In the coffee industry, there is a saying:

Whether a cup of coffee tastes good or not, 60% depends on the quality of the coffee beans, 30% depends on the degree of roasting of the coffee beans, and 10% depends on the skills of brewing coffee.

The determining factor of whether a cup of coffee tastes good is not the "person" but the coffee beans themselves. Hand brewing is the most popular way to make coffee at home. It is easy to operate and produces a clean and varied coffee taste. To make hand brewing coffee taste good, you must pay attention to the following three points.

1. The quality of coffee beans

"If the coffee beans you choose are of low quality, even if you use perfect brewing equipment and brewing techniques, it will still not change the fact that it is a cup of low-quality coffee."

1. The grades of coffee beans can be divided into three categories:

01. Specialty Coffee:

• Grade: High-quality coffee beans
• Quality: Rare yield, good flavor → Excellent flavor.
• Application: Boutique coffee shops, coffee competitions.

02. Commercial Coffee

• Grade: Commercial coffee beans
• Quality: Minimum requirement for export coffee quality → Good.
• Application: Mostly used in coffee chain companies and instant coffee.

03. Substandard coffee

• Grade: Unqualified product.
• Quality: Not exportable.
• Use: Consumption in coffee producing countries.

2. Specialty coffee beans: Arabica

There are thousands of species of wild coffee trees, but only two are of commercial value: Arabica and Robusta.

01. Arabica

• Production: 70% of the world's total coffee production.
• Planting altitude: above 600 meters, up to 2400 meters.
• Flavor: Good acidity and sweetness, with low bitterness.
• Disease resistance: Weak.
• Caffeine content: 1%-2%.

02. Robusta:

• Production: 70% of the world's total coffee production.
• Planting altitude: Areas below 600 meters
• Flavor: Low sugar content, lower acidity and sweetness, and higher bitterness.
• Disease resistance: strong.
• Caffeine content: 2%-4%.

When choosing coffee beans, if you want to make delicious hand-brewed coffee, you must choose higher quality Arabica coffee beans.

2. Appropriate baking degree

Coffee beans need to be roasted before they can be brewed. Not all coffee beans are roasted according to the same "roasting curve". The roasting of specialty coffee tends to choose a roasting method that can highlight the characteristics of the coffee beans, which are determined by the variety of coffee beans, the growing environment, and the processing method.

So, in general: the longer the coffee is roasted, the higher the temperature required, and the greater the change in the coffee taste. According to the degree of roasting of coffee beans, we can divide the roasting of coffee beans into three degrees:

01. Light roast: highest acidity and lowest bitterness;

02. Medium roast: Acidity and bitterness are relatively balanced;

03. Deep roasting: the lowest acidity, almost no acidity, and the highest bitterness;

Hand-brewed coffee highlights the clean flavor of coffee beans and the complex and varied taste, so it is more recommended to use medium-roasted coffee beans. As Mr. George Howell, the "light roast leader" of boutique coffee, said:

“Deep roasting is like pouring a layer of thick paste on the coffee beans. Short-term roasting cannot cover up anything about the coffee beans, and any small defects will be revealed in the final coffee. But for coffee beans that are roasted for a long time, their defects will be covered up.”

3. Superb brewing skills

Coffee is ultimately a craft.

In today's Internet-developed era, coffee brewing techniques are no longer a secret. You can see them everywhere and learn them easily. Hand-brewed coffee is classified as "handmade coffee" and is completely different from machine-brewed coffee.

It is handmade, which means that when making coffee, the fundamental difference between people is details. I think this is the essence of hand brewing coffee, and it is also the fundamental reason why hand brewing coffee is "easy to learn but difficult to master".

What is a good brewing technique? It means being able to face the current situation when brewing coffee and still have good coffee by dynamically adjusting the brewing parameters. The simplest example:

When brewing coffee, the water temperature was originally 92℃, but it dropped to 90℃.

Method 1: Wait time and reheat to 92℃.

Method 2: Use 90℃ and the rest of the method is the same as usual.

Method 3: Prolong the steaming time of the coffee powder and increase the stirring frequency.

Of course, method three is the most appropriate.

Therefore, at the beginning of learning hand-brewed coffee, we need to set a data-based brewing strategy for ourselves and keep good brewing and tasting records. Then, according to the quality of the tasting records, we can dynamically adjust brewing factors such as water temperature, grinding degree, stirring frequency, etc., and then combine some supporting knowledge, such as coffee flavor wheel, golden cup theory, etc., so that we can become a master after practicing more than 50 cups.

Attachment: Hand brewed coffee making process.

1. Determine the brewing elements of hand-poured coffee:

• Powder to water ratio: 1:16
• Grinding degree: medium grinding (white sugar granules)
• Water temperature: 90℃

2. Equipment Preparation

Equipment preparation

• Pour-over kettle: Brewista temperature-controlled narrow mouth pour-over kettle
• Filter cup: Hario 02 filter cup
• Share pot: Hario Cloud Pot
• Coffee beans: 20g, origin Yunnan
• Filtered water: 400ml
• Electronic scale: Hario electronic scale

3. Production process

(1) Fold and filter the filter paper

Fold the coffee filter along the dotted line and place it into the coffee filter.

Folded filter paper

Use hot water to wet the filter paper in a "circular" way starting from the center of the filter paper, making sure that the filter paper fits the filter cup. (If it doesn't fit, adjust it by hand) Then pour out the hot water in the sharing pot.

Filter paper

(2) Grind and pour coffee powder

Grind 20g of coffee beans into powder, the particle size of which is similar to that of household white sugar particles.

Ground coffee

Slowly pour the ground coffee into the filter cup. If the surface of the coffee powder is uneven, tap the filter cup lightly with your wrist.

Pour in coffee powder

(3) First water injection: steaming stage

Now it’s time for our brewing phase, starting with “steaming”.

After the coffee beans are roasted, a lot of carbon dioxide will be attached to the inner wall of the coffee beans. When brewing coffee, the purpose of steaming is to expel the carbon dioxide, so that water can extract the soluble substances in the coffee.

Steaming: Draw circles from the center outwards

The amount of water used in steaming should be small and fast, so that the surface of the coffee powder is wet. Use about twice the amount of water as the amount of coffee powder, and complete it in a "circle" form within 5 seconds. We used 20g of coffee powder and the amount of water used for steaming was 43ml.

Note: Do not add water to the coffee powder at the edge of the filter paper 0.5cm away, so as to prevent water from dripping from the surface of the filter cup into the sharing pot. This will cause incomplete steaming, resulting in a very weak coffee flavor.

After steaming, we wait for 30 seconds. This stage is when carbon dioxide is released.

(4) Second water injection: water injection in a circle

After steaming for 30 seconds, we will add water for the second time.

At this time, the amount of water to be injected should be larger, but the frequency of the circle should be slower than that of steaming, basically maintaining one circle per second. Still in the "circle" way, "inside-outside-inside-outside", repeatedly circling and injecting 180ml of water. (The electronic scale shows 220ml)

Water injection from the center

At this point, we can see that the liquid and coffee powder in the filter cup are about 2/3 of the way into the filter cup. Then wait for about 10 seconds, wait for the water level to drop a little, and then add water for the third time.

Fill with water to about 220ml

(5) The third water injection: linear water injection

The second time we poured 180ml of water in a circle, and after waiting for the water in the filter cup to drop by half, we started pouring water for the third time.

The third time we pour water, we use the "straight line injection" method, and the amount of water is kept the same as the second time. There are two purposes: one is to speed up the dripping speed of water flow; the other is to prevent the coffee from filtering and extraction.

Fill with water to 320ml

The third time you pour water is 100ml. After the water is poured in, just wait for the coffee liquid in the filter cup to drip through.

Wait for dripping to complete

(6) Complete tasting

The entire brewing process takes about 2 minutes and 30 seconds from the start to the end of the steaming process. After the coffee liquid in the filter cup is dripped, we can enjoy the coffee.

taste

The quality of coffee beans is the key to good coffee

If you want to make delicious hand-brewed coffee, the quality of the coffee is the first priority. High-quality coffee beans themselves have a good coffee flavor. Even if your coffee brewing skills are not very good, the taste of the brewed coffee will not be too bad.

The African coffee producing regions of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda; the Latin American coffee producing regions of Panama, Costa Rica, and Colombia; and the Asia-Pacific coffee producing regions of Hawaii, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea are all leaders in their respective producing regions.