Brewing coffee with a red CAFEC Flower Dripper

Brewing guide

Now for
the fun part.

Let’s brew. Start with the coffee’s time off roast, then choose a recipe and adjust it to your water, grinder and taste.

Choose a recipe

Before you brew

Resting your coffee

We recommend resting the coffee in its sealed bag for at least two weeks after the roast date. Most of our coffees taste best around four weeks after roast.

At least 2 weeks

Before opening the bag

Leave the bag sealed until at least two weeks after the roast date. This is our general recommendation before opening and brewing.

Around 4 weeks

When we usually enjoy them most

Most of our coffees taste best around four weeks after the roast date, with greater clarity, definition and sweetness.

If it needs longer

Taste, then revisit

If the coffee still tastes tight or muted after opening, wait another 10–12 days and try again. Every lot develops differently; follow any coffee-specific resting advice.

Some people enjoy certain coffees sooner, but we generally recommend at least two weeks before opening. All timings are measured from the roast date, not the date the bag is opened.

Standard recipe

15 g pour-over.

Coffee
15 g
Water
240–250 g
Temperature
88–92°C
Target time
2–3 min

Before you begin

Use the 1-cup or 2–4-cup CAFEC Tritan Flower Dripper with an Abaca filter. Grind fairly coarse.

Treat the timings as a starting point and adjust to taste.

Shop gear
  1. 01

    Bloom

    Add 50–70 g of water at a moderate rate, wetting the grounds evenly. Wait 40 seconds for coffee more than three weeks off roast. Fresher coffee may need a bloom of 1–2 minutes; keep the bag sealed for at least two weeks before brewing.

  2. 02

    One main pour

    Pour to 240–250 g total over 25–30 seconds. Pour around the center in roughly one-inch circles, at a moderate to aggressive rate.

  3. 03

    Draw down

    Allow the brew to drain. Target 2–3 minutes overall, depending on bloom duration and the fines produced by your grinder.

Espresso falling into a red cup from Five Petal’s Strietman

Espresso

Brewing espresso

With our lighter roasts, we encourage exploring faster flow, reduced pressure, deeper baskets and coarser grinding.

There is no single recipe for every coffee and setup. Send us the coffee, equipment and extraction details you’re working with for more specific guidance.

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Water for brewing

Lotus minerals
Our starting point

Lotus water drops.

In one gallon of deionized water, add 10 drops of each mineral using the round-tip droppers.

Calcium
10 drops
Magnesium
10 drops
Potassium
10 drops
Sodium
10 drops

This produces approximately 40 ppm hardness and 20 ppm alkalinity.

An alternative

Diluted Third Wave Water.

A diluted Third Wave Water profile is another option. Lotus remains our preferred approach for exploring the delicate flavors in our coffees.

Questions about water?
Espresso from Five Petal’s Decent DE1 pouring into a glass on a scaleFive Petal’s Decent DE1 with the extraction graph visible on its screen

The equipment we use

Espresso machines

Our espresso setup includes a Decent DE1 and a Strietman.

Grinders

Our primary cupping and evaluation grinder is the KafaTek M98V with CRV4 burrs. We also use a Monolith Max 3 SLM. Different grinders produce different amounts of fines, so adjust the grind and pouring technique to your equipment.

Drippers and filters

For pour-over, we use CAFEC Tritan Flower Drippers and Abaca filters. We like the 1-cup dripper for 12.5–15 g doses. The larger 2–4-cup version also works well at 15 g and above, depending on the recipe and yield.

We use Abaca papers for their consistency and flow. Flow time alone does not tell you how a filter will taste.

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Questions about your brew?

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