Be Careful! This Habit Can Make Your Coffee Taste Worse
When you pour coffee grounds into your dripper and see a surface that looks uneven—like in the photo below—what do you usually do? A: Tap it flat B: Tap it flat again C: Either A or B If you’re like most people, you’d probably go for tapping the dripper to even out the surface of the coffee bed. It’s not just about making it look neat—many believe that a smooth, level coffee bed ensures more even extraction. And that’s actually true! Compared with an uneven coffee bed, a flat one does allow hot water to flow more evenly through the grounds, which helps you brew a better-tasting cup. But—here’s the catch— how you flatten the bed matters. If you’re not careful, tapping too much can actually make your coffee taste worse. One major reason for this is something called the Brazil Nut Effect . What Is the Brazil Nut Effect? The Brazil Nut Effect describes a phenomenon that occurs when you shake or tap a container filled with particles of different sizes. The larger particles gradual...