Brewing methods

Every brewing method balances grind size, ratio, temperature and contact time differently.

This section covers extraction — how water and coffee meet and separate in a given device. For how coffee is prepared, heated and served as a tradition rather than as a technique, see the international preparation atlas, which records 47 traditions by vessel, heat technique and serving custom.

Espresso machine
Forces hot water through a compacted puck of finely-ground coffee at high pressure, producing a small, concentrated, crema-topped shot, by convention in something like half a minute.
V60 (pour-over)
A cone-shaped dripper with a large single hole and spiral ridges, allowing water poured by hand to filter through a coffee bed at a rate the brewer controls directly.
AeroPress
A manual brewer combining brief immersion steeping with gentle pressure from a plunger, pushing coffee through a paper or metal filter into a cup or carafe.
French press
Coarse coffee grounds steep fully immersed in hot water, then a metal mesh plunger separates the grounds from the brewed coffee, retaining oils and some fine sediment.
Moka pot
A stovetop brewer in which steam pressure from a lower water chamber forces water up through a puck of coffee and into an upper collecting chamber, producing a strong, concentrated coffee often used as an espresso substitute.
Cold brew steeping
Coarse coffee grounds steep in cold or room-temperature water for many hours, producing a low-acidity concentrate that is typically diluted before drinking.
Chemex
A pour-over method using an hourglass-shaped glass vessel and a thick, proprietary paper filter, producing an exceptionally clean, tea-like cup by removing more oils and fine particles than a standard cone filter.
Kalita Wave
A flat-bottomed pour-over dripper with a wave-shaped filter and three small holes, designed to distribute water more evenly across the coffee bed than cone-shaped drippers, making pour technique somewhat more forgiving.
Turkish coffee brewing
Very finely ground coffee is simmered (traditionally not boiled to a rolling boil) with water, and often sugar, directly in a small pot called a cezve, then served unfiltered so grounds settle at the bottom of the cup.
Vietnamese phin brewing
A small metal drip filter is placed atop a cup, filled with coarse-to-medium ground coffee, and slowly drips hot water through under gravity, typically over sweetened condensed milk for the traditional serving style.
Jebena brewing (Ethiopian coffee ceremony)
Freshly roasted, hand-ground coffee is simmered with water directly in a jebena (a rounded clay pot with a narrow neck) over heat, then poured without a filter into small handleless cups, grounds settling as it stands — the brewing step within the wider Ethiopian coffee ceremony, which also includes roasting the beans in front of guests and serving traditionally in three rounds (abol, tona, baraka). See CoffeeHQ's Ethiopian coffee ceremony history article for the ceremony as a whole; this record covers the brewing method specifically.
Siphon (vacuum) brewing
A two-chamber glass brewer that uses vapour pressure and then a vacuum. Water in the lower globe is heated until expanding vapour pushes it up a tube into the upper chamber, where it steeps with the coffee at close to full immersion. Taking the heat away cools the lower chamber, the trapped air contracts, and the resulting vacuum draws the brewed coffee back down through a filter — cloth in most traditional models — leaving the grounds behind.

Owner's guides

If you already have one of these, its guide covers first use, what each part does, what to change when the result is wrong, faults, and cleaning and care.

Brewers and filter machines

Espresso machines

From a brewer to a good cup

Each method page gives a starting recipe. These routes say what comes before it, and what to do when the cup is not right.

I have coffee and a brewer

You own something to brew with and want a good cup from it.

Find your brewer's page, start from its recipe, and change one thing at a time. The later steps are for when the cup is not right, and for finding out why a change worked.

Find your brewerWhat it does to the coffee, and a starting recipe labelled as a starting point.
Work out the amountsCoffee and water for the cup you are making; the recipe scaler follows from it.
If the cup is not rightChoose the brewer, tick what you noticed: the quickest check, and one change.
One change per brewThe same loop written out for filter coffee, from the first brew to a recipe you keep.
Why the change worksStrength and extraction as two numbers, and what a taste can and cannot tell you.
Test it yourselfHow to compare two cups so the difference is the thing you changed.
See the variables togetherWhat each control moves, side by side, before you touch the next one.

I do not know what brewer to use

You have not chosen a brewer, or wonder whether a different one would suit you better.

Start from what you want in the cup and what you will put up with, not from a ranking. No method is ranked above another here; each one trades something for something.

Start from what you wantEach want, the methods that lean towards it, and what it costs you.
Set two or three side by sideBody, clarity, strength and the rest, with what each statement rests on.
Read the method's own pageWhat the brewer does, and its starting recipe.
What it is like to ownSize, cleaning, what else you need, and faults that come from the design.
Work out the first brewAmounts for the starting recipe, at the size you are making.
Then make it betterOnce you are brewing: by brewer, by what you noticed.