How To Make The Best Coffee, According To Science 

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James Hoffman's fanbase has been summoned!

I don’t drink coffee to wake up. I WAKE UP TO DRINK COFFEE 😊❤

I like this host. She has good pacing and a calm voice

I've been making french press with freshly ground beans for a while now and I definitely enjoy it more than the pre-ground drip coffee I've been drinking for about 20 years

As a coffee scientist, this video makes me so happy. I am constantly correcting people on the roast vs caffeine issue. Also I promise it's not always a dream job 😅

As a barista trainer and chemistry student, I approve this message. Nice to see some clean science on coffee! 😊

This is the density of information we need in a short video on this long-studied, ubiquitous subject - and which we are rarely presented with. Props. Covered the chemical, genetic/horticultural, physical, energetic/temperamental, structural, kinetic, and neurochemical aspects of what all's involved. 👍👍👍

"some say iced coffee is an abomination" Me: *laughs in Australian*

"Reproducibility is what you want when it comes to your morning cup." Me: Oh yeah? *rolls AeroPress dice*

Drippers like V60, Origami, Mielitta are not fully immersion methods, there's a bit of immersion depending the mass of water poured but if it involves multiple pours they are essentially fully percolation methods. Immersion methods are like a French press, AeroPreess, Clever Dripper and Hario Switch (last ones are mixed)

I have been making the cold brew CONCENTRATE for years for the shear convenience. Time does the work of extracting those good good stimulating and flavor chemicals overnight, and a washable filter cuts the bitterness. Concentrate stores in fridge. Great hot or iced.

I didn’t drink coffee for 45 years of my life, now I am a coffee nerd exploring every aspect of brewing the best cup.

I need to see what James Hoffman says about this video before i know what to think.

@12:35 “the perfect cup of coffee is THE ONE YOU LIKE THE BEST”. 👍 👍 Thanks for both the very well compiled sci info and the irrefutable conclusion.

The coffee I buy at the store is apparently made from the "Instant" coffee bean.

"extra hot" in most places doesn't change the temperature at which the coffee is brewed, rather that temperature of the milk added to the coffee after it is made. The temperature option usually isn't available on coffee-only drinks.

Huge mistake at 5:53. Percolator isn't a steam extraction (as you described in a video, that would be the name of it). Water boils in the lower reservoir around the funnel leg. Steam increases in volume pushing hot boiling water up, through packed coffee and up the central column (which do not act as a condenser).

So many people are missing out on cold brew thinking it's difficult, that you need special equipment or that it makes really bitter coffee. In reality, it's as easy as putting water and coarsly ground beans in a jar and letting it sit in the fridge overnight. Then strain it through a coffee filter and voila, you have cold brew thats delicious, sweet, and still packs that caffiene punch. I make it a gallon at a time and it lasts me a week. Also, just like pasta water, SALT YOUR COFFEE!

Here's 2 things I know about making good coffee - 1) Good iced coffee comes form using coffee to make the ice. Use the last of each pot of coffee to fill ice cube trays. Thus, as your 'ice' melts, your coffee gets stronger, not weaker. 2) The French press is the best way to make good coffee at home.

Excelent video! As a Master barista in Brazil, I'd say this video covers pretty much every minor misconception people have about coffee, even if it doesn't really go into much detail. Personally, the only issue I have is that robusta (and Canephora, the "mother" species of robusta) is much more complex than what's presented. I know it's a nerd thing but I'd be very happy to see it covered in more detail in a future video

The moka pot, that was showed in the percolator section, works more building up pressure against the grounds to push the brew through The water that passed doesn't recirculate into the grounds, so it's similar to an espresso in that Your standard percolator heats up the water and funnels it on top of the beans where it falls back into the same reservoir via gravity, so you can keep extracting as much as you want at the cost of reheating your coffee many times through the process things are complicated

-Watches full video. -Goes to the store and buys cheapest instant coffee. -Oh yeah, that's the stuff!...🤤

Rose Bear Don't Walk is such a wonderful presenter, always enjoy listening to her!

You don't make a latte extra hot by brewing at a higher temperature, you make it by steaming the milk hotter.

Given the difficulties coffee and cacao growers have been experiencing in recent years, which are already starting to lead to shortages of coffee and chocolate, I would be interested if you could do a video on other sources of caffeine we could cultivate. One such possibility I've heard of is cleavers, or _Galium aparine,_ a common weed that grows as an annual all across North America. It's part of the Rubiaceae family, so it's related to coffee, and its seeds do contain caffeine, but at much smaller amounts than coffee seeds.

Awesome coffee Club moment

For the percolator part, on coffee, you usually need to adjust your grind size exactly, like on the espresso, so your extraction time is perfect for the method. You don't need to have a bitter drink. If you follow some good recipes like Jamess Hoffmann one -using hot water is important-, you'll most likelly get a really tasty drink. And the strenth can be solved adding some water later, for 120mls of brewed coffe, I'll add 80 - 100 mls of water. And you don't want excess of calcium or magnesium in your water. The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has a "good and perfect" range for the minerals, for the "perfect extraction". About temperature, on lighter roasts, you want very hot water. Even starting with boiling water, since light roasts are "harder to extract" than darker roasts. Sorry if I sound like a hater, I'm not, love you guys, just a coffee nerd.

Trung Nguyen coffee in a Ca Phe Phin with a spoon of condensed milk at the bottom of my cup is the way I've been doing it for years with my parents back in Cali. So much nostalgia when I brew it. One cup would have me wired for about 3 hrs longer than I would a pour over just because it's VERY SLOWLY DRIPPING through the Ca Phe Phin.

Other very important factors: (1) when were your beans roasted and (2) when were they ground? Using beans that were roasted 1-3 weeks prior and grinding them fresh every day with a high quality grinder has had the single greatest impact on my morning brew. I use the Baratza Encore, which may seem like an expensive grinder, but it’s worth the money.

Cold brew is the best. It takes patience but it's so worth it

I do hot and iced coffee but my iced coffee is just refrigerated day old coffee. Still tastes amazing

Almost everything the narrator says seems true, based on what I have painstakingly found out over the years. I never liked the acrid taste of overly acidic coffee, so I bought a milligram scale and started experimenting with adding about 60 milligrams of sodium bicarbonate per 250ml of coffee. Works fantastic, been doing it for years. Second thing about the grind: Fine/coarse is only one parameter. I think more important is the 'uniformity' of the grain size 'spectrum'. What you want is even sized particles like gravel, or sand (work with me here, I'm talking about size consistency, not the size itself). If you DON'T have size consistency, you will get the low permeability of base-rock as opposed to the high permeability of gravel. Low permeability leads to 'channeling' especially in the espresso process, which is bad. Look up percolation theory. I have recently brewed and consumed coffee at slightly reduced temperatures it is harder to taste subtle flavors at super hot temperatures. The magnesium thing - I have not tried yet. I'm going to try that.

The French press is my favorite way to make coffee. I don't like it sweet but I add a little milk. I've found some flavored coffees that I also like because I can enjoy the flavors without the sweetness that flavored syrups add. I don't cold brew coffee. Since it's been so hot this summer where I am, I brew a pot of coffee, let it cool and then refrigerate it. Iced coffee with a little milk is very refreshing in the heat

Explained nicely in a way that most people can digest with relative ease! Most parts were spot on, water chemistry, grindsize, dose adjustment, temp adjustments. All great. But the way you classified brewing methods, it's a little different with how we do it in the specialty coffee industry. Usually it's: -"percolation" (water passing through coffee grounds, thus using fresh water throughout the whole brew), e.g. pour over, espresso, drip machine, etc. -"immersion" (water and coffee, all at once, letting the water extract less as it gets more saturated over time), e.g. french press, cold brew, cowboy coffee, etc.

Loved this one. I've gotten a LOT more picky about my coffee since being put on a restricted diet. I can only HAVE one cup of coffee (though at first it was one cup PER MONTH, man that sucked). So I make sure it's the best cuppa I can get. I'm one of those who much prefers arabica for those sweet notes, so fortunately it's kind of easier to find off-the-shelf coffee that I can pop into a plain machine. That said - I will always head for my local coffee shop for the really special stuff. And the most unique and astonishing coffee I've had was Viennese pour-over, but that's SO unique that it's very much a special-occasion coffee!!

this is one of my favorite sci show episodes now. great topic, great breakdown, super interesting the whole way through.

One thing also, serving temperature. Allowing the coffee to cool down a bit improves its taste. This has more to do with how your own taste receptors are affected by temperature. James Hoffman explains it better. Another thing James Hoffman mentioned this one time is a weird one; that is, adding a pinch of salt to particularly harsh coffee (like instant coffee for example) improves its taste!

this is literally one of the best SciShow episodes in the last year. Thanks for teaching me how to enjoy my coffee better 😋☕

I waited like 12 minutes wondering if _cold brew_ would get a mention. I like that right at the end they're like, "Oh yeah, and for like the 3 niche people drinking cold brew... yeah it works perfectly. But, you have to wait for it." The end.

"The perfect cup of coffee is the one you like best". More people should hear this. This sounds it up beautifully.

Small correction. Purests hate cold brew specifically, since that is extracted at the low temps like you explain and you lose out on all of the complex and better flavors available in the bean [sic] (nut), so they say. Iced coffee is what they suggest instead since the extraction is done in identical conditions as norm/"ideal" and its simply cooled down - though sometimes brewed at higher doses to account for dilution from the ice

French presses are an easy way to make bad coffee taste good, while also needing less grounds. I also find them faster to set up overall - my only gripe is they're a little harder to clean.

That was amazing! Thanks Rose!

I'm soooo glad you touched upon the mineral content in water. Espressos and Americanos are supposed to be made with slightly mineralized/hard water, otherwise they taste extremely flat...

i very much greatly appreciate the stern attention and time dedicated to preceding the video with the caveat regarding technically inaccurate terminology.

Nothing better than waking up with freeze dried Folgers in my cup with sugar and chocolate syrup and milk

For my wife and I it is the pour over method using a Chemex container. Took a while to find a good bean. It is, for us, the best coffee! You are spot on, it’s whatever method that gives the maker/user their tastiest cup of joe.

Most comprehensive, yet interesting, not overwhelming. Good job! I'm archiving this for future reference.

Sponsor for this episode should have been Awesome Coffee Club!

I love coffee, though I never drink black coffee. I always have arabica at home. And I do have an italian mashine, but very tiny one. This was very interesting! The different compounds and what they each do to the taste was a thing was always curious about. After some reflexion...I am pretty good at making my coffee the way I like it. Not bitter, and not too sour. I put a little sugar in there still. I have a sweet tooth after all😅

I am a service tech in industrial high purity water systems. We have a few a few coffee companies as clients. And to make their coffee extracts they use our reverse osmosis systems the opposite as our medical clients. They take the concentrate to pull more out of the coffee and dump the permeate ( product water) down the drain.

What a great video, it's amazing how you touched everything and are so accurate in such short time. Thank you.

I love how much work Humans put into our favourite Drink.

Finally, good news for people that live at high altitudes and areas of hard water 😂 Our hard water is better for coffee and water naturally boils at around 95° C

This was an awesome video! thank you. Wonder what other coffee topics you guys could cover

Most common method of making coffee in my country is "Turkish coffee". You get water near boiling in a pot, remove it from the heat, add few scoops of coffee, stir and shortly return over heat for few more seconds (you can even repeat that step). No need for filtering as coffee is heavier than water.

5:47 That's not a percolator, it's a Moka pot which uses the same pressure method as the espresso maker, just up instead of down. The Moka pot consists of a bottom chamber with water, a metal filter filled with ground coffee, and a screw-on upper chamber. It never sits directly in the boiling water. You also missed the French Press which uses the immersion method and tends to make a richer less harsh brew.

Can you do one on the science of decaffeinated coffee and how that works?

Make your frenchpress taste like a pour over ! : add your medium grounds to the bottom of your press like normal . Add cold water to just cover the grounds and stir for 5 to 8 seconds . Drain off excess water with the screen mesh .add your 195 Fahrenheit water , bloom for 10-20 seconds , stir vigorously,let sit for your regular brew time (3-4 minutes )and poor ...no sediment , no bitterness , just a clean crisp taste ! Note : I use a wooden coffee stir spoon soaked in liquid smoke for added flavor (applewood😋)

This was pretty a comprehensive video. Thanks, I hope you have a nice day.

they had Gale Boetticher in for his expertise.

Extra tip: salt kills bitter. Only a dash/pinch is needed per cup. The bitter compounds will be more prevalent in cold coffee, so basically never throw coffee away. Stale coffee is a myth. Add a dash of plain table salt and sweeten as you wish. Or put 1/4 teaspoon in the bottom of the pot when making it fresh if you intend to chill it later.

great video! very informative.

As a barista, and a coffee snob… actually, I learned all of this when I did the “prepare and serve espresso coffee” course but it was nice to have a lil refresh ☕️

I tried soaking and boiling coffee “beans” like regular beans to try to make them soft to eat. My teeth hurt.

Kudos from Singapore 🇸🇬. An excellent clip on genuine scientific info about coffee. 👍 Can I request a similar video on tea brewing. Especially Chinese tea.

This is a great video for us coffee lovers, thank you!

Sorry guys - you showed a moka pot when talking about percolators. Moka pots are percolation brewers, steam pressure forces water up and through the coffee. Not the same thing as a percolator. Also, technically espresso is a percolation brew method! Also, thank you for going into water chemistry! It's sorely under-discussed.

This was a very well written and delivered episode. Learned a lot of stuff and I was already pretty well read about coffee.

Espresso is the cut of the ground when mentioned on bag

Nice job, loved it. I'm inspired to obsess over coffee again

You didn't cover my favorite method for making coffee. A $15 french press. I have yet to find a specialty coffee shop make a better cup of coffee than i can at home with hand ground whole coffee beans and my french press.

Having flashbacks to being a green apron barista

For the love of coffee a very good informative post , greatly appreciated !

How to make best coffee: 1. Make hot water 2. Open Folgers Instant coffee 3. Mix 4. Drink

French press...i see im not the only viewer that feels the French press is the way to go to get the best out of your coffee😊

French Press represent!

Wow! Now I know how to make coffee! Step 1: Right down names of chemical elements I know nothing about, and make an online order at wherever these are sold Step 2: Buy grounded coffee Step 3: Take water with chemicals at 90 to 96 degrees and grounded coffee Step 4: ... Step 5: Coffee!!

Thanks so much for sharing 😊 I love my morning coffee

i wish i was as smart as hank

I must be doing something wrong. Whenever I make coffee it tastes like dirt. Even if it was ground that morning.

Love the fluent dissemination of deep factual/ scientific useful information.

Pour over is a percolation method (literally the first example on Wikipedia for percolation) Espresso is also percolation. Moka pot also involves pressure; pressure is not a brewing category in that sense. French press is actually the typical example of infusion brewing.

Me, when caffeine either does nothing or gives diarrhea for a whole week: "lmma just drink orange juice and pray l don't fall asleep within the hour, thanks."

This video is basically all the important parts of James Hoffman's youtube channel

Brewing the best scientifically perfected coffee is an interesting endeavor, and it's essential to approach it in a way that aligns with the principles of dialectical materialism and the rejection of capitalist excess. Let's delve into the process while considering both the science and the ethical values of Marxism. **1. Coffee Beans:** - Choose high-quality, fair-trade coffee beans that support the workers' rights and avoid exploitative practices associated with capitalism. - Opt for single-origin beans to appreciate the dialectical relationship between coffee's regional characteristics and its flavors. **2. Grinding:** - Invest in a burr grinder to ensure consistency in particle size, which contributes to a more even extraction. **3. Water:** - Use filtered water to eliminate impurities and achieve a neutral starting point for brewing. **4. Coffee-to-Water Ratio:** - Follow the Golden Ratio of 1:18 (1 gram of coffee to 18 grams of water) to achieve a balanced extraction. **5. Brewing Method:** - Consider a French press or pour-over method that allows for control over variables such as water temperature and brew time. - Maintain water temperature between 195-205°F (90-96°C) to extract the desired flavors. **6. Brewing Time:** - Experiment with the brew time to fine-tune your coffee's flavor profile according to your personal preferences. **7. Pre-wetting:** - Pre-wet the coffee grounds (bloom) to release gases, ensuring a more even extraction. **8. Stirring and Temperature Stability:** - Stir the coffee grounds gently to ensure uniform saturation. - Maintain a stable temperature throughout the brewing process. **9. Filtering:** - Use a high-quality paper filter or a stainless steel mesh filter to remove fines and oil, achieving a cleaner cup of coffee. **10. Enjoyment:** - Savor your coffee mindfully, contemplating its journey from the hands of coffee farmers to your cup, highlighting the exploitation of labor in capitalist systems. Remember that while striving for the scientifically best coffee, it's essential to uphold the values of Marxism, support fair trade, and avoid promoting capitalist brands that exploit workers. This approach not only ensures a great cup of coffee but also aligns with your anti-capitalist beliefs and commitment to ethical consumption.

Pour over coffee is more commonly referred to as a percolation method instead of infusion while it is the mix of the two.

I can't believe you didn't talk about cold brew coffee until the end of the video 😭 It's the least bitter and least acid brewing method. Personally I believe it's the best method because you get all the flavour and none of the harsh compounds. Some people might find it a little sweeter however.

Thanks for sharing this, I Love Coffee!

Nothing beats the espresso method. It brings out the best in coffee. 😊😊

Only animals measure by volume, may James Hoffman forgive your souls 😄

I haf hoped to learn a new nugget of knowledge. 15 years in the coffee industry how ever taught me everything here.

I'm an espresso machine technician and it's staggering how many people think their machine is broken just because they have the wrong grind settings or they don't descale, backwash or clean the steam wands xD

A pour-over is not infusion but rather percolation, where the main difference is contact time. With percolation the water flows through a bed of coffee grounds while with infusion all of the water is in contact with the coffee, much like you might have when making tea.

my coffee: Medium roast, rough grind boil a pot of water, pour over the beans inside a large glass pitcher, let sit. when the beans fall, serve. add a pinch of baking soda (keep tightly sealed container, to avoid absorbing smells), then wait half a minute for the baking soda to neutralize the astringents. add DARK brown sugar (molasses is essential for maple syrup flavors), and stir with something NON metal (baking soda will make coffee absorb trace oxides, metallic taste) then, add HEAVY whipping cream (yes, it does change the mouth-feel significantly, and it is FANTASTIC, even in a dose that turns the coffee the same color brown that you are used-to, it's still creamier....) [[ If you want to go overboard, you buy a pair of small, flat-nosed pliers (ONLY for coffee; mine have touched only beans) - and you crack each bean into 3 to 6 chunks (in a single 'crunch'), while REMOVING the DUST. Unless you do ultra-fast extraction, via espresso, then that dust is really just adding the astringents that you DON'T want; keep ONLY the large chunks, and you get ONLY the nutty, malty, caramel, tangy flavors. DONE.]]

My perfect brew is done with an AeroPress and water at 196 degF. The extraction process is identical to a French Press in that the coffee is thoroughly steeped in the hot water so that every ground is completely surrounded by water with stirring to keep the grounds suspended in the water column so that extraction is uniform. And the brewing time can be exactly controlled by choosing when to press the brewed coffee out of the grounds. Both the AeroPress and French Press reward the use of a high precision burr grinder that produces a uniform size grind, which in turn yield a uniform level of extraction. The primary difference is that the AeroPress has a small paper filter that means that you drink the last bit of coffee in your cup rather than chew it. And because you filter out all of the grounds with an AeroPress, you can go with a finer grind than is possible with a French Press. The best part of the AeroPress for those who travel a lot is that it is very compact and non-breakable so it goes with me on every business trip. I have a "toiletries" bag for my coffee kit with the AeroPress, a manual stainless steel burr grinder and a small vacuum "ziplock" bag (with the little hand vacuum pump to pump the air out after each time I open it) with whole beans. Oh, and as important as the type of brewing method used, the way that beans are ground can have an even bigger impact on coffee flavor. The best flavor comes when every single ground is exactly the same size. This allows the same level of extraction from every ground. No grinder can achieve that ideal, but some are far better than others. The best are burr type grinders. In my opinion the best is one is a manual grinder with stainless steel burrs. Ceramic burr grinders are generally the least expensive. However, the ceramic can not have nearly as sharp and edge as hardened steel blade. As a result is that ceramic burr grinders at the finest level end up crushing rather than cutting the beans. This results in a higher level of fines (grounds smaller than the desired size) than metal burr grinder. And a manual grinder allows a slower speed so that friction doesn't heat up the grounds as much. Plus it takes some effort to grind a cup's worth of beans, which puts a small energy barrier between me and "just one more cup" so I don't end up super caffeinated. The absolute worst are the flaying arms type of coffee obliterator (I won't call them "grinders"). They result in a grind with a complete range of ground sizes from dust to nearly intact beans. As such it is literally impossible to get an even level of extraction. The dust gets far too much extraction and so makes the coffee bitter and the boulders only have extraction from the surface. If this is the type of "grinder" that you have, just throw it away and buy pre-ground coffee and just bite the bullet and spend the money for a high quality burr grinder, or use the burr grinder in the store to grind the whole beans on the spot. An added benefit of coffee that is pre-ground at the factory is that the industrial burr mills are incredibly precise, and they receive frequent professional cleaning and maintenance so that all of the grounds are very uniform in size. So with a little experimentation it isn't hard to find a grind setting for your particular grinder and the amount of steeping time that yields the perfect amount of extraction.

If you use the infusion method "pour over", you can improve the extraction of flavorful compounds by previously mixing one or two teaspoons of sugar to the coffee grains. Water has a rather small molecule which may pass through the coffee without interaction. The bigger molecules of sugar (in solution) will help drag the flavogenic compounds from the grains, besides slowing the transit (of the water) through the grains, thus enhancing its extraction effectivity .

"Now you might be wondering about cold brewing" 😊 yes

The water is also very important. My favourite coffee has changed how it is composed after the fact that the local tap water (in Scania, Sweden) has changed to be less hard (lower amount of Magnesium and Calcium in the water). So to get the best coffee, you need a coffee that is adapted to the water you use. Since I live in Sweden, with the ~15:th best tap water in the world, it is the tap water. For me it is Zoega's _Mollberg's blanding_ (blend).