Brew Guide: Nailing an Ethiopian Pour-Over

Brew Times for common varietals. Credit: Jonathan Gagné

Since the late 1600's, millions of coffee brewers have struggled to brew Ethiopian coffees without clogging their brew. Ethiopia is said to be the birthplace of Arabica coffee, and it’s also speculated that it’s where fines migration was invented…😉

Jokes aside, there’s some truth to that statement: Ethiopian coffees have a tendency to stall when brewed. For those of you who've never experienced the misery - stalling is when your brew suddenly ‘’stops’’ because the pores of the filter have been clogged, which leads to long brew times and over-extraction. Ethiopian coffees have a strong tendency to cause this phenomenon.

The astrophysicist and coffee genius Jonathan Gagne published this article where he logged the results from over a thousand pour-overs! 🤯

In the experiment he used the same recipe, same grind size and similar doses in his brews, and what he measured was how different varieties and origins affect brew times and extraction. The results are… well not that shocking! The results showed that the coffees that had the longest brew times and highest extractions were the Ethiopian coffees.

Now, as a home brewer, you have probably experienced something similar: you switch from a Brazilian natural to a washed Ethiopian, and suddenly your brew time doubles and your brew tastes like a cup of dry sand. 🤨

So what's the secret to nailing the perfect Ethiopian pour-over? Just keep brewing using the same recipe as usual and simply grind your Ethiopian coffees coarser… way coarser than you would for South American coffees.

This way, you’ll get that clean, sweet yet delicate character that we expect from Ethiopian coffees! We also want to point out that Ethiopian Coffees are quite delicate in their nature, so don’t try to get more body in your brew by grinding finer, it’s a trap! What you can do if you want more body is to use a bigger dose or a lower ratio to get more presence in the cup.

To this day, the coarsest grind settings we’ve ever used for any brew method have always been for Ethiopian Coffees, and we at Brew Journal HQ wouldn't expect this to change any time soon…

🔥 Hot Tip - If it’s a natural Ethiopian, go coarse. If it’s a washed go slightly coarser!

– H.S.

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