Maybe this has happened to you: you enjoy a cup of coffee at a cafe. You ask the barista if you can buy a bag. Excited to share it with your family after loving your cafe experience, you purchase a bag to brew at home. You grind it up with your little push-button grinder, inhaling the intoxicating aromas, and wait impatiently for the last drips to funnel down. You pour your first cup, then lift the mug to your lips for a sip. But alas: it tastes nothing like the beverage you savored in the cafe. What gives?

Frustratingly, there’s no easy answer to this question. But we can break down several variables at play that are impacting what your coffee tastes like.

1. Exact brew method. Maybe you tried a pour-over at the cafe, or maybe it was brewed with automatic drip. Each of these are likely similar to your brewer at home in some ways, but the precise mechanics of flavor extraction aren’t the same. A cone filter allows water to move a little more quickly through coffee grounds than a basket filter, which can decrease the extraction time. The total volume brewed makes a difference too; a cafe’s big batch brewer might be producing over a gallon of coffee at a time, whereas a home brewer’s total volume is less. 

2. Grind size. This is a big one. The total surface area of each little coffee particle is extremely important, and the ideal grind size for any given brew method is roughly proportionate to the contact time between water and coffee. For example, to make espresso, you need a very fine grind, because the contact time is very short (only 20-30 seconds) and we want to maximize good extraction, which happens when between 18-22% of the solids make it into your cup. On the other end of the spectrum, when you have several minutes of contact time, like with a French press, or even several hours for cold brew, you need a much coarser grind size, to avoid over-extraction. This relates to surface area: a pile of very finely-ground coffee has a lot more surface area than a same-size pile of coarsely-ground coffee. Chances are, not only are you brewing differently than the barista at a cafe, but your exact particle size is not the same. If your coffee tastes a little sour, try grinding a little coarser. If it’s a little bitter, grind a little finer.

3. Ratio. For most folks brewing at home, coffee gets measured with a scoop. It might even be a “coffee scoop”--something you bought for this exact purpose. But how big is that scoop exactly? It’s likely two tablespoons, give or take, which is about the right amount of coffee to use for one small (6-8oz) serving. But how big is your “serving” at home? Your favorite mug might be 10, 12, or even 16 ounces. Your brew ratio, per cup or per pot, is likely not the same as the cafe’s recipe. A good cafe will be using a scale to weigh their coffee every time, and a recipe will always be more consistent by weight than by volume. Generally, use 14-18g of coffee per 8oz water. Even better, weigh your water too: the standard ratio is 60g coffee per liter of water. Yes, coffee involves math.

4. Water. Are you using water straight from your tap? Where does that tap water come from? Is it groundwater from a well, or is it coming from a nearby lake (like in Traverse City, where much of the city’s municipal water comes from East Bay)? Where it comes from impacts its mineral content, as well as other aromatic components like chlorine. Of course not, you might say; I always use filtered water. Okay, great! What kind of filter are you using? Is it a water softener, which likely utilizes sodium to combat hardness minerals like calcium? Sodium is, essentially, salt–which tastes (you guessed it) salty! A good specialty cafe likely has a sophisticated water filtration system like we do at Higher Grounds, where the water is first completely purified via reverse osmosis, and then a precise recipe of minerals is added back in to idealize coffee flavor. The Specialty Coffee Association has a recommended water recipe; you can really geek out over this stuff if you want to.

5. Technique. This one gets a little loosey-goosey. Technique basically means that your exact approach to brewing matters, down to the minutiae. Do you like to rinse your filter? For a pour-over, do you pour from a gooseneck kettle? And do you pour in concentric circles, clockwise or counterclockwise? Maybe you like to pour all the water in at once and then walk away while it drips down. Maybe you have a home espresso machine and all the fancy accessories like a distribution tool or pressure-controlled tamper. Technique is about your approach to all these side-quests. If consistency is important to you, choose a technique that you can repeat, steps that you can be sure are not changing every time you brew.

6. Filtration method. And no, we’re not still talking about water filtration here; this is about how the coffee grounds ultimately are trapped away from your cup of coffee. Maybe you have a reusable metal filter; maybe you’re using paper. And not all paper filters are created equal; some are heavier than others, and the shape matters too. A heavier filter (like one for a Chemex) will hold back the tiniest sediment and particles, along with much of the coffee’s oils, resulting in a cleaner, lighter-bodied cup than a French press, where those oils and sediment remain suspended in your brew.

7. Freshness. Roast date matters. When the coffee is ground matters. And once you’ve brewed, how long that coffee sits around matters a lot. If your carafe is sitting on a burner for a while, the naturally-present chlorogenic acid in coffee breaks down into quinic acid, which doesn’t taste nearly as good (bitter and burnt flavors build up here).

So: why doesn’t your coffee taste the same at home as it does in the cafe? There are many reasons, and each of these above can be unpacked even further. Not to mention you play different music at your house; your cushions are harder or softer; your windows are open while the cafe runs AC... But don’t despair. A few simple steps like adjusting grind size and using a scale for a consistent recipe can go a long way. 

If you enjoyed this post and really want to dive in, we have the perfect class for you in the Learning Lab. Come on in, geek out with us–and then go home with your toolbox full of advanced coffee brewing knowledge.