How to make coffee like in a coffee shop? Barista names the ideal proportions

brand manager of the coffee roasting company The Welder Catherine

“I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t buy pre-ground coffee, in what cases it’s acceptable and how to quickly get a delicious drink in a cup.”

Many people think that buying already ground, rather than bean coffee – it is convenient and fast, as you can not buy a home coffee grinder, do not deal with grinding yourself and do not spend extra time when brewing.

But in these seeming advantages hides one of the main reasons why the coffee in the end is not as bright, flavorful and rich as it could be. The fact is that the ground product very quickly loses its flavor and aromatic substances and oxidizes, so fresh grinding just before cooking – the basis for a delicious drink.

How long coffee beans are stored

Freshness is very important for a product such as coffee, and this also applies to green coffee beans that have not yet been roasted.

After roasting, the hygroscopicity of the invigorating beverage increases even more, i.e. it quickly gives and absorbs moisture, takes on external odors, and its essential oils react with oxygen and oxidize.

Freshly roasted coffee is considered from the moment of roasting and up to two or three months after the correct storage: in a tightly closed package (the best is a package with a tight ziplock and a valve that releases carbon dioxide, which releases roasted coffee), in a place protected from the sun without temperature fluctuations.

Increasingly, roasters are now packing roasted coffee beans with nitrogen – it displaces oxygen from the pack, which helps to increase the freshness of the product and up to six months.

How to properly store ground coffee

In fact, ground coffee is best not stored at all. Just imagine, if the already environmentally sensitive product is divided into thousands of small parts – the area of interaction with air will increase significantly.

Of course, ground coffee loses its flavor potential many times faster, it happens literally within a few minutes at the exit from the grinder, and even a good packaging will help to preserve the taste of such a product for no more than one or two days.

So if you are a regular coffee drinker and like to brew coffee at home, you should definitely get a coffee grinder. Fresh grind of freshly roasted beverage will noticeably improve its quality: the taste and aroma will be brighter, the negative notes characteristic of exhausted coffee, such as mustiness, earthiness, woodiness, will be gone.

You should buy ground coffee only in cases of necessity, for example, if you do not have a grinder or it is out of order. And also in the case of a trip where it will be difficult to grind the beans.

However, almost always, if there is a coffee shop near you, you can ask the barista to grind not the whole packet, but a small portion when needed.

How the grind level affects the preparation and flavor of the beverage

Not only does the freshness of the coffee and grind affect the flavor of the drink, but also the right grind size, which varies depending on the brewing method.

Grind is one of the most important parameters when customizing a recipe.

The coffee grinder breaks the grain into many particles – fractions, the size of which determines the speed and intensity of the extraction of soluble substances from the product when interacting with hot water. This process is called coffee extraction.

The coarser the grind, the less intensive the extraction, i.e. the slower the substances dissolve – the flavor of the drink is more watery, diluted, empty. And vice versa, the smaller the coffee particles, the more actively they interact with water – the drink turns out strong, dense, with a pronounced bitterness.

The balance and compliance with key parameters is important: the ratio of water and coffee, temperature and brewing time.

The degree of grinding traditionally depends on the method or device for preparing coffee. But it is important to realize that even within the same brewing method, the finer grind settings can vary – this is influenced by the number of days after roasting and the degree of roasting, the type of coffee and its processing, as the density of the beans can vary greatly.

• The methods of brewing in which water is passed through the coffee under pressure are espresso (which requires a fine grind) and geyser coffee maker (medium grind).
• The drip method (from English drip – drip) or pour over method (from English pour over – pour over), in this case water is spilled and drips through the thickness of coffee under the influence of gravity into a cup or a special container and is immediately filtered. By this method, the drink is prepared in drip coffee makers, funnels, such as Hario V60, Kalita – for such devices you need a medium grind. For Kemex – coarse. Here, the size of the grind directly affects the speed of preparation: the finer the grind, the slower the water passes through it, and the coarser, the faster, respectively.

• Immersion method (Latin immersio – immersion) or infusion method, in which coffee is poured with water, brewed for a few minutes, and then passed through a filter or simply poured into another container. This method includes the French press (coarse grind is needed), the turba (ultra-fine grind, like a powder), and brewing coffee in a cup (medium grind).
• There are blended devices that combine several methods, such as aeropress – pressure and immersion (smaller than medium grind). There is also the Bonavita immersion funnel, which has a special valve that allows you to use the infusion method in the closed position and the drip method in the open position – it requires a coarser than average grind.

How to make coffee in a cup

The easiest way to make coffee that doesn’t require any special devices is brewing coffee in a cup. This is the fastest and most convenient method, which is used by professionals during the tasting of the drink – cupping.

For professional tasting there are special rules and protocols, and for the home version of coffee in a cup you can do with a simple recipe that requires a cup, a kettle, a stopwatch, a spoon and a scale.

• water temperature – 95 degrees;
• medium grind;
• coffee to water ratio – 8.25 grams of coffee per 150 ml of water, i.e. a 300 ml cup will require 16.5 grams of coffee;
• brewing time – 4 minutes.

Preparation process: quickly and intensively pour the coffee with water from the kettle, after two minutes stir intensively. I recommend to start tasting not earlier than three-four minutes after stirring, when the drink reaches a comfortable temperature for drinking.

That is, the total cooking time will take about six minutes. You can additionally remove unsettled particles from the surface of the drink with a spoon. A cup of perfectly brewed coffee is ready!

Coffee in drip packs: ground coffee that can already be brewed

In the case of ground coffee and the duration of its storage, there is one exception – coffee in drip-packs. This is a special bag made of thin paper, in which 10 to 15 grams of ground beverage is placed, in a sealed package.

The trick of drip packs is that you can get a batch of filter coffee, which is convenient and easy to brew in any circumstances. To brew, you need to place the drip in a cup by hooking its cardboard handles over the edges and pour hot water.

In this format, the flavor of ground coffee can be preserved thanks to the technology during packaging and the process of gas substitution: the nitrogen is used to almost completely displace oxygen from the package, which starts the oxidation process, so the ground product in the drip retains its flavor for several months.

Nitrogen is a gas that creates an inert environment and by itself it does not affect the flavor.

The maximum allowable amount of oxygen in the package is 1%, ideally the figures range from 0.4% to 0.7%. The small volume of the drip pack and portioned format also help to slow down the oxidation process.

Different roasters have different recipes and grams of coffee in their drip pouches. As a result of long experiments we have determined the optimal recipe for us: 12.5 grams of coffee, the grind of which is selected so as to make three full spills through it, each after 45 seconds – you get a delicious cup of 200 ml, which does not require a scale.

Of course, the flavor potential of coffee from a drip bag is lower than in freshly ground fresh beans – by about 20%, but the convenience of preparation and the minimum probability of error in the recipe compensate for this, which is why the drip format is becoming increasingly popular among fans of the invigorating drink.