The sweet spot in coffee, as we see, is the convergence between seven know points of difference. When all seven points meet you just about have the perfect cup or balance for that roast profile / coffee and optimal extraction levels (brew).

Those points are:

• Strong and Underdeveloped
• Underdeveloped Weak  
• Underdeveloped Strong  
• Bitter
• Bitter Weak
• Bitter Strong

If you think of these points as speakers positioned equally around a room with you standing in the middle any sound that is off balance or one sided could be easily identified and you could just as easily adjust the speakers to obtain total surround sound or a perfect audible balance. The same points of difference can be found in coffee and once you have found / tasted a few perfectly balanced cups you will know the taste of an unbalanced cup.

However, here is the problem - our hearing is mechanical brought about by way of mechanoreceptors and thus we all ‘generally’ hear the same sounds equally, but taste is achieved through sensory gustatory calyculi i.e. organs called taste buds that differ greatly from one person to the next and thus finding the balance in coffee can be (is) harder. In general terms we all taste things differently – so to help we need to get three areas in order. The soluble yield - which is the extraction process – the percentage (weight) of the grounds which are dissolved in the water used in the brew. The soluble concentration - which how concentrated or watery the coffee feels or the strength of the coffee. The relationship between the amounts of coffee in grams to the volume of water used in the brew – or brew ratio. Get these elements right and you would be well on your way to the perfect cup of coffee. You would be surprised how many people either overdose or under dose coffee in the brew process – a major cause.

As a guide – dose at 30g per 460ml of extracted brew, with an extraction time of 2.5 - 3 mins.