Why Baristas Always Recommend Hot Pour-Over Coffee (And How It Affects Flavor)
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...