Are Coffee Recipes Overrated?
Finally, I had to talk about the cringe I feel whenever someone posts about replicating an influencer’s recipe. Why is your first pour slow and the last pour fast? Why does reducing the temperature in the middle give you a sweeter cup?
I’m definitely not the most talented person in the coffee industry, but as a software engineer, I have a tendency to look for reasoning—and that’s something I rarely get from this kind of information.
Yes, different coffees need different recipes for better extraction—or rather, for a great cup. But why do we generalise recipes across every coffee without any reasoning? Why is it X’s coffee recipe and not “a recipe that works best for XYZ coffee”? That’s something I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand.
I know that agitation—more swirling—means more extraction. But slow vs fast pours, centre pours, or changing water temperature mid-brew just don’t make sense to me unless they come with an explanation.
Personally, I enjoy it when things are shared with reasoning and logic behind them. That’s why I’ve stuck to just a few parameters that not only gave me great brews, but also kept my workflow simple and fun:
- Grind size
- Temperature
- Ratio
- Number of pours
If you notice a pattern here, all of these parameters control extraction yield. It’s essentially fine-tuning variables to get well-balanced extraction, which also means you need to change them depending on the varietal, process, and roast of the coffee.
Let’s understand this with a simple equation.
F(x, y, z) is a function that gives you brewed coffee, where x, y, and z are parameters like temperature, grind size, and ratio.
But the function is incomplete—something most people fail to acknowledge.
The missing parameter, w, is the coffee itself. This is what solves the puzzle and tells you what your x, y, and z should be.
F(w, x, y, z) → coffee ☕
Yes, there are complicated recipes, and there are people who truly know what they’re doing—and I don’t think I can put myself in their shoes.
But the final part of this equation is… your palate. You’re the one drinking the cup. Even if all the parameters are perfectly aligned, you still might not like it.
Does that mean recipes are useless? Maybe not. They can help you get started—or sometimes help you realise where you don’t want to be.
To wrap things up, I don’t understand why recipes are shared without information about the actual ingredient. Imagine pouring boiling-hot water on a dark-roast commercial coffee just because your favourite influencer shared a recipe—when they were actually brewing a light-roast Geisha from Panama and enjoying a beautifully sweet cup.
Thank you, and happy brewing ☕️