Brew a Great Cup of Coffee with Just 5 Grams of Beans

 Sometimes you might just want a small cup of coffee—maybe for a special blend, or simply to enjoy a few sips without going all in. Every now and then, friends tell me they want to “brew a small cup using just a few grams of beans.”

But if you’ve actually tried it, you’ll probably agree: brewing a good cup with a small dose of coffee is much harder than brewing with a regular amount. Just recently, a friend told me he tried making coffee with only 5 grams of beans, but no matter what he did, it just didn’t taste right. The flavor and body were completely different from what he’d get using a normal dose.

So, why is it so hard to brew coffee with such a small amount of beans? The short answer: the smaller the dose, the more brewing challenges you’ll run into.

Why Small-Dose Brewing Is Tricky

In a previous post, I mentioned that each dripper design has its own “sweet spot” for optimal coffee dose. For example, the Hario V60 01 dripper works best with about 10–20 grams of coffee, while the 02 dripper suits 20–30 grams. That doesn’t mean you can’t brew outside those ranges—it just means you’ll have an easier time getting a great cup when you stay within them.

The main reason is bed thickness. The thickness of your coffee bed affects how much of the coffee grounds the hot water can contact.

  • A thicker bed allows the water to pass through more coffee particles, extracting more flavor compounds and improving efficiency.

  • A thinner bed limits how much coffee the water touches, leading to weaker extraction.

Both extremes—too thick or too thin—make it hard to control extraction. A bed that’s too thick can cause over-extraction; one that’s too thin can cause under-extraction. The “recommended dose range” of each dripper basically ensures you’re building a coffee bed with just the right thickness. Step too far outside that range, and things get more complicated.


Water Volume Matters Too

Besides bed thickness, the amount of water plays a huge role in how difficult the brew becomes. Less coffee means less water, and less water means shorter contact time.

If you pour the same way you usually do, the brew will finish too quickly—before proper extraction can happen. That’s why people often find small-dosage brews taste weak: there simply isn’t enough time for the water to pull out all those flavorful compounds. Combine that with the thin coffee bed issue, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a disappointing cup.


But Hard Doesn’t Mean Impossible

The good news? You can brew a tasty cup with as little as 5 grams of coffee—if you tweak your brewing parameters. With the right adjustments, you can achieve the same flavor intensity and extraction as a full 15-gram brew (well… a smaller cup, of course).

There are five main factors that determine your extraction efficiency:
water temperature, grind size, time, ratio, and pour rate.

If one of them falls short, you can balance it by adjusting another. For example:

Let’s say you normally brew at 92°C with a fine-sugar grind, and the flavor comes out balanced. Imagine each of these factors—temperature and grind—contributes an “extraction strength” of 5, for a total of 10. That’s your ideal brew strength.

Now, suppose you accidentally grind coarser, like raw sugar, reducing grind efficiency to 3. To compensate, you could raise your brew temperature to 94°C or 96°C, bumping the water’s extraction strength up to 7. Add them together (3 + 7 = 10), and you’re back to a balanced cup.

Of course, real-life brewing isn’t that mathematical, but the principle holds true.

My 5-Gram Brewing Guide

If you often make small-batch coffee, I recommend getting a V30 dripper. Its steeper angle allows you to form a thicker coffee bed with the same small amount of grounds, helping the water extract more evenly and adding complexity to your cup.

But since most people only have a V60 or similar dripper, that’s what I’ll use for today’s example.

Coffee used: Ethiopia “Flower Queen”
Dose: 5g
Brew ratio: 1:15
Water temperature: 92°C
Grind size: 85% pass rate through a 20-mesh sieve (for 15g brews, I normally use 75%)
Dripper: Hario V60

As you can see, I only adjusted the grind size—everything else stayed the same as my 15g recipe. Why? Because I use a multi-stage pour to stretch the total brew time to about 2 minutes. This prevents the brew from finishing too quickly due to the smaller water volume.

Since each pour contains less water and causes less agitation, I compensate by grinding finer to maintain extraction efficiency.

Step-by-Step

  1. Bloom: Start by pouring 10ml of water (2x the coffee dose) to wet the grounds. Let it bloom for 30 seconds.
    Because the water volume is so small, pour gently—slowly, slowly, slowly.

  2. Main pours: Pour the remaining 65ml of hot water in 3–4 small stages. Each time, stop when the water level is about to submerge the grounds completely. Wait for it to drain before the next pour.

  3. Finish: Once all the water has passed through, remove the dripper and you’re done.

The total brew time should be around 2 minutes and 5 seconds—about the same as your regular 15g brew.

The Result

This cup, brewed with just 5 grams of beans, turned out beautifully balanced and full of character. The Flower Queen’s notes of strawberry, citrus, cream, and oolong tea all came through clearly, with no bitterness or off-flavors.

To double-check, I measured it with a refractometer:

  • TDS (strength): 1.59%

  • Extraction yield: 21.90%

Perfect numbers.

So, as long as you use the right parameters and pouring technique, even 5 grams of coffee can yield a cup that’s every bit as delicious as a standard brew.

I’ve shared similar methods for 6g and 7g brews before—the approach is the same, and it’s surprisingly simple. Give it a try and see for yourself!

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