Why You Should Always Use a Scale When Brewing Coffee: Accuracy, Consistency, and Better Flavor

 Whether I'm brewing pour-over coffee or making espresso, I always use a digital scale when measuring beans and during extraction.


Some friends who visit my shop don’t quite understand why. They think making a cup of coffee doesn’t have to be so complicated or tedious. Just like a seasoned chef who cooks using simple visual judgment—or using measuring spoons and cups—one can also brew a good cup of coffee. So to them, using a digital scale feels unnecessary and even a bit overkill.

To be fair, a digital scale is not an absolute must for making coffee. As those friends said, eyeballing, measuring cups, and measuring spoons can still produce tasty coffee. But what we need to understand is this: although these methods can help you brew a decent cup, they lack consistency. Unless you're an extremely experienced coffee veteran, I still recommend using a digital scale. For beginners, using the above “blind” methods will make your coffee quality feel like opening a mystery box—totally random.

Why do we need a digital scale for coffee?

Everyone has different preferences, but I believe most people share a similar definition of a “good cup of coffee”: balanced strength and no unpleasant flavors. In terms of extraction, this means proper concentration and extraction yield. We achieve this by using the right parameters to ensure our coffee lands within that ideal range.

The reason a digital scale is key to brewing consistently good coffee is simple: it ensures the amount of coffee grounds and water you use is the same every time, minimizing variables. Regular measuring spoons, cups, or visual judgment can’t achieve this level of precision. Not only that, if you overlook certain details when using those tools, the deviation might be far greater than you’d expect.

Let’s take the classic coffee measuring spoon as an example.

A traditional coffee scoop is designed to hold 10 grams of coffee beans. In my tests, one level scoop does typically yield about 10 grams ± 0.5 grams.

However—there’s a catch: this only applies to dark-roasted coffee beans. If you’re using light-roasted beans, the weight you get will be completely different. The dark-roasted beans I tested came from my own shop’s bean list: Brazil Queen Estate, Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1, and Sumatra Golden Mandheling.

Next, I tested the lighter-roasted beans: Yirgacheffe Gedi Dingu, Ethiopia ALO, and Panama Boquete Geisha.

As you can see, even with the same level scoop, the weights turned out to be 13.4g, 12.7g, and 11.7g—far more than expected, and with huge differences between them. The reason is exactly what I mentioned: roast level. Given the same roasting process, the darker the roast, the larger the bean volume and the lighter the weight. As roasting deepens, the beans expand and lose moisture, becoming lighter; light roasts behave the opposite way.

So the amount of coffee you get from a measuring spoon varies depending on the bean’s characteristics.

If you’re unaware of these changes and use the same amount of water to brew, then when you happen to scoop more coffee, you’ll end up with a cup that’s overly strong—sometimes so strong it’s almost undrinkable.

Let me give you an example using my Boquete Geisha beans.

The experiment is simple: brew two cups, one with 10g of coffee and one with 13g. All other parameters—including 150ml of water—are identical.

The result:

  • The 10g brew is perfectly balanced, with clear floral, citrus, and berry notes.

  • The 13g brew, however, tastes too intense. The high concentration makes it heavy and less enjoyable, and the flavors become overly compressed. Many delicate notes become hard to distinguish. You must dilute it with water to bring it back to a proper balance.

This is the kind of impact a small deviation in coffee dose can cause.

Next: liquid yield.

As I mentioned earlier, many people measure brewed coffee using the markings on their cup. But sometimes these markings don’t give accurate information—especially for espresso.

Below are two shots of espresso with the same liquid volume. Look closely: the liquid level is different.

This difference comes from the crema and the extraction yield. (The first is a medium-light Ethiopia Flower Queen, the second is a medium-dark espresso blend.)

For beginners, relying on cup markings to judge liquid weight can often lead to inaccurate data, making it difficult to adjust correctly. Combine that with errors in the coffee dose, and making a good espresso becomes a matter of luck.

So, if you want consistency…

If you want to brew consistently delicious coffee, or you want to experiment with parameters and adjust espresso more efficiently, a digital scale is absolutely worth using. Once you fully understand brewing logic and become familiar with a particular bean, you can switch back to scoops or measuring cups to simplify your workflow.

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