well during use. Maybe you can sell it on Xianyu after you leave the Novice Village.

At this stage, what you need to do is to at least replicate 70% of the taste you had in that store, including the aroma, acidity, and sweetness, and make the sun-dried Yirga look like the sun-dried Yirga. Don't aim too high, you have to recognize the fact that it is not easy for a player with some skills to completely replicate the taste of a coffee shop, let alone you, a novice, forget it!

In terms of your coffee drinking skills, you should at least be able to distinguish the flavor differences between different regions and the differences between different roasting levels. This is to cultivate your technical foundation and personal taste. If you visit a coffee shop once a week, you will have a good idea of ​​it after three months.

If you still can't taste the difference after running for three months, then you have to continue to stay for another three months hahaha~

If you practice at the rate of one to two cups a day, in three months you will only have made the water flow more stable, and you haven’t even started to get started!

2. Basic period:

The only thing you need to do during this period is to visit other stores carefully, but this will be valuable only after you can taste the differences between the production areas. The most important thing to remember is that visiting stores is to discover your blind spots, not to find problems with the stores.

The basic frequency of visiting stores is still one a week. If financial resources, time and physical strength permit, you can visit more than a few, but I think there is no benefit in visiting more than a few stores.

Why do you say that?

When visiting stores, you will encounter different hand-pour schools, different brewing equipment and different store styles. You will begin to encounter coffee from the same origin but presented in different ways, and the same equipment but with completely different flavors. After you have a basic understanding of the flavors of each origin, you will know the level of the coffee you drink (but the premise of this is, what is your level). After knowing the difference, you will want to recreate the flavor trend at home. For a novice who has just practiced stable water flow, such re-simulation will take at least three to five days.

If you find that the taste of this store is not bad, then you can think about whether the brewing theory and system based on the store are worth learning? This is also the main reason why you should at least develop the most basic tasting ability before you start visiting stores, because you are almost ready to start choosing a brewing system that suits you.

The so-called brewing system is roughly defined as follows: there is a fixed set of brewing tools, there is a complete set of theories for coffee extraction, and there is a specific standard for tasting coffee.

Fixed brewing tools will give you at least a relatively fixed benchmark for each brewing session, so you won’t get stuck in the equipment maze without realizing it; brewing theory will help you archive each brewing experience and assist you in completing each pre-planned brewing plan, which can train your imagination and ability to complete the taste; tasting standards will tell you the problems with each brewing session and the direction for improvement for the next cup, so you know the difference between the expected brewing and the actual taste each time, and how to correct it later.

A mature brewing system must be able to clearly and completely present a set of logical arguments, as the editor said, and these arguments will help achieve the brewing settings of a certain target flavor (or style). Yes, friends who are more sensitive should know that this is actually PDCA.

Perhaps the arguments and thinking logics of different schools are slightly different due to the different target styles, but a professional coffee shop must be based on a complete brewing system.

If you work in that store, you will learn faster. For a stable store with a large number of cups, you can basically have a basic understanding in about 3-6 months. If you stay at home and practice slowly, it will take longer. If you are fast, you can have a basic understanding in one year.

Is it possible to shorten the time mentioned in this article? Of course it is possible. If you increase your practice, the time it takes to get started will be shortened. Quantitative change leads to qualitative change, and this is the basis for learning everything.

In short, at this time, you just need to concentrate on learning a set of methods, and don't think about other things. If you encounter problems with brewing, go back and ask the store; if you taste different flavors when you visit the store, go back and ask the store. Until you can brew your default flavor at will according to the brewing system you have learned, only then you will want to think about the next step.

Basic brewing techniques require practice, but tasting skills need to be improved by visiting other stores. This is why I tell you that the purpose of visiting stores is to find your own blind spots, not to find the shortcomings of the stores. Always think about improving your own level, and really improve yourself, not by belittling others. But if your goal is not to improve your own level, then it is naturally another matter.

As for the conflict between brewing systems, I would like to propose this idea: Basically, the process of coffee brewing is inseparable from the principle of extraction, including physical and chemical. Some laws cannot be violated on earth, and this can be used to make the most preliminary screening. If you don’t understand these, you can search on Baidu. If even the most superficial explanations found on Baidu do not conform to the principles he proposed, then it means that there is a problem with the way the argument itself is formed.

Some factions do not discuss scientific principles with you, but give you a set of methods to follow, and the brewed beer will taste good. There are also people who talk a lot about principles, but the brewed beer has its own personality. How to choose between the two ultimately depends on your own ability to distinguish.

As for why there must be a subordinate school (or central idea) first, you can read the story of Learning to Walk in Handan.

3. Practice period:

When you have reached a certain level of familiarity with the original brewing system, in addition to continuing to practice according to your PDAC, you still need to keep visiting stores. In the previous stage, you visited stores to find your true belonging. Now, at this stage, when your technical skills have matured and your tasting ability has become more advanced, if you want to go further, you should try to extract a brewing system that belongs to you from the experience of visiting stores. You don't have to deliberately seek it. When the time comes, you will naturally develop it.

There is no other way to practice the technical aspects than to brew a fixed amount every day, maintain the correct feel of holding the pot and the skill of controlling the water flow, know what flavor you want, and then be able to brew out the flavor you set. This can be achieved through practice.

From a technical perspective, this is the level of the top players I know.

For them, there is always a way to extract unexpected flavors from the flavors you are used to. For example, they can extract the floral aroma from beans that you think have no floral aroma, or accurately extract the flavor from some flavors that you only vaguely feel have certain suggestive flavors. For example, you may feel that there is a floral aroma, but they can clearly tell you whether it is a rose or a lily.

When you are thinking about restoring the layers of the entire cup of coffee, what they are thinking about is "making their own default taste". For example, you think a cup of coffee should have floral aroma, fruity sourness and sweetness to be complete, but for them, as long as they can accurately bring out the sweetness of roses, it will be fine, because they know how to discard what they don’t want and only take what they want.

When you can achieve all the flavors you want, the so-called "flavors" and "levels" will have their due value. When you can achieve as many floral aromas, as much fruit acidity, and as much sweetness as you want, you have transformed from a flavor follower to a creator (of course, this also depends on how much room the roaster gives you to play with).

Only when you reach this level can you plan on flavor. Every top expert in the brewing industry has this ability.

If you really master your original brewing system, then when you visit stores, your tasting standards will continue to improve. When you drink a cup of coffee, you can roughly know the difference between the barista's brewing system and your brewing system when he brewed this cup of coffee. The better your tasting ability is, the more differences you can find.

If you always maintain a positive and mature attitude when visiting stores, eventually the differences you discover will be transformed into motivation for your improvement. In the end, you will find that what you drink is not just coffee, but the barista's personality traits and his personal taste.

at last

Confucius said: “When three people walk together, there must be one who can be my teacher.” At a certain point, you will really only find the advantages that you can learn from other people’s coffee. This mentality can only be learned after a long period of practice, so you’d better follow this path from the beginning.

Having written this far, have you discovered that this theory is also applicable to other fields like siphon, AeroPress, moka pot, Italian machine and even baking?

The tools themselves are neither good nor bad. The reason why you think "hand pour-overs are just like that" is because you are "just like that" in this field.

Finally, what is the final level of this training period? To be honest, I don’t know myself. What do you think is the final level of coffee playing?

At least practice until everyone recognizes that you are a master.

【Recommended reading】：

The furthest distance in the world is when you can’t taste the coffee flavor described on the label.

[Cultural Differences in Pour-Over] What is the difference between the so-called European and American pour-over and the Japanese pour-over?

The most popular hand-pour filter cup in the world – HarioV60 filter cup hand-pour guidance and development

"The Secret of Hand-brewed Coffee"-Teach you how to make coffee from scratch!

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