How to brew Colombian coffee at home: filter, cafetière, espresso and moka

Colombian coffee is forgiving. Washed lots from Huila and Tolima are clean and sweet, honey-process lots from Nariño carry more body and fruit, and all of them taste good across a wide range of recipes. The notes below are the starting points we use at home; adjust by taste, one variable at a time.

Before anything else: fresh, whole, weighed

Buy roasted-to-order beans and use them between five days and six weeks after the roast date printed on the bag. Keep the bag sealed, away from light and heat — never in the fridge. Grind just before brewing if you can; if not, choose the grind for your method when you order. A cheap kitchen scale changes everything: coffee measured by the spoon varies by 30% from day to day.

Filter and pour-over

Ratio: 15 g of coffee per 250 ml of water (1:16). Grind medium, like coarse sand. Water just off the boil, around 92–96 °C — for a light roast like our Huila washed, hotter; for a medium roast, a little cooler. Pour 50 ml to wet the grounds and wait 30–40 seconds for the bloom, then pour the rest in two or three slow additions. Total brew time two and a half to three and a half minutes. Too sour or thin: grind finer or use hotter water. Bitter or drying: grind coarser.

Cafetière (French press)

Ratio: 1:15 — 30 g of coffee for 450 ml of water. Grind coarse, like breadcrumbs. Pour all the water, stir once, put the lid on without pressing and wait four minutes. Break the crust with a spoon, skim the foam, then press slowly and pour straight away so the coffee does not keep extracting on the grounds. A honey-process Nariño is at its best here: the body of the method suits the sweetness of the bean.

Espresso

Start at 18 g of ground coffee in, 36 g of liquid espresso out, in 25–30 seconds (a 1:2 ratio). Grind fine; the machine's pressure does the rest. If the shot runs faster than 25 seconds and tastes sour, grind finer; slower than 30 and bitter, grind coarser. Our Tolima is roasted a little further for exactly this use — dark chocolate and red apple with a thick crema — and it also makes a lovely flat white because the sweetness survives milk.

Moka pot

Fill the base with hot (not boiling) water to just below the valve, fill the basket level with medium-fine coffee without tamping, and put it on a low heat with the lid open. Take it off the moment the stream turns pale and starts to sputter — that last gasp is where moka bitterness comes from. A moka makes strong coffee, not espresso; dilute it a little with hot water or milk if it feels harsh.

Decaf is not a different recipe

Sugarcane-process decaf keeps the structure of the bean, so it brews exactly like its caffeinated sibling. If anything, grind a touch finer: decaffeinated beans are slightly more porous and give up their flavour a little faster.

The one rule we would keep if we had to drop all the others: weigh the coffee, time the brew, change one thing at a time.