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Drip bag coffee and pour-over coffee share many similarities in their brewing methods. However, when it comes to the same coffee beans, pour-over coffee tends to taste better than drip bag coffee.
There are two main reasons why drip bag coffee doesn't taste as good as pour-over coffee. First, drip bag coffee comes with pre-ground coffee powder, which loses more of its aroma before brewing, making it naturally hard to compare with freshly ground and freshly brewed pour-over coffee. Second, the drip bag filter only serves a filtering function, and compared to the combination of a pour-over dripper and filter paper, its extraction uniformity is somewhat inferior.
Therefore, if you hold drip bag coffee to the taste standards of pour-over coffee, that's really asking too much! But bringing the standard back to drip bag coffee itself, what methods can be used to brew a relatively better-tasting cup of drip bag coffee is worth discussing!
Through feedback from some customers on their brewing, Front Street Coffee has learned that drip bag coffee usually turns out too weak because the coffee-to-water ratio isn't well controlled—when too much water is poured, the coffee naturally becomes very weak. Brewing drip bag coffee doesn't require an electronic scale like pour-over coffee does; it's all about convenience—whatever is easiest. So some friends might just grab a random mug, hang the drip bag on it, and fill it right up.
A regular mug holds about 250-350ml, and a single drip bag contains 10g of coffee powder. Using a reasonable coffee-to-water ratio of 1:15-1:18, the coffee liquid would be about 130-160ml, which is roughly half the mug's capacity.
If the brewed coffee has little flavor, it may be because the cup used is too short, causing the water to soak the coffee powder for too long. For brewing drip bag coffee, the cup also matters—generally, a tall mug or glass is used so that the coffee liquid can filter out directly. If the cup used is too short, the filtered coffee liquid will flow back and soak the coffee powder, making the whole cup taste heavy and bitter, with no standout flavors.
To brew a relatively better-tasting cup of drip bag coffee, you just need to pay attention to the water temperature, the ratio, and avoiding the coffee liquid soaking the filter bag.
Front Street Coffee recommends a water temperature of around 90°C for brewing drip bag coffee. If you don't have a thermometer or temperature-controlled kettle, you can boil the water, then turn off the heat, open the lid, and let it sit for 60-90 seconds—the water temperature will drop to the 88-95°C range.Next is determining the amount of water to pour. If you're not sure how much water to use, you can pour it like this: For the first pour, fill to 1/2 of the drip bag and let it bloom for 20 seconds;
For the second pour, fill the drip bag completely; after the coffee liquid has finished dripping, for the third pour, fill the drip bag completely again; after it finishes dripping again, for the fourth pour, fill the drip bag completely once more. Once it's done dripping, you can remove the drip bag. Pouring this way, the total water amount will be roughly between 150-160ml.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
