With the popularity of coffee culture in China, more and more working people choose to enjoy a cup of coffee to refresh themselves before going to work. It has become their daily drink, and many people are also equipped with various making utensils at home. However, due to the relatively cumbersome process of making Pour over(V60) coffee, many people prefer to choose more cost-effective instant coffee as their daily refreshment choice.
Similarly, with the development of the coffee market, many coffee lovers who pursue delicious and high-quality coffee have also emerged. They like to try single-origin coffee beans from different producing areas and hope to taste high-quality coffee at home.
Recently, a customer who often makes his own coffee at home came to the Front Street store. After tasting a cup of Pour over(V60) coffee, he asked the store's barista a question: Is there a big difference in the final production of freshly ground Pour over(V60) coffee and hanging ear coffee?
So, Front Street will lead you to explore this question next. If you use the same coffee beans, can you achieve the same flavor through two different brewing methods: ear-hanging bag and hand-pour filter cup? What are the differences between them?
First of all, everyone should know that there is no obvious difference in the main principles of ear-mounted coffee and Pour over(V60) coffee. It is just that ear-mounted coffee bags save us many tedious preparation steps, making the entire coffee making process more efficient and getting a delicious cup of coffee.
Without further ado, Front Street will use Panamanian washed butterfly coffee beans, which have a more balanced flavor and tonality, for comparison to see how the same beans will have different experiences when brewing coffee in ear-hanging bags and by hand.
The brewing parameters for Pour over(V60) coffee are: use 15g of coffee beans, use a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15 for brewing, the water temperature is 92°C, the grinding degree is 80% of the No. 20 sieve (the grinding scale of EK used by Front Street is 10), the brewing method is three-stage extraction, use a V60 filter cup, the extraction time is 2 minutes and 15 seconds, and the final liquid weight is 225ml.
The amount of powder commonly used for ear-hanging bags is around 10g-15g. So, the parameters of the ear-mounted bag this time are: use 10g of coffee powder and use a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15 to brew, which translates into 150ml of coffee liquid.
If there is no thermometer, a 300ml pot of boiling water will gradually cool down, about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius per minute. Therefore, we can simply boil the water and then wait a minute or so for the water temperature to naturally drop to the desired range. This way, you can brew coffee conveniently even without a thermometer.
Specific steps for daily brewing of ear-hanging bags:
1. Prepare the cup and hot water, open the ear-hanging bag, tear off the seal, and hang it on the mouth of the cup.
2. After the hot water reaches the approximate predetermined range, pour it into the center of the ear-mounted bag until the water level reaches half of the ear-mounted bag, then steam for 10 to 15 seconds.
3. Fill the ear-hanging bag with water for the second time, this time to 90% full. After the water dripping filter is completed, pour water for the third time. Also fill it to 90% full. Wait for the dripping filter to complete. Finally, pour hot water for the fourth time. It is still 90% full. The electronic scale just shows 150g.
4. After finishing drip filtering, you can remove the ear-hanging bag and taste the coffee!
After comparing the two, the aroma and flavor of Pour over(V60) coffee are indeed more prominent, specific and obvious, such as the sweetness of passion fruit, berries, honey and a faint floral aroma; in contrast, the flavor of hanging-ear coffee is not much different from that of Pour over(V60) coffee.
(The one on the left is ear-hanging coffee, and the one on the right is Pour over(V60) coffee)
As for the taste level, because the water injection process of hand brewing can control the powder bed, allowing the coffee powder to be fully extracted, it will be fuller and rounder, and the hanging ear coffee is relatively refreshing. If you don’t have auxiliary equipment to brew the appropriate proportion at home, you can use a graduated cup and follow the above steps to brew a delicious and convenient cup of coffee.
In order to explore the difference between the two in more depth, Front Street conducted a comparison with a set of dark roasted Papua Bird of Paradise coffee beans. There is not much difference between the two in terms of flavor level. They both have obvious flavors of dark cocoa, cream, chocolate, and almond, but the hanging ear coffee will be sweeter, while the Pour over(V60) one will be thicker, and there will not be much difference in taste.
Front Street believes that the main reason for such a result is that in this experiment, the ear-hung coffee was freshly ground and brewed just like Pour over(V60) coffee, and auxiliary equipment such as electronic scales and thermometers were used to strictly implement the target powder-to-water ratio, so that the flavor of the ear-hung coffee was similar to that of Pour over(V60) coffee. However, many people do not have these auxiliary equipment when brewing ear-mounted coffee at home or in the office, and they have to guess the amount of water and water temperature.
In addition, most of the ear-hanging products that everyone buys back are pre-ground, and the aroma dissipates with the number of days of storage. Therefore, even if it is the same type of coffee beans, the taste of the ear-hanging bag will still be inferior to that of freshly ground coffee beans.
Therefore, when choosing the coffee extraction method, we can choose based on personal taste preferences and actual conditions. If you want to experience more intense, specific and rich aromas and flavors, as well as a fuller and rounder mouthfeel, pour-over coffee is a good choice. And if you want to enjoy convenient, fast and delicious coffee, hanging ear coffee is a good choice. No matter which method you choose, you can easily brew a delicious cup of coffee at home.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
