4 Temps, 7 Coffees: What I Learned

In this episode, I dive deep into how temperature dramatically changes the way coffee tastes and feels. I conducted an eye-opening experiment using seven different Brazilian coffees, all roasted to my preferred dark roast level using my Kawa roaster. I tested each coffee at four different brewing temperatures: 190°F, 200°F, 205°F, and 212°F, using my Deep 27 brewing device with a consistent 1:15 ratio (10 grams coffee to 150 grams water).

What I discovered completely changed my perspective on coffee brewing. While I had been comfortable brewing at 190°F to mitigate acidity in medium and light roasts, I found that this temperature was actually muting the spectacular flavors in these dark roast Brazilian coffees. At 205°F, the coffees became incredibly juicy and approachable, with 200°F and even 212°F revealing surprising fruitiness that I never would have experienced at my comfort zone temperature. By listening to this episode, you'll learn a simple yet powerful method to unlock hidden flavors in your coffee by stepping outside your brewing comfort zone, and discover how to efficiently dial in any coffee using minimal beans while maximizing flavor discovery.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:30 Setting Up the Experiment - Equipment & Coffee Selection
• 1:45 Roasting Process & Dark Roast Profile Details
• 3:30 Temperature Testing Method - Four Different Brewing Temps
• 5:30 Results Analysis - What Each Temperature Revealed
• 7:00 Key Insights About Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
• 9:30 Practical Tips for Your Own Temperature Experiments

Transcript

[00:00:00] We are live right now. It is July 21st, 2025. Hope you're doing pretty good today. I'm doing pretty good, mostly I think so. Had an interesting two weeks. This stuff will go up on the channel eventually soon. I don't know the order that I put things in. I don't think it matters as much, but this is not a sitcom.

[00:00:35] I used the Deep 27 and had about seven coffees that I was testing. I'm going to be putting them on the website eventually. I think I'm going to pick two, and that's the way I'm going to roll. The interesting thing that I did, which is the topic of the day, is how temperature changes the way coffee feels - really just taste in general.

[00:01:10] I didn't have a lot of coffee. I used my Kawa machine - it roasts 50 grams at a time. After it's roasted, it's about 43 to 44 grams of coffee. I wanted to use the device that I knew - I first called it a selfish device, but it's more than that. We'll talk about that another day. What it is, is that it allows you to make smaller cups and essentially get similar to the same extraction as you would do with 10, 15, even 20 grams of coffee out of another device.

[00:01:40] You can actually brew a lot more coffee. I can settle on 10 grams of coffee, 150 grams of water - so one to 15 ratio. Initially, I got the grind size too coarse for my liking, so I went ahead and made it a little bit finer. I didn't do any TDS after that. I had seven coffees, so about 28 paper filters later, here we are with the topic.

[00:02:10] It's kind of weird the way that works, but what I'm talking about now is temperature. Me personally, lately, I've been liking coffees at 190 degrees Fahrenheit. The reason why is because most of the time I'll have roasted coffees that are at a medium or even lightly roasted coffee. In order for me to carve out or mitigate some of the acidity, the way that I've been balancing the coffees - again, a topic for another day.

[00:02:45] But this time with these Brazilian coffees, I noticed something that was really interesting. These coffees were my typical dark roast, which I'm sure a lot of people call espresso roast, but whatever. This is dark. Once I hear first crack, second crack, that's when I went ahead and pulled the coffee. In this case, I did it at 12 minutes total - 10 minutes to first crack and then about a two-minute developmental time, if you care about that.

[00:03:25] It was nicely developed. It had a two-minute developmental time, and for the most part, these coffees are medium to dark if you want to say that, but on my scale, they are dark roast. That was more what I was going for because I like dark roast when it actually has some type of flavor in it - chocolatey and sweet tasting coffees, right? So we got that out the way.

[00:03:45] I didn't know really what else to do with this particular experiment and came to the conclusion that I'll just go ahead and brew them at different temperatures. So everything was constant with these coffees. I essentially had four shots at these coffees to taste them, to analyze, and to see what they were all about. I brewed them at 190 degrees Fahrenheit, 200 degrees Fahrenheit, 205 degrees Fahrenheit, and 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:04:15] Just so I can see a bit of difference. Since I wasn't doing majority of these sessions at once, I did one to the other extreme, meaning that I brewed two coffees - one was at 190 and then the other one was at 205. Then either the next day or later in that day, I would do 200 degrees Fahrenheit and 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so I can just get that big contrast of really seeing what I was tasting.

[00:04:45] So it was interesting. In this case, I think probably one coffee tasted okay at 190 degrees Fahrenheit, but majority of them were really juicy, really approachable at 205 degrees Fahrenheit. 200 worked really well too. 212 at times surprised me too - it was more bitter initially, but then the coffees died down as I kept on drinking and coating my mouth and all that.

[00:05:10] The coffees constantly started to change. They started to open up. I started to notice that there's more fruitiness in the coffees at 200 and 205. I started to realize that 190 was significantly muting these coffees. It just more exhibited a sweet aspect of what I was drinking in these coffees.

[00:05:35] It was really eye-opening because a lot of times when we're drinking coffees, we're changing a lot of different variables, especially if you're geeking out with goosenecks, variable temperatures, whatever devices or instruments or accessories that we have in order to make the best cup of coffee that we can for that time and day.

[00:06:00] But this just kind of brings you back to the roots of how you can change one thing, and when you change one thing, how that really transforms the way you look at things. I'm curious to try this experiment again when I'm doing a medium roast, lighter roast, and seeing how that changes that particular coffee at that time.

[00:06:25] It's really interesting, and I will highly suggest that you give it a try, give it a whirl, just because one, you can really tell the difference in the coffees. I was pleasantly surprised - I shouldn't be surprised and shocked how coffee at times can be finicky. If you change one little variable, it does change significantly. Then when you change another variable, it doesn't do anything - the coffee stays the same no matter what.

[00:07:00] So it kind of just gave me a different perspective, different reasoning for what we're trying to do here when we're drinking our coffees. It's cool to just be objective to the cause and the situation that we're dealing with, meaning that even though I was gung-ho about 190 degrees Fahrenheit when I'm drinking my coffees, I realized that I was probably missing out on something spectacular about the coffee.

[00:07:30] It was going to be easy for me to judge that coffee in a bad light - in this case, to think that it sucked, to think that something about this particular coffee didn't really gel right with my taste buds, with the way that I was thinking and all that stuff, right? I'm glad that I did this experiment because it allowed me, and as I share this with you, to truly get yourself out of the way.

[00:08:05] Try one or two things. Try the temperature change experiment and see what you like about this coffee in general, because sometimes even me - sometimes even me - I get so used to these recipes, the way that we do things, and as we do that, it's easy for us to be like, "Man, this blows," or "This sucks," especially when it doesn't go the way that we want it to go.

[00:08:25] So that's what I'm saying here. Get out of your way. Pick a grind size, then do a couple temperature pulses - same recipe, same pulses, same type of way that you normally make the coffee - and see what it's all about for you. Because I think if you do that, I think if we push ourselves in a way to where we are tasting the coffee, we're going to give it our best shot in order to enjoy it.

[00:08:55] For instance, let's say you had a hundred grams of coffee. You're wondering how to use the least amount of coffees, but you want to dial it in as quickly as possible. What I would suggest is that you can probably do it on a Hario V60 - it'll be a little tougher to do it that way - is that you use a Hario V60 or the Deep 27. Use 5 grams of coffee, four sessions at the temperature that you like all the time, right?

[00:09:25] Pick a temperature that's out of your comfort zone and then just keep going down that route. Just sit there, drink the coffees, analyze, and go back and forth. See what you pinpoint about the differences. See if you can get a real difference at all. Then now you've only used - not wasted - you used 20 grams of coffee. Now you can dial in your coffee even more at the ideal temperature that you think will bring the best out of this coffee because you've already tested it.

[00:09:55] You're not using anybody's protocol, meaning that some person online is telling you this, or I'm telling you that, or you're reading online. At the end of the day, what you're doing is that you are playing in your own backyard as you figure this out. And as you figure it out, you're going to be in a better place. That's when you can push a little bit more or don't push a little bit here.

[00:10:20] Like I said, it's pretty mind-blowing how doing this experiment really taught me that we have to get out of our way and realize that this coffee has a lot more potential than we think it does, especially when we're used to not going out of our comfort zone. I think that's the biggest takeaway here. We have to push past our comfort zone because if we don't push past our comfort zone, then what's going to happen is that we're going to treat everything the same.

[00:11:00] Certain coffees, certain ways that the roaster has actually roasted that coffee, can really lead us in the wrong way to where we don't enjoy it for whatever reason. If you want to get there a little bit faster, probably try the roaster's recipe. But at the end of the day, you're in your house trying to figure things out. I think the best way to do that is for you to try the temperature change.

[00:11:20] So yeah, this is Okea at Everyday Beans. Try it out. Let me know what you think because I think it's going to help you out more than you think, and then you'll be probably surprised that, "Huh, while I have been brewing my coffees at my comfort zone temperature, I do need to push it or see what's all out there for me." This is Okea, Everyday Beans, signing out. I'll talk to you later. Bye.