Why pour-over coffee relies on three elements of coffee
Pour-over coffee is clean, free of off-flavors, clear, and simple to manage, which is why it became the preferred method for many drinkers. Its core rests on three elements of coffee: the grounds, the filter paper, and the hot water. Filter paper is the part most often overlooked, and it decides how much fine sediment and oil reaches the cup.
Compared with a French press, a Clever Cup, an AeroPress, and a siphon, pour-over removes the sludge a metal filter lets through. The Clever Cup's plastic drainage valve can give a rancid oil smell when maintenance slips, and the AeroPress offers body but less clarity. A V60 with the right ratio, grind, and pouring stages shows how much the paper and water temperature change the final taste.
Pour-over coffee, with its advantages of being clean, free of off-flavors, clear, simple, and safe, has become the preferred brewing method for many coffee enthusiasts. This article starts from a comparison of devices such as the French press, Clever Cup, AeroPress, and siphon, and deeply analyzes the core principles of pour-over coffee—the three key elements of coffee grounds, filter paper, and hot water. It focuses on revealing the crucial influence of filter paper on flavor and explores the feasibility of brewing with boiling water. At the end, using the 2018 Hualu Kui sun-dried Sidamo as an example, it fully presents the V60 brewing parameters and flavor performance, suitable for readers who wish to improve their pour-over skills.
If one day being able to brew a good cup of pour-over coffee could become a bonus skill in blind dates or relationships, then you would probably feel lucky to have opened this article!
What advantages does pour-over coffee actually have? And what methods can help us better appreciate pour-over coffee?
Advantage one: Clean
The French press itself is not bad; it can stay relatively close to the original taste of the coffee beans. But if it is used for café service, shops always worry that it is not filtered "cleanly enough":
The French press uses a metal filter. Limited by pore size and manufacturing process, it cannot efficiently block coffee fines, and the final cup often retains a large amount of "fine sediment."
It is hard for customers to understand why there is so much sludge at the bottom of the cup by the last sip.
So this former powerhouse gradually fell out of favor. However, if it is only used at home, the French press is actually quite good.
Advantage two: No off-flavors
Many people think the Clever Cup is very stable: put in a filter paper, pour water, and drain at the right time.
However, the biggest weakness of the Clever Cup is that its drainage valve is made of plastic. If maintenance is not done properly, the coffee will carry a strong "rancid oil" smell.
Early Clever Cups also had plastic bodies. Although today some people have solved the cup body issue with ceramic, there is still no proper solution for the valve. (I believe there will be a breakthrough someday in the future.)
Advantage three: Clear
The AeroPress was once very popular. People found that it could present a good body, but after lasting for a while, its popularity cooled down. The reason is that people discovered the coffee liquid made with the AeroPress is quite cloudy (and its plastic contact area is even larger than that of the Clever Cup).
PS: Since the AeroPress's strength is body, it is better to make the most of its strengths and avoid its weaknesses by using it in mixed drinks: for example, AeroPress milk tea is quite tasty (put tea powder into the AeroPress to soak and extract, then add milk or a little honey, and the flavor is excellent).
Advantage four: Simple and safe
The siphon was once a star in coffee shops, but it is no longer as glorious. After all, maintaining a siphon is quite troublesome: you need to clean the upper and lower bowls and also maintain the cloth filter (although filter paper can now replace the cloth filter, personally I think the cloth filter works better). Not only that, the siphon is also extremely easy to knock over and damage.
In addition, the siphon cannot do without an external heat source: an alcohol lamp, gas, or a halogen cooker.
Alcohol lamps are not stable enough, gas needs to be built in and fixed, and the slightly better halogen cookers can cost even more than two thousand yuan. I once bought a Japanese KONO siphon. It looked beautiful and worked decently, but I must remind everyone: whatever you do, whatever you do , whatever you do, do not use it to cook instant noodles……
Pour-over coffee's cleanliness, lack of off-flavors, clarity, simplicity, and safety... have led humans, this naturally lazy species, to ultimately choose it!
Next, let's look at what conditions pour-over needs to satisfy:
The principle of pour-over coffee can be summarized in one sentence: hot water passes through filter paper covered with coffee grounds and carries the coffee liquid out.
So the truly key conditions are actually only three: coffee grounds, filter paper, and hot water.
Many people think pour-over is troublesome because they fail to grasp the essence and instead get stuck on trivial details:
What kind of pour-over kettle should I buy?
Which pore size and material are better?
What material should the dripper be?
V60 or trapezoid?
Single hole, three holes, or four holes?
Which kind of server is better for preserving aroma?
……
This reminds me of the mystical school in the coffee world, which claims that coffee brewed clockwise and counterclockwise tastes different.
I told him: I am brewing a pot of coffee now. If you can taste whether it was clockwise or counterclockwise, I will give you one hundred yuan.
The other person immediately fell silent.
To emphasize again, the truly key conditions are only three: coffee grounds, filter paper, and hot water.
The importance of filter paper is actually higher than that of the dripper. Many people put a lot of thought into choosing a dripper but neglect the filter paper, and at present the most easily overlooked part is exactly the filter paper.
Let's look at the mainstream filter papers on the market: HARIO, KALITA, MOLA, KONO, CHEMEX, BONAVITA, TIAMO, MELITA, BONMAC, ESKIMO……
When buying filter paper, we often do not think too much. Whichever is used by more people, or whichever is cheaper, is the one we buy.
But the raw materials and processes of these mainstream filter papers are actually vastly different: some use Nordic oak, some use Finnish wood, some use coniferous trees, some use Manila abaca……
Differences in raw materials lead to differences in the hardness, thickness, water resistance, and deformation resistance of the filter paper fibers.
At this point it can already be seen that the dazzling array of filter papers on the market actually vary greatly in performance. Sometimes when you change the filter paper, the coffee flavor changes, and this is entirely normal. As the medium that filters the coffee liquid, filter paper plays an extremely important role in pour-over. It is no exaggeration to say that most people have already decided the flavor of their coffee at the moment they choose the filter paper.
The most direct function of filter paper is to separate liquid from solid. There are countless small pores in the fibers that allow liquid particles to pass through, while larger solid particles are blocked. The thickness and strength of the fibers determine how strong the interception ability is.
Most importantly, there is absolutely no need to wet the filter paper. Once it is wet, many things change. If you are worried that the papery taste of the filter paper is too strong, why not just change brands?
Rather than changing limited conditions, it is better to change the entire framework.
If we were to select the biggest rumor about pour-over coffee, the first one would definitely be: boiling water cannot be used to brew coffee.
To hell with that... Every time I hear this claim, I feel anxious about the other person's ability to think critically!
It is no wonder. The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) set the temperature for coffee cupping at 93°–94°.
So all of a sudden, everyone everywhere was saying that pour-over temperature should also be controlled between 90°–94°. Add to that the endless emergence of various temperature-controlled kettles, and people elevated the specified temperature to an absurdly high status.
What I want to say is, using boiling water, that is, 100° boiling water, to brew coffee is completely fine!
After repeated testing with a refractometer, it was found that the higher the temperature, the higher the extraction yield.
Some people will say, will a higher extraction yield bring bitterness and off-flavors?
When will this logical shackle be broken? Why can't you allow a person to be good-looking, rich, and hardworking at the same time?
Binary oppositional thinking has always shackled people: only allowing one condition to develop.
It seems that "high extraction yield, but also good flavor" is a painful fact to admit. Do not simply attribute everything to one cause. Extraction is the result of multiple conditions acting at the same time. Do not make boiling water take the blame for bitterness and off-flavors.
By the way, most temperature-controlled kettles on the market can only reach a very limited temperature. Friends who are interested in brewing with boiling water can use a household hot water kettle. (Oh right, please abandon the step of wetting the filter paper.)
Do not ask me what dripper to buy. Setting aside other conditions, the one with the most controllable flow is the V60. For the other single-hole, two-hole, three-hole, and four-hole designs, there are baffles in the middle. Only the bottom of the V60 is an open design.
Even if it is an eighteen-hole design, there will still be baffles in the middle. Because pore size needs to be arranged on a plane. How clever the V60 is—its design of having no holes yet surpassing having holes is highly philosophical.
The speed of drainage does not depend on the pore size, but on the filter paper.
Pore size is an interfering factor, not the primary factor. Coffee flow rate is like a small river, and the pore size and baffles are the obstacles.
Finally, let's brew a cup of 2018 Hualu Kui~
Ethiopian Sidamo Shakisso Natural
Product name: Ethiopia Natural Sidamo G1 Hualu Kui
Ethiopian Sidamo Shakisso Natural
Coffee country of origin: Africa, Ethiopia,
Coffee estate: Guji, Hambella Wamena, Buku Able estate
Coffee variety: Heirloom (local Ethiopian native variety)
Production altitude: 2250-2350M
Quality grade: G1
Processing method: Natural sun-dried (African raised beds)
Dripper : Hario v60
Grind setting : Fuji Royal 3.5
Water temperature : 90℃, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15
Brewing method: Pour in 25g of water for a 30-second bloom, pour with a vertical stream, slowly circle until 120g of water for a staged pour, then pour with a larger stream and finish brewing at 226g.
Total time : 2 minutes 05 seconds
The aroma of the first stage has obvious melón aroma, strawberry jam . On the palate there is a soft acidity like jackfruit, and in the middle stage strawberry berry flavors emerge, along with some sucrose sweetness in the finish. The layers are relatively rich.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
