If you are just beginning your journey of coffee appreciation, we highly recommend that you try our coffees black first – with no milk and sugar – as they are naturally sweet with no bitter aftertaste. Drinking coffee black is the best way to truly appreciate the unique notes of each origin. If you are an adamant fan of milky coffee, you may like to try one of our dark roasted coffees, such as Fiji or our Signature Jamaican Blue Mountain.
Brewing Tips
Coffee to water ratio
A multitude of brewing factors will affect the taste of your coffee - the grind size, brew time, water temperature, and brewing method all influence the quality of the final cup, but the coffee to water ratio is arguably the most crucial part to get right. There is no ideal ratio, but many coffee connoisseurs stick to a ratio of 1:15 to 1:18 - 1 gram of coffee for every 15-18ml of water. An easy rule of thumb is that 1 tablespoon equals roughly 7-8 grams, so 2 tablespoons of ground coffee is a good starting point for most cup sizes. The exact amounts will naturally depend on which brewing method you use.
Water temperature
It is universally recommended to use water that is just below boiling point when brewing coffee of with any method, so best to wait a minute before pouring, or heat your water to around 90-95 °C. This is to prevent the coffee grounds burning and bittering the taste.
Grind
Each Brewing method requires a different grind size to ensure the optimal amount of extraction from your coffee grounds. Put simply, extraction is the process of imparting the flavours from your roasted beans into the water. Large, course grounds have less surface area than fine grounds, and the less surface area you have, the more time you need to brew to draw out the flavours.
Brew time
The amount of time you brew your coffee for will depend on the method you use, how fine your grind is, and how strong you like your coffee. In general, you want to brew your coffee for at least a few minutes. Methods where you submerge the coffee grounds, like a cafetiere, need less time than methods where water flows through the coffee, like filter coffee or an espresso.
Brewing Methods
We recommend a medium-coarse grind for two reasons - too fine a grind will lead to overextraction, as the coffee is entirely submerged, and because the mesh filter requires a coarser grind to prevent grounds ending up in the cup. A good test for whether you've got the grind right is to check the resistance of the plunger - no resistance and the grind is too coarse, hard to push down and the grind is too fine.
Grind: Medium/Coarse
Ratio: 15-18g per 250ml
Brew Time: 3-4 minutes
Your brew time will depend on how fine your grounds are - too fine and the water will pass through too slowly, creating a bitter taste, too coarse and the water will pass through too quickly, resulting in watery coffee. We recommend a medium grind for a balanced cup.
Grind: Medium
Ratio: 15-16g per 250ml
Brew Time: 2-3 minutes
Best brewed using a medium-fine grind. Slightly coarser than an espresso grind, comparable to the consistency of fine table salt. The shortened extraction time of a Moka pot means a finer grind is necessary to extract quickly.
Grind: Medium-Fine
Ratio: Fill coffee to top, water to bottom of spout.
Brew Time: Medium heat, 3-5 minutes
Espresso is the most sensitive brewing method when it comes to grind - if the grinds are too coarse, it will drastically affect the taste of your coffee. As the pressurised water flows through the coffee grounds, it's able to extract a lot of flavour in very little time.
Grind: Fine
Ratio: Follow machine
Brew Time: 20-40 seconds
