The Coffee Compass

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How Much Coffee should I use?

You would think it’s a simple question. I mean, 2 scoops per cup is what we’ve been told for years. But then, how much is a scoop? And, better yet, what’s a “cup”?

Or you spend hours scouring the internet looking for the perfect coffee “recipe” for your particular brewing method. But that recipe was made by someone else for another coffee roasted on another date to a completely different roast profile?

So what do you do?

You may be aware that I’m a big fan of the training they do over at Barista Hustle. If you are a coffee nerd like me and haven’t subscribed yet, you need to do that now. Go ahead. Do it. We’ll wait.

Back? Ok – while you where there, you may have seen a post on the Coffee Compass. It’s a simple concept that lays out what you should change if your coffee isn’t tasting quite right when you brew it.

Note – this is for brewed coffee only. The concept is this: Brew your coffee and taste it. When you taste it, determine what the flavor is like. Does it have soft or heavy flavors? Is it tea-like? Is it bland? Or perhaps bitter and dry? Whatever the flavor, use the compass to move your flavors back towards the center of the green zone.

For example. If you taste your coffee and find it to be “tea-like” (a description I hear lots of times, You would need to extract more from the coffee. How can we do that? One of the best ways, is to grind your coffee finer. If your coffee taste thin and muted, you possibly need to use more coffee in your brewing method.

This is just a starting point – a great way to start thinking about how we brew coffee without having to invest in expensive things like refractometers (that’s a whole different story).

What are your thoughts? Have you tried the coffee compass? Has it improved your coffee at all?