My 190 Degree Coffee Temperature Obsession

In this episode, I dive deep into my current obsession with brewing coffee at 190 degrees Fahrenheit (88 degrees Celsius). I share how I discovered this temperature through various brewing experiments and why it has become my go-to for achieving the perfect balance of sweetness and clarity in coffee. I discuss my journey from being a 205-degree brewer to experimenting with lower temperatures like 180-185 degrees, and how I found that 190 degrees consistently delivers the flavor profile I'm chasing.

I explore the science behind why this temperature works so well for extracting sweetness from coffee while maintaining complexity, and I'm honest about the drawbacks you'll encounter when brewing at this temperature. You'll learn practical tips for adjusting grind size and brewing techniques to overcome these challenges, plus insights from my perspective as both a coffee roaster and enthusiast. By the end of this episode, you'll understand how to use temperature as a tool to unlock the flavors you want in your daily cup, whether you're chasing sweetness, acidity, or that perfect balance between both.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:26 The Temperature Journey
• 4:00 The Science of Sweetness
• 6:30 Drawbacks of 190 Degrees
• 9:15 The Roaster's Perspective
• 12:51 Philosophy & Wrap-up

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome everyone! Today is June 29th or 30th, 2025, and we're doing pretty good right now. I hope that you're doing pretty good right now. Today is going to be a fun day, I think so. I have in my hand the topic of the day: 190 degrees or 88 degrees Celsius is my current go-to water temperature.

[00:00:35] You know, we all love brewing coffee, right? It's fun, it's magical, it's something that we get out of bed for, especially when we can get that blessing of getting up. Lately, while I'm tasting and drinking coffee, I've noticed a pattern. There are a lot of patterns here, but this one particular is about brewing coffee at the temperature that I usually brew coffee.

[00:01:00] I've experimented with temperature from time to time. I was a big 205-degree drinker. I played around with 180, 185, but for the past couple of months, I've actually been doing strictly, mostly of the time, 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:01:25] I don't know how or why I came to that. I think it has to do with a couple of things. One, I've done a couple of failure challenges and experiments where I was tasting coffee or seeing if it's a challenge to actually brew a cup of coffee at a lower temperature. It does work - all of it really works. Even as low as 150, you can still extract coffee. You just have to change a couple of variables.

[00:02:02] But some of the biggest eye-openers that I did find was that coffee tastes really good at 190 degrees. It could be also what I'm chasing, what I'm looking for. One of the biggest things that I am chasing right now, still to an extent, is clarity in a cup. A lot of times I don't think coffee has an issue with acidity - most coffees I think they have an issue with sweetness.

[00:02:30] Sweetness is, to me, one of the most interesting things about coffee because when people say "sweet," a lot of times that can be very misleading. Some people don't know really what that means. I would say about five or six years ago, that's when I actually started to taste what sweetness of coffee really was. The only thing that I was tasting mainly was acidity - different variations of it, soft acidity, high acidic coffees, and so on.

[00:03:05] Acidity and sweetness, they go hand in hand. Like I always say, it doesn't mean that's a balanced cup if it's a 50-50 split. It can swing one way or the other, it may change as it cools down, you brew it differently. But the reason why I like 190 degrees is because it allows me the best chance to really extract that coffee but also find sweetness in that coffee - gives me a better shot.

[00:04:01] I notice, at least for me, that if I tend to go a lot higher in temperature with coffee, it brings more acidity and brings more roughness into the cup. Don't get me wrong, I'll talk about the drawbacks of 190 degrees Fahrenheit or 88 degrees Celsius, but it just gets the coffee in the right place for me. I think that's the thing that I'm chasing right now - just to see where I can get that sweetness in the cup of coffee.

[00:04:30] Sweetness does mean different things to people, but again, I do actually get where you can taste some sort of sweetness in the cup of coffee. I'm not talking about crazy like actual cane sugar, but it has that characteristic that I think is one of the things people have a hard time finding.

[00:04:41] Sometimes I go a little bit lower - 185, 180 - but I think that dulls the coffee a little too much to the point where it's mostly sweet, it's extremely one-dimensional, and it's not as exciting as what I get from 190. Probably in the next couple of months that may change, but I do want to bring that up because a lot of times when we're doing things and setting routines and habits, things that we didn't realize that we're doing.

[00:05:09] I think it's cool to just get a good idea of why are we doing things like that? What are we chasing? What are we looking for at this time and day as we go about drinking our cup of coffee? In this case, that's what I'm dealing with, that's the thing that I'm liking. It doesn't matter if I do filtered, AeroPress, metal filter - I just like 190.

[00:05:47] So let's talk about some of the drawbacks about 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes you will just only taste sweetness. In order to bump that up to an extent, you're going to have to play around with grind size to kind of mimic or manipulate the coffee a little bit to bring out the acidity, or even play around with pouring structure.

[00:06:08] Also, at 190 degrees, sometimes it's hard to actually extract coffee a little bit more than what you will get at a higher temperature. It's kind of true for the most part, sometimes it varies here and there. I did a couple of experiments - I think I released them or they're soon to be released. At a higher temperature, it's easier to extract that exact same coffee at that exact same grind size.

[00:06:59] There's going to be drawbacks, negativities, things that you have to go through in order to actually get the best out of your coffee. In this case, that's one of the things that I have noticed, and that's one of the constant variables even with me changing so many different brewers.

[00:07:22] At 190 degrees, you're not going to be able to extract as much, so you're going to have to play around with grind size. You're going to have to go a little bit finer at times. Sometimes you're going to have to - I wouldn't say go crazy with the whole manipulation of the coffee. I don't like the swirling, I don't like putting a stick in the brewer if you're going to do pour-over because that usually tends to cause inconsistencies in the cup if you're trying to repeat that.

[00:08:07] One of the biggest things that I try to do as much as I can, even with the drawbacks, is realizing that we can still manipulate and get to the promised land of really what we're trying to taste.

[00:08:15] So what other drawbacks are there with 190 degrees Fahrenheit when you're brewing a cup of coffee? I think that's mostly it. I don't like the fact that you do actually have to go a little bit finer, and to an extent, depending on the coffee, I do like a coarser grind setting for the majority of my coffee because I think that brings out the best in that coffee. I'm able to see what it can do for my palate and what I'm actually drinking in a cup of coffee. But sometimes that is what it is.

[00:09:14] It's one of those things to me where when you can actually get what the tasting notes are of the coffee - and it's kind of ironic because I'm a roaster. If you don't know that, I'm a roaster. I roast coffee for clients and people myself. I'm on Amazon, have a website and all that. I say that to say this: I even struggle at times getting some of the notes that either the importer gives, and then I'm trying to roast that coffee to that extent, and then when I'm brewing the cup of coffee, I'm also realizing that, wow, I'm not really tasting those things.

[00:09:56] But as you play around, manipulate, see what is out there for you, see if you could make it work or not make it work as you go about drinking your cup of coffee, you're starting to get there to an extent. But at the end of the day, as soon as you get that bag of coffee - including me being a roaster - that's what you got, that's what you're dealing with. I think the biggest way for me to bring out the most of what I'm tasting in a cup of coffee, especially with my preferences, is 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:10:23] I think that's one of the biggest things that we have to realize when we brew a cup of coffee, when we understand coffee a lot more. I think at the end of the day, tasting notes don't matter. What somebody else is telling us what we're going to taste in this coffee doesn't really matter. Ultimately, it's going to be dependent on what we actually like in a cup of coffee.

[00:11:02] To an extent, ironically speaking, then we try to manipulate that, get there as much as we want for our own care and preferences as much as we want. With the way that I drink my coffee - in this case for me, 190 degrees, mostly pour-over, mostly a medium to dark roast type of person - those are the ways that I can get there a lot faster. That makes me happy and jump out of the world because of coffee. Because that's what we're working with, and I think that's what 190 degrees Fahrenheit does for me.

[00:11:42] Like I said, there's not that many drawbacks. You're going to have to go a little bit finer, and that's relative to your palate, to what you like and what you don't like. I think that's where sweetness is at those lower temperatures, because like I said earlier, coffee is acidic by nature. Even the Brazilians and Mexicans and South American coffees, Guatemalans to an extent, they are what they are.

[00:12:05] But I believe the way that you massage, you paint, the way that you go about your craft of creating something initially first when, after a couple of tries of trying to figure that coffee out, that's where you can really delve into this magical place of like, wow, okay, let me just keep this same variable, then change other parameters in order to manipulate, to craft the actual coffee, at least for that time and moment or for however long that bag may last. And that's where we're at.

[00:12:52] What about you? What temperature are you at? Do you care? Does it matter to you? Are you chasing anything in particular? Do you care more about the acidity? Are you a light roast person? Do you like to go at 210, 212? Do you like a lower temperature for light roast, for medium roast, for whatever roast?

[00:13:05] I think the beauty of this, when we have a constant like that, especially when it comes to temperature, it's fun at times to break our own norm. What I mean by that is sometimes we may go to 200, 205, 185, and we may taste a little difference in the coffee. That coffee may give us a sense of curiosity because we have changed it up.

[00:13:32] I think that's the cool thing about this whole thing that we call coffee making - we can just do whatever we want. But at the end of the day, I think it's very important - let me leave off on this - because like I said, I've been doing a lot of different things. I have 10 or so brewers, do espresso from time to time, I have different recipes within that, so those variables are always changing.

[00:14:04] But one thing that I've noticed quite a bit is that if I keep something constant, then I know that gives me that type of comfort zone where I know for sure that I'm going to be able to get a tasting profile that I'm probably used to or accustomed to, even though the coffee is different, even though so many other variables that I'm playing around with are different.

[00:14:17] I think it's okay for us to be comfortable, at least having a starting place where we know that we can get to the promised land, get to figuring out that coffee, and I think eventually just sitting there, drinking it, being in the moment, thinking about life, thinking about whatever.

[00:14:51] It's interesting, I keep coming back to philosophy - I don't know why I do that - but I want to keep trying to remind, romanticize coffee. But I think once you're out of the gauntlet, the war of figuring out the coffee, you're just there enjoying it. I think that gives you a sense of being, a sense of hope, a sense of fun, but also where you could just enjoy your coffee. In this case, me currently in 2025, enjoying that 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:15:26] So this is okay at Everyday Beans, signing off. What temperature do you usually brew your cup of coffee? Do you change it all the time? Why do you change it all the time? Let's talk about it. Talk to you later. Bye!