Frequently Asked Questions

1.What are the overall factors that go into brewing a great cup of coffee?

The coffee quality depends on a combination of factors – quality and freshness of the beans, clean good-tasting water, and the coffee must be brewed in clean equipment at the proper temperature for the right amount of time. Simply buying top-quality beans is no guarantee of great coffee; if those beans are stale, the water quality poor, the brewing temperature low, or your equipment is dirty, and you will have wasted money on those expensive beans. With all brewing methods, the goal is to balance strength and yield. These two elements are distinct but often confused. Brewed coffee is over 98 percent water; this is a measure of its strength - how much extracted coffee there is as a ratio to water. This mainly refers to the concentration of solubles. If your ratios fall outside of the proper range, the coffee is perceived as too weak or too strong. Most commonly this is a function of the quantity of ground coffee used for any given volume of water. However, the quality of solubles that are extracted determine another factor, the yield. If too little is extracted from the ground coffee because the grounds are too coarse or the water contact time is too short, then the coffee will miss essential taste components. If too much is extracted the coffee was ground too finely or the contact time is too long, then the brew will be bitter. Rather than being a measure of the total quantity of solubles extracted, yield is a measure of the desirable range of extracted solubles.