Making aromatic and delicious coffee should never be a complex task. It’s all about knowing the secrets that make the perfect cup. From contact time and grind size to the water temperature controlling the strength of your cup’s taste, all we can say is that you have come to the right place. But, you need to learn the basic brewing parameters first before you can work your way to being able to brew magical coffee on the first try.
In addition to the broad range of characteristics, coffee lovers can find in today’s coffee products. Your taste experience can range between tea-like aromatics and floral flavors to earthy tones and sweet fruit flavors. So, to get the most out of your coffee taste experience, here are the 6 top recommended things to pay attention to.
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1. The Variety of Coffee
The variety of the coffee beans you use in your coffee makes a big difference. It’s an important factor that people don’t talk about quite enough. Yet, the variety impacts the crop even before the coffee plant or fruit starts to grow. Surprisingly enough, picking your variety is not as simple as choosing between Robusta and Arabica.
You would have to choose between dozens of Arabica varieties first before going for Arabica beans, and there are still plenty of varieties yet to be discovered. Sometimes, even a different combination of varieties can make all the difference you’re looking for.
2. The Brew Time
The brew time or the contact time is how long you leave the coffee grinds in the water to control the intensity of the flavor. Although it sounds simple, the brew time is an essential parameter for making good coffee. Of course, the longer the brew time, the more bitter your coffee will taste as a result of the extra extraction.
So, to go for bitter flavors, extend the brew time long enough according to your preferences. However, if you’re trying to get a fruity flavor, you may want to go shorter with the contact time so as to avoid overwhelming the fruitiness in the coffee beans.
3. The Temperature
Coffee dissolves in water in a similar way to how sugar dissolves in water at different speeds depending on the temperature. If the water is hotter, sugar or coffee would dissolve faster as there would be more extraction. The higher the temperature you use for the water, the faster the extraction will take place leading to more bitterness. This means that you can control the temperature of the water to increase or decrease the intensity of the flavor without changing any of the other principles like grind size and brew time.
4. Filters
Filters are used to make delicious coffee in a clean cup. Yet, filters work differently depending on the material and quality of the product. Using a coffee filter will also deprive your coffee of its oils and most importantly, its mouthfeel and body. Some paper filters would even increase the brew time for your coffee causing it to taste more bitter. This is why you need to consider the material of the filters you use for brewing coffee.
5. Turbulence
Turbulence or agitation is when you disturb the ground coffee during contact time to ensure good consistency. We’ve already established the importance of the brew time which explains how efficient it would be to use turbulence in order to ensure that all coffee grinds are getting in contact with the hot water. Agitation enhances the coffee consistency and allows for more extraction to take place.
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6. The Grind Size
The grind size of your coffee is another variable that can be adjusted based on personal preferences. However, it’s important to understand how grind size affects brew time and how they both impact the flavor of your coffee. Larger pieces of coffee grind mean shorter contact time, while fine grinds increase the efficiency of extraction and allow for more consistency. Make sure your grinds are not too fine though so that you avoid having coffee grinds in your cup and extending the brew time even further.
Making coffee should never be complex, nor should there be too many considerations to wrap one’s head around. But good coffee requires some skills and a bit of knowledge about its multiple variables. It’s also important to experiment with all different variables until you decide on your flavor standards and create your own signature coffee recipe. While some variables and parameters can be changed and adjusted, some need to remain constant so as to not mess with some of the compounds in coffee that should not be broken down.
