How to brew Hualgui coffee without a coffee machine?

Brewing Hualgui coffee in a French press calls for 90°C water, 15 grams of coffee, and a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, with a grind coarse enough that about 70% passes a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve. Those settings keep the cup full-bodied and rich instead of bitter or thin.

The French press, patented in the 1850s and refined in Milan in the late 1920s, uses a piston and filter to separate grounds, so coarse grinds work better than fine ones. Knowing how to make coffee with a coffee machine and how to use a drip coffee machine helps, but the press suits home brewers without one.

The French press is simple to operate and produces consistent results, making it the preferred brewing device for many coffee enthusiasts at home. However, when brewing Huakui coffee with a French press, improper control of water temperature, coffee-to-water ratio, and grind size can easily lead to bitterness or a thin, bland cup. Drawing on Front Street Coffee's brewing experience, this article first introduces the origin background and flavor characteristics of Huakui coffee beans, then provides specific parameters and steps for brewing Huakui with a French press, including 90°C water temperature, 15 grams of coffee, a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, and a grind size with 70% passing through a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve. It also explains why French presses are suited to coarser grinds and how grind size affects extraction results, helping readers reproduce a full-bodied, rich cup of Huakui coffee at home.

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The French press, also known as the French press pot, with the English name French Press, can be considered one of the most effortless and easiest-to-use coffee brewing devices. Its history is quite long: as early as the 1850s, a craftsman and a merchant jointly obtained a patent for a "piston-filter coffee device": a metal container connected to a rod that could move up and down, with holes at the bottom of the rod and a layer of flannel clamped above and below. The user manually pressed the rod to the bottom, and the coffee grounds were blocked at the bottom of the pot, thereby obtaining a relatively clean cup of coffee.

After repeated technical improvements thereafter, it was not until the late 1920s that a company located in Milan, Italy, registered a patent for an improved version of the French press. Only then did the form of the French press familiar to the public today take shape, and it gradually became known to the world.

However, the main use of early French presses was not to brew coffee, but to make tea. Generally speaking, the mesh of filters used for brewing tea is coarser, while those used for brewing coffee are finer. If you like drinking coffee but cannot spare much time, or do not have an expensive coffee machine at home, the French press will be a very practical choice.

Coffee brewed with a French press has a relatively heavy body and fuller flavor. Below, Front Street uses Huakui coffee beans as an example to explain how to brew a delicious cup of coffee with a French press. As usual, Front Street first introduces the background information of this bean.

Huakui coffee beans come from the Buku Abel processing plant in the Hambela sub-region of the Guji region in Ethiopia, and are processed by the natural method. In 2017, the Ethiopian DW company sent the naturally processed coffee beans from the Buku Abel processing plant to participate in that year's TOH competition. With a rich strawberry cream flavor, it won the championship in the natural group of the TOH Ethiopian division. A Beijing green bean merchant introduced the same batch of champion beans into China. Because that strawberry cream flavor was truly outstanding, they believed that as long as they continued to optimize the post-processing of the green beans, this bean had a good chance of becoming the next hit product, so they placed high hopes on it and named it "Huakui," meaning "chief of a hundred flowers."

In the same year, at the China division of the World Brewers Cup, almost all competitors were using the Geisha variety, but Li Jianfei achieved second place with the same batch of Huakui coffee beans. When people asked, they discovered that this was actually Huakui coffee beans from Ethiopia, and Huakui became famous as a result.

After cupping and comparing the Huakui coffee beans of the new season, Front Street found that it had a strawberry cream flavor on entry, along with aromas with citrus and berry notes, and a tea-like sensation in the aftertaste.

After all, your own hands are not the hands of a barista. Even if the Huakui you drink in a café is delicious, when you brew it at home, you still cannot reproduce that flavor. Compared with complicated pouring techniques, many friends turn their attention to the simplest brewing method—brewing Huakui coffee beans with a French press.

But problems follow: how should you brew it to avoid Huakui coffee being bitter and astringent? How can you get a delicious cup of Huakui coffee?

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) French Press Brewing Tutorial

Brewing device: French press

Water temperature: 90°C

Coffee dose: 15 grams

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: 70% passing through a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve

First, pour an appropriate amount of hot water into the French press to fully preheat it, then pour out the hot water.

Next, add 15 grams of coffee grounds to the French press, then pour in 225 grams of 90°C hot water.

Pull the plunger to the highest position, cover with the lid, and steep for 4 minutes.

After 4 minutes, gently and slowly press the plunger down to one quarter of the French press, pour out the coffee liquid, and you can enjoy a cup of coffee.

The Huakui coffee brewed by Front Street according to the above parameters and steps delivers a mixed berry aroma on entry, with an obvious mixed berry juice-like sensation and a creamy mouthfeel, full-bodied and rich overall.

Huakui coffee beans are a medium-light roast. After the coffee flavor substances come into contact with hot water, their release rate is relatively slow, so Front Street recommends using a higher water temperature to speed up the release of flavor substances.

When producing coffee, Front Street usually uses a three-stage pouring method with a dripper to extract. Because the poured hot water will contact the coffee grounds in a relatively short time and eventually drip into the server, Front Street generally uses a grind size with 80% passing through a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve when brewing Huakui coffee, that is, a slightly finer grind than that used for a French press.

However, brewing coffee with a French press is ultimately a long immersion extraction in relatively high-temperature hot water. In order to avoid the bitterness brought by over-extraction, Front Street recommends using a coarser grind size, namely 70% passing through a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve. The coarser the grind, the larger the coffee particle size, and the smaller the overall contact area with hot water. If the grind is too fine, over-extraction is likely; if the grind is too coarse, under-extraction is likely, resulting in a watery taste and even obvious acidity.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.