Why bother with pour-over?

If you've only ever pulled coffee through a machine, pour-over can feel like an extra step for not much reward. But it's actually the clearest way to taste what a coffee is doing — the acidity, the sweetness, the little floral or fruity notes that get flattened out once you add pressure and milk. It's cheap to start and forgiving once you've got the basics down, which makes it a good weekend ritual rather than a chore.

What you actually need

You don't need much. A dripper (cone-shaped and flat-bottomed styles both work, they just taste slightly different), paper filters, a kettle you can pour slowly from, and a set of scales. A burr grinder matters more than the dripper itself — an even grind is what makes pour-over consistent, and a blade grinder will fight you every time. If you're building a setup from scratch, our barista tools range has drippers, scales and grinders that'll get you started without overcomplicating things.

A ratio that works every time

Start with 1 gram of coffee to 16 grams of water — so 20g of coffee to 320g of water makes a solid two cups. Weigh both. It sounds fussy, but eyeballing water volume is the single biggest reason home pour-over tastes inconsistent from one morning to the next. Once you've got a feel for the ratio, nudge it stronger or weaker to taste.

The pour, step by step

Grind medium-coarse, roughly like coarse sea salt. Rinse your paper filter with hot water first — it gets rid of the papery taste and warms the dripper through. Add your grounds, then pour a small amount of water (about double the coffee weight) and let it sit for thirty seconds. This is the "bloom," and it lets the coffee de-gas so the rest of the pour extracts evenly. From there, pour the remaining water in two or three slow, circular passes, keeping the grounds mostly submerged. The whole brew should land somewhere between two and a half and three and a half minutes.

A few things that trip people up

If it tastes sharp or sour, your grind is probably too coarse or your water not hot enough — aim for just off the boil. If it tastes flat or bitter, try a coarser grind or a shorter brew time. Pour-over is also a genuinely good way to get to know a single origin properly, since there's no milk for it to hide behind. Our single origins are worth working through one at a time this way, or grab the coffee discovery pack if you'd rather compare a few side by side. Any questions on gear or grind size, our team members are always happy to help — just flick us a note at gday@evercoffee.au.