TL;DR
→ If it tastes sour or thin — grind finer or add a little more coffee
→ If it tastes bitter or harsh — grind coarser or use a little less coffee
→ If it tastes sweet and balanced — don’t change anything. Sit back and enjoy.
Starting point brewing ratios:
French Press → 1:15 (grams coffee : water)
Pour‑over or drip → 1:16
What’s happening in the cup
With wine, the work is finished when you open the bottle. The winemaker already handled everything. You just pour and drink.
Coffee is a bit different. While we focus on sourcing and meticulous roasting, you’re the final step in turning great beans into a great cup.
Some people love that part. Others find it confusing and aren’t sure what to adjust. We’re here to simplify it. Small changes in grind size or brew time can mean the difference between sour, bitter, or beautifully balanced coffee.
Brewing controls extraction. Extraction simply means how much of the coffee’s soluble flavor compounds dissolve into the water.
Too little extraction tastes sharp and thin because you’re mostly tasting early acids. Too much tastes harsh, dry, and bitter as later compounds dominate. Most coffees taste best somewhere in between.
Great coffee sits right in the middle.
Think of brewing like a simple spectrum
As water moves through coffee, it dissolves different compounds at different rates. Early you taste brightness and acidity. In the middle you get sweetness and body. Later you pick up bitterness and dryness. The stages overlap, but the pattern is consistent.
First: brightness.
Then: sweetness.
Last: bitterness.
The goal is simple. Land in the sweet middle.
A helpful way to picture this is how we teach new baristas.
When we’re working on espresso, we sometimes split a shot into thirds and taste each part separately. The first part is bright and sharp. The middle is sweet and balanced. The last is thinner, drier, and more bitter. Tasting them side by side makes it obvious how each stage affects the whole cup.
Brewing at home works the same way, just less compressed than espresso. You’re simply adjusting your grind and brew time so more of that sweet middle ends up in your mug.
How to fix sour coffee
If your coffee tastes sharp, overly acidic, or thin, you likely didn’t extract enough flavor. Usually this means the water didn’t have enough contact time to dissolve the sweeter compounds.
Try this:
-
Grind finer
-
Brew a little longer
-
Or use slightly more coffee
Start with grind size. A few clicks finer fixes most cups immediately.
How to fix bitter coffee
If your coffee tastes harsh, drying, or muddy, you likely extracted too much flavor. Usually this means the water had too much contact time with the grounds and continued dissolving the later, more bitter compounds.
Try this:
-
Grind coarser
-
Brew a little shorter
-
Or use slightly less coffee
Again, grind size is your main lever. Dose is secondary.
What you’re aiming for
Sweet first.
Balanced brightness.
Good body.
Clean finish that lingers.
When it’s right, you stop analyzing it. You just want another sip.
One rule
Make sure to just change one thing at a time.
Adjust. Taste. Adjust again.
Simple usually beats complicated.
At HoneyCo, we roast every coffee to be naturally sweet and easy to brew. Most cups are just a couple grinder clicks away from tasting great. Let us know if there's any way we can help.