What are the advantages and disadvantages of hand-brewed coffee? why do you choose hand-brewing for a single bean?

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What is hand-made coffee?

Hand coffee is filled with hot water on the coffee powder and filtered by a cup / filter. When the hot water passes through the coffee powder and filtered, it is filled in a container such as a cup. Hand brewing also has aliases such as drip coffee, although some coffee machines also have this function.

This method of brewing coffee was widely used in Europe in the early 20th century, even in some areas earlier, but it was not until recent years that it was revived by the wave of boutique coffee.

Why do you use hand flushing?

Compared with other brewing ingredients, hand-brewed coffee can highlight the rich aroma and flavor of coffee, making it the preferred method for brewing single-item coffee.

Good hand-brewed coffee has a pure, clear and consistent flavor, because the water will extract the oil and aroma of the coffee under controlled time and pressure, and the hand-made filter paper will absorb these oils, making the coffee taste pure.

Because hand flushing is extracted by water injection, it can extract faster than immersion cooking (such as pressure kettle) because of the disturbance of water flow.

Nara Lee, New Zealand coffee brewing champion in 2017, said: "using hand brewing will not change the flavor of coffee, it will only increase the aroma substances released. I don't think brewing utensils can change the flavor of coffee, but some people are sure of it."

But hand-brewed coffee also has some operational challenges, after all, when it comes to manual work, there may be mistakes. For example, the use of hand-brewed or brewed espresso can have a channel effect, allowing the flow of water to move to areas with less resistance, which can happen when coffee powder is caked or unevenly distributed, and the channel effect can cause uneven extraction. So it is important for brewers to know how to soak coffee powder evenly.

Because it is difficult to replicate the results of hand brewing coffee, some coffee shops may prefer to use handmade machines instead, which can use automatic setting parameters to achieve stable results compared with manual brewing.