Hot take: your pour over technique matters way less than your water

I read a piece from a water testing company that said 95% of coffee flavor is determined by the water, not the beans or the brew method. Blew my mind because I've been chasing the perfect pour for like 2 years, dialing in grind sizes, buying a gooseneck kettle, all that stuff. So I grabbed a $20 TDS meter and checked my tap water here in Phoenix and it was reading 340 ppm, which is basically liquid chalk. Switched to filtered water at 120 ppm and my $12 bag of beans tastes better than the $30 stuff I was brewing before. Anyone else ever test their water, or are we all just pretending the mineral content doesn't matter?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordangibson10d ago

Grind size still matters a ton, I'm not buying that water does all the work.

dakotab278d ago

but have you actually tested the same beans side by side with different water temps? because if you're brewing 340 ppm tap at 95 degrees and filtered water at 85 degrees, you're mixing two variables at once. i ran my tap here at 280 ppm, dropped to 150 with a basic filter, and the difference was night and day, but i also had to adjust my pour speed since the water felt thinner. what's your grind setting doing on the same water, does it actually shift the flavor that much or are you just tasting the mineral scale?