The Pour-Over, Done Right: A Recipe for Peru Single Origin

Most pour-overs fail in the same place: the water goes in too fast, too unevenly, and the coffee comes out sour in one sip and bitter in the next. The fix isn't a better dripper. It's a slower, staged pour — and a bloom that actually gets time to work.

This is the exact recipe we brew our Peru single origin with. Steal it.

The coffee

Peru, from high-altitude Andean farms — a bright, citrusy cup with a clean, sweet finish, in the site's own words. It's a single origin, so what you taste is the place, not a blend smoothing it out. That makes it a good coffee to learn pour-over on: when the brew is right, the brightness is clean; when it's wrong, you'll taste it immediately — sour if it's under-extracted, flat and dull if it's over.

The recipe

• Coffee: 22g Peru, medium-fine — like raw sugar
• Water: 350g, just off the boil
• Ratio: 1:16
• Total time: drawdown finishes at about 3:00

Step by step:

• 0:00 — Bloom with 50g. Pour 50g of water over the grounds, give the dripper a gentle swirl, and wait 45 seconds. The bloom lets the coffee degas so the water can actually extract, instead of fighting trapped gas.
• 0:45 — Pour to 150g. Slow circles, keeping the water level even.
• 1:15 — Pour to 250g. Same slow circles.
• 1:45 — Top to 350g. One last gentle swirl.
• ~3:00 — Drawdown finishes. Done. Clean, sweet, no sour, no bitter.

Why the staged pours matter

The staged pours keep the coffee bed even so nothing channels — water finding one easy path through the grounds and over-extracting that channel while the rest stays under-extracted. That's the #1 home pour-over mistake, and it's what makes a cup taste sour and bitter at the same time. Small, even pours keep fresh water moving through the whole bed instead of letting it sit and stall.

If your cup is off

• Sour or sharp: it's under-extracted. Grind a touch finer next time, or use water a little hotter — and don't rush the bloom.
• Bitter or dull: it's over-extracted. Go a touch coarser, or pour a little gentler so the bed doesn't sit in water too long.
• One sip great, the next thin: the bed wasn't even. Slow the pours down and keep the circles even — speed is the enemy here.

Change one thing at a time. If you change the grind, the temperature, and the pour all at once, you'll never know which one fixed it.

Try it against the rest

If you want to taste what origin actually does to a cup, brew this same recipe with a different coffee and compare. The Discovery Flight ($31) is the low-risk way in — six 2 oz bags (Breakfast Blend, 6-Bean, Cowboy, Mexico, Peru, and Bali Blue) so you can find your roast before you commit to a full bag. The product page's own advice applies here too: brew each sample the same way, same ratio, same method, so you're comparing the coffee, not the brew. Free shipping on orders over $50.

What's your house ratio?

We brew at 1:16. Some home baristas swear by 1:15, others by 1:17 — and they'll defend it like a sports team. What's YOUR house ratio — 1:15, 1:16, or 1:17 — and what made you land on it? Tell us in the comments below, or on Instagram. We read every one.

The Peru single origin is roasted to order in small batches. The full recipe is also in Tuesday's reel — link in bio on Instagram.