Pu’er Coffee

 This question is something I’ve noticed quite frequently over the past year while café hopping. Of course, it’s not a new topic for me—I’ve already touched on it multiple times in previous articles. Personally, I’ve encountered it so often that I’ve almost become “desensitized” to the idea of filtering crema from an Americano. But if we take a more rational step back, the reason many cafés now promote over-extraction–style Americanos is fairly clear: they’re chasing a cleaner, more stable, and smoother mouthfeel, while trying to avoid unpleasant flavors. From my point of view, over-extraction–based Americanos and traditional “espresso + water” Americanos follow fundamentally different extraction and brewing logics. In that context, removing the crema can be a 1 + 1 > 2 kind of optimization. However, if it’s just a standard espresso shot that’s brewed normally, then filtered for crema, and only afterward diluted with water, I personally feel it would be better to leave the cr...

 We all know that coffee drippers usually come in two sizes—large and small. Some people assume that if a large dripper can handle a big dose of coffee, it should naturally work just fine for a smaller dose as well. So why not just buy one large dripper and call it a day? In reality, that way of thinking isn’t ideal. Today, let’s talk about why using a large dripper to brew a small dose of coffee is generally not recommended. Hopefully, this will be helpful—and if it is, feel free to share it with your fellow coffee friends. First, let’s clarify two concepts: how big is a “large” dripper, and how small is a “small” dose? Let’s use the V60 as an example. A V60 labeled 02 is considered a large dripper, designed for brewing coffee for 1–4 people. A “small” dose, in this context, refers to using around 15 grams of coffee , typically brewed at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio . When a large dripper is designed, it’s meant to accommodate a larger amount of coffee grounds —usually 20–30 ...

 Beginners often say that brewing coffee feels like pure guesswork—that whether it tastes good or not is all about luck. But in my view, once you understand the logic and patterns behind brewing, you’ll realize it’s not complicated at all. It really comes down to identifying a few key variables and using hot water to properly extract the coffee grounds. Do that right, and you’ll end up with a genuinely good cup of coffee. These days, the internet is flooded with brewing tutorials. And yet, many beginners still run into an “unexpected” problem: the coffee they brew tastes harsh, burnt, and unpleasantly bitter. Today, I want to walk you through a process of elimination to help you pinpoint the cause. Reason 1: The Coffee Beans Are Dark Roasted Whether coffee tastes acidic or bitter is largely determined by the roast level. Light roasts tend to emphasize acidity, dark roasts highlight bitterness, and medium roasts sit somewhere in between. For people who enjoy dark-roasted coffee, ...

 The coffee we drink is, at its core, water that has dissolved the flavorful compounds inside coffee grounds. In fact, more than 98% of a cup of pour-over coffee is water. We spend so much time chasing the best origins and growing regions, the most suitable processing methods, the perfect roast profiles, and the most precise brewing techniques—yet all of these efforts ultimately rely on water to carry the coffee’s flavor. If we overlook the foundational role of water, everything else can easily fall apart. **No.1 Water Plays Two Core Roles in Coffee Brewing: Extraction and Flavor** Water is responsible for extracting soluble flavor compounds from coffee grounds, and it also makes up the body of the final beverage itself. The chemical composition of the water directly influences what ends up in your cup. **No.2 The Soluble Compounds in Water: Alkalinity and Hardness** Water contains both negatively charged ions and positively charged ions. The concentration of negatively ...

 There are many reasons why we might fall in love with a cup of coffee. It could be its rare and complex flavor profile, a rich and weighty mouthfeel, layered and evolving notes, or even the story behind where it comes from. Beyond these, there are also some more niche reasons. For example, I have quite a few friends who judge a coffee by one key word: “clean.” Here, “clean” doesn’t mean visual clarity, nor does it mean a coffee with low flavor complexity or “nothing going on.” Instead, it refers to a cup that is free of any unpleasant off-flavors, with flavors that are well-defined and easy to distinguish. It may sound simple, but achieving this level of cleanliness actually places very high demands on coffee quality. From growing and processing to roasting and brewing—in short, every step from seed to cup needs to be handled with great care. Before the concept of specialty coffee became widespread, exported green coffee was often processed in rough, unsophisticated ways by local...

“Up to 400 milligrams of caffeine per day—so how many cups of pour-over or espresso does that actually mean?” This was a question a customer asked while buying coffee beans at my shop. As most people know, moderate coffee consumption is considered beneficial for adults . According to research, that “moderate” amount generally means no more than 400 mg of caffeine per day . As long as your total daily caffeine intake stays below that number, it’s considered safe—though individual tolerance can vary. And this isn’t a rare question. Many customers ask about the caffeine content of different beans so they can estimate and control their daily intake. So let’s go back to that original question: how many cups of pour-over or espresso does 400 mg of caffeine actually equal? How Caffeine Content Is Estimated The calculation is actually quite straightforward. As long as we know what type of coffee bean is used and how much coffee is brewed , we can estimate the caffeine content. Caffeine l...

 After customers buy coffee beans in the shop, they often ask me about recommended brewing parameters—water temperature, grind size, and, of course, the coffee-to-water ratio. Whenever I mention a ratio of 1:15 , some people are surprised. That’s because most cafés on the market tend to use 1:16 when brewing pour-over coffee. Just yesterday, someone said to me, “I see everyone using 1:16. I thought that was the best—like the golden ratio for pour-over.” And to be fair, from a certain perspective, 1:16 really can be called a golden ratio . We know that coffee contains a limited amount of soluble material—only about 30% of the bean’s weight . Based on this fact, Dr. Ernest Lockhart conducted a series of studies and found that the coffees most people enjoy tend to fall within a specific range of strength and extraction : Total Dissolved Solids (TDS): 1.15%–1.35% Extraction Yield: 18%–22% Any brew that lands within this range is known as a Golden Cup extraction , and the coffe...

 If you often visit coffee shops for pour-over coffee and ask the barista whether a certain bean tastes better hot or iced, chances are they’ll recommend the hot version. Just yesterday, a friend buying beans complained about this and asked me, “Why do pour-overs have to be hot?” To be fair, the reason baristas recommend hot pour-overs isn’t because hot brews necessarily taste better than iced ones. As I’ve always emphasized, compared to iced pour-overs, hot pour-overs allow you to taste a more complete expression of a coffee’s flavors. Why does a hot pour-over offer more complete flavor? Most coffee shops — including mine — make iced pour-over using a flash-chill method. This means lowering the temperature by adding ice directly into the coffee so you can quickly get a cold cup of pour-over. But since the ice melts while cooling the coffee, the overall concentration inevitably becomes diluted. If we don’t want to end up with a watery cup, we need to increase the coffee concent...

 Recently, a friend noticed something interesting: compared to dark-roast coffee, brewing light-roast beans seemed to more easily result in coffee with an astringent taste. Unsure about this observation, he came to Qianjie for some clarification. So, what exactly is “astringency”? It’s that sensation in your mouth and on your tongue where things feel “gripped” or slightly rough, like a puckering or wrinkled texture. This experience is triggered when certain compounds in coffee interact with proteins in your saliva. Since it’s more of a tactile sensation than a taste, we call it astringency. The situation my friend described isn’t just a misconception—it’s real. Compared to dark-roast coffee, light-roast coffee does tend to extract with more astringency. Of course, brewing method plays a role as well. The astringency in coffee mainly comes from polyphenols such as tannic acid, tartaric acid, and quinic acid, which is formed from the breakdown of chlorogenic acid. If you notice a di...