Coffee Knowledge | Basic Principles of Hand-Poured Coffee Extraction

“I see you always seem to enjoy making hand-brewed coffee every day. Wow, let me make a pot and try it.”

…

3 minutes later

Wow!

"This coffee isn't black, it's a little red, like the color of wine?"

"What's this smell, this, this charming aroma?!"

"Take a sip... Hmm, the taste is very special, not bitter at all, and a little sour! Is it coffee?"

???

"Hmm...wait...this tastes a lot like...like..."

"Oh...right! Like a fruit drink?!?!?!"

“So this is what coffee is like!! How do you make pour-over coffee? What is the best pour-over coffee?

Hahaha~ Congratulations, the door to hand-brewed coffee will soon be open to you.

Hehe~ Start preparing to "pull the goods into the pit".

(Secretly, I just brewed the "Front Street Costa Rica Mozart", which has a strong aroma, sweetness, and is a fruit wine. Most importantly, it tastes good!)

In fact, hand-poured coffee is not difficult, and there is no such thing as the best hand-poured coffee. The best hand-poured coffee is the one you like! Today, let’s learn about the extraction principle of hand-poured coffee, and you will know how to make hand-poured coffee basically.

In fact, the principle of hand-brewed coffee is "dissolution" and "diffusion".

After being roasted, coffee beans will undergo a chemical reaction to produce coffee components that emit the aroma and taste of coffee. In order to extract these coffee components, you need to grind the coffee into powder and then slowly add water to dissolve the components in the coffee. This is called "dissolution."

In daily life, we know that in order to dissolve better, we need to grind the powder finer. However, in hand-brewed coffee, if the coffee powder is ground too finely, it will clog the filter paper, so the coffee powder has to be ground into the size of fine white sugar (medium-fine grinding). However, in this case, the dissolution will be uneven (coffee substances have small molecules that are easily soluble and large molecules that are not easily soluble). Therefore, it is necessary to use the "steaming", "stirring", and "shaking the sharing pot containing the coffee liquid" during extraction (there will be a difference in concentration during the water injection and dissolution process. Shaking the sharing pot after extraction is to make the coffee concentration uniform) to dissolve, which is called "diffusion".

During the extraction process of a cup of hand-brewed coffee, you can understand it as dividing it into three sections. The first section is the aromatic substances and acidity (floral and fruity aromas) that are easily extracted, the second section is the sweetness and caramelized substances in the coffee substances, and the third section is the bitterness, astringency and miscellaneous flavors in the coffee substances. What we have to do is to use water to extract the flavor of the coffee. There are also three situations in the extraction process: golden cup extraction, insufficient extraction, and over-extraction.

①Golden Cup Extraction

The so-called golden cup extraction means that when the concentration of the coffee you brew is between TDS 1.2-1.4 and the extraction rate reaches 18%-22%, it is considered to be within the ideal extraction range. If it is not within this extraction range, it is called under-extraction, and if it exceeds this range, it is called over-extraction.

②Insufficient extraction

Insufficient extraction means that not enough substances are brought out during the extraction process, and there are still extractable substances remaining in the coffee powder. The coffee tastes sour, not sweet enough, and a little salty, with a thin taste and a short aftertaste.

③ Over-extraction

"Over-extraction" means that the coffee powder is in contact with water for too long, extracting too many substances we don't want, and the coffee has obvious burnt bitterness, off-flavors and astringency.

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