Foundations

Filter coffee, end to end Filter coffee is hot water flowing *through* a bed of grounds, with a filter catching the spent coffee. It's the most common home brewing approach worldwide — and the one with the biggest gap between a mediocre cup and an excellent one, all without a pressurised machine. This page is the whole arc: what you need, what each number does, how the technique runs, and how to tell if the cup is good. Intro 8 min Grind size The first lever, and the biggest one. Before water temperature, before ratio, before pour technique — the grind decides how fast water can pull flavor out of the bed. Move it and everything else follows. Intro 4 min Water temperature Hotter water pulls flavor faster. That's the whole rule. Everything else is matching the temperature to what you have in the bag. Intro 3 min Coffee to water A ratio is two numbers: how much coffee, how much water. Read 1:16 as one gram of coffee for every sixteen grams of water. Lower numbers mean stronger coffee. Intro 4 min The bloom Fresh coffee holds CO₂ from roasting. If you pour the full brew at once, that gas pushes water away and the extraction goes patchy. The bloom is a small first pour that lets the gas vent before the real work starts. Intro 4 min Pour technique How the water enters the bed is half the recipe. Same coffee, same grind, same ratio — three pour techniques give you three different cups. Intro 3 min Stages of a brew Every pour-over is four phases, in the same order, every time. Knowing what each phase does is the difference between following a recipe and reading what's happening in front of you. Intro 3 min Brewer families Brewers split into three families by how water meets coffee. Each family has a character. Knowing which family you're using tells you what kind of cup to expect — and which mistakes are easy to make. Intro 4 min Read the cup Your tongue is the most accurate diagnostic tool you'll ever own. The hard part isn't tasting — it's naming what you taste, and knowing which lever to move next. Intro 5 min