There is no single recipe that suits every coffee. The same water temperature and grind that make a washed Ethiopian sing can flatten a delicate Gesha or turn an anaerobic natural too boozy and harsh. The reason is solubility: roast level, processing, and how recently a coffee was roasted all change how quickly it gives up its flavour to water, so the sensible adjustments are to temperature, grind, and how gently you brew.
The recipes below are starting points, not rules. They assume a V60 or similar pour-over, since that is the most common way to brew these coffees at home and the method most competition recipes are built on, but the principles carry across to other brewers. Weigh your coffee and water, use filtered water, grind fresh, and adjust from here by taste.
A note on the ratio used throughout: 1g of coffee to roughly 16–17g of water is a reliable baseline (15g of coffee to 250g of water is an easy place to start). Where a coffee type calls for a different ratio or grind, we say so and explain why.
The baseline: washed, light to medium roast
This is the default everything else is a deviation from. In a washed coffee, the fruit and mucilage are stripped off before the bean is dried, which leaves it clean, bright, and acidic, with little residual sugar. That also makes it dense and relatively low in solubles, so it gives up its flavour at a steady, predictable rate. The aim is full, even extraction to bring out clarity and acidity.
Starting recipe
- Dose / water: 15g to 250g (about 1:16.7)
- Grind: medium
- Water: 94–96°C, hotter for lighter roasts
- Method: bloom with ~50g for 30–45 seconds and swirl, then pour the rest in one or two steady additions; a gentle swirl near the end keeps the bed even
- Time: around 2:30–3:00
Hotter water here is doing a job: lighter, denser roasts need the energy to extract fully, and the swirl evens out the bed without over-agitating it. If the cup is sour or thin, go finer or hotter; if it's bitter or drying, go coarser or cooler.
Naturals
A natural — or "dry-process" — coffee is dried in the whole cherry, fruit still on, rather than having the fruit stripped off first. That single difference is why it brews differently from a washed coffee. Left in contact with the drying fruit, the bean takes on more of its sugars and fruit compounds, which is what gives naturals their heavier body and fruit-forward, sometimes berry-like or boozy sweetness — and it also leaves them more soluble than a clean washed coffee.
More soluble means they extract faster, and over-extract more easily. Brew a natural with your washed recipe and it can tip from ripe fruit into something heavy, muddy, or overcooked. So you ease off, gently: a few degrees cooler, a touch coarser, and a little less agitation than you'd give a washed coffee. It's the same move you'll make more firmly for the fermented coffees below — a natural sits between washed and anaerobic on that scale.
Starting recipe
- Dose / water: 15g to 250g (about 1:16.7)
- Grind: a touch coarser than your washed setting
- Water: 90–94°C
- Method: bloom and swirl, then build in steady pours with a gentle hand; don't over-agitate
- Time: around 2:30–3:00, and don't chase a long contact time
If it tastes heavy or muddy, go cooler and coarser before anything else. If it's thin or sour, you've gone too far the other way — nudge back up.
Anaerobic and experimental coffees
These are the far end of the same scale as the naturals above, and where the adjustment is largest. Controlled or extended fermentation breaks the sugars down further still, before the coffee ever reaches your grinder, which makes these coffees more soluble again — they extract faster than a washed coffee, and they over-extract easily. Push too hard and the fruit you paid for turns into something boozy, savoury, or medicinal: think clove, vinegar, or aspirin.
The fix is to take the foot off, harder than you would for a natural. Cooler water, a coarser grind, and a gentler hand all slow the rate of extraction so you draw out the sweetness and fruit without dragging the heavy fermented notes along with them.
Starting recipe
- Dose / water: 15g to 250g (about 1:16.5–1:16.7)
- Grind: one step coarser than your washed setting
- Water: 88–93°C
- Method: bloom, then fewer pours with minimal agitation; an extremely fermented coffee often does better with two or three pours than with many. Let it draw down a touch sooner
- Time: a little shorter than your washed brew
If the cup tastes boozy or harsh, lower the temperature by a degree or two and coarsen the grind before you blame the beans — it is almost always extraction, not quality. One honest caveat: controlled brewing studies suggest that at the same overall extraction, temperature on its own matters less than people assume. So the real goal isn't a magic number; it's keeping total extraction in check, with temperature and grind as the two dials you turn together.
Explore our current offering of experimental coffees
Gesha and delicate, floral light roasts
It is tempting to assume something this delicate needs to be handled with kid gloves and under-extracted to stay light. The opposite is closer to the truth. Gesha is almost always roasted light and is dense in the cup, and the people who brew it best extract it fully — the delicacy is in the coffee, not something you protect by pulling the brew short.
What does need protecting is clarity. The refinement is in the technique, not the strength: even, unhurried pours, minimal agitation, and a clean drawdown. A common competition approach is to pour hot at the start and let the water cool slightly over the later pours, which keeps the finish from turning bitter while still extracting the aromatics that make Gesha worth the price. This is, in effect, the reverse of the experimental-coffee rule above: you lean in rather than back off, and control comes from how you brew rather than from leaving flavour behind.
Starting recipe
- Dose / water: 15g to 250g (about 1:16.7) — a standard ratio; resist the urge to weaken it
- Grind: medium-fine, the same as a washed coffee or a touch finer
- Water: 92–96°C
- Method: bloom and swirl, then build in gentle, even pours; keep agitation low and the bed undisturbed. If you want to mimic the competition approach, pour the first half near 96°C and the rest a few degrees cooler
- Time: around 2:00–3:00
Drink it black, and drink it across a range of temperatures — Gesha's florals and fruit shift noticeably as the cup cools, and a lot of the pleasure is in following that.
One overlap worth flagging: many sought-after Geshas are also naturally processed or fermented. If yours is, start from the naturals or experimental guidance above, then layer these light-roast clarity points on top.
Very fresh coffee, and the bloom
This one isn't about the bean — it's about timing, and it's the variable most people never think to adjust. Coffee releases carbon dioxide for days after roasting, most of it in the first day or two and the rest tapering off over the following weeks. Because everything we stock is light to medium and roasted for filter, it tends to hold onto that gas longer than a darker roast would: dense, lightly roasted beans degas slowly.
Brew a coffee that's only a few days off roast and you'll see it — the bloom domes up and bubbles hard as the gas escapes. That gas pushes water away from the grounds, which leads to uneven, channelled extraction and a cup that can taste sour and bitter at once: lively in the aroma, hollow in the cup.
The adjustment is the bloom. Give very fresh coffee a larger, longer bloom so most of the gas can leave before the main pours do the work of extracting.
Starting recipe
- Dose / water: 15g to 250g, as your baseline
- Grind: as for the coffee's type, above
- Water: as for the coffee's type, above
- Method: use a generous bloom — roughly two to three times the weight of the coffee, so 30–45g — and give it 45 seconds rather than 30, with a gentle swirl. If the bloom still erupts, the coffee is very fresh and will reward either a longer bloom or a few more days in the bag
- Time: as normal, once the extended bloom has settled
A word on freshness, since it's our whole point: fresher is better, but only up to a point — and that point comes later than most people expect. In our experience most of what we stock needs at least two weeks off roast before it brews at its best, and DAK's coffees in particular reward the wait. They're dense, lightly roasted, and often naturally processed, so they hold their gas for a good while; opened too early they bloom wildly and taste sharp and uneven however carefully you pour. So buy fresh, keep the bag sealed, grind only what you're about to brew, and let the bloom settle before you judge a coffee: a calm, even bloom tells you it's ready far better than the roast date does.
Reading the cup
Once you know the type, dialling in is the same diagnosis every time. Bitter, dry, or hollow means you've over-extracted — go cooler, coarser, or shorter. Sour, sharp, or thin means under-extracted — go hotter, finer, or longer. Change one thing at a time, and trust your palate over any number on a page.
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Sources: filter brewing and water-temperature guidance from James Hoffmann; competition technique from World Brewers Cup champions Chad Wang (2017) and George Peng (2025); processing and experimental-brewing guidance from ONA Coffee and other specialty roasters; degassing and resting guidance from specialty roasters.