Coffee and Tea Brewing Guide: Ratios, Times, and Temperatures

Why brewing precision is the content buyers actually want

Someone typing "pour over vs french press" into a search bar or asking an AI assistant the same question is not looking for opinions about which one is better. They are looking for the numbers. Grind size, ratio, water temperature, and brew time are the four variables that decide whether a cup tastes balanced or bitter or thin, and every brew method sets those four variables differently on purpose. A store that publishes the real numbers, method by method, answers the question a generic "coffee tastes great" product page never touches.

This guide walks through four coffee brewing methods (pour over, French press, AeroPress, and cold brew) and two tea steeping traditions (gongfu and Western), with the ratios, temperatures, and times that separate a good cup from a mediocre one. None of these numbers are secret. They are standard reference points used across specialty coffee and tea. What matters is publishing them clearly, by method, with the reasoning attached, which is exactly the kind of specific and checkable content our guide on AI citations covers in more depth.

Four coffee brewing methods, compared

Pour over

Pour over uses a coffee-to-water ratio of roughly 1:16 to 1:17, meaning about 1 gram of coffee for every 16 to 17 grams of water. Water temperature should sit between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, just off a full boil. Grind size is medium-fine, close to the texture of granulated sugar. Total contact time, from the first pour to the last drop through the filter, typically runs between two and a half and three and a half minutes. A slower drawdown usually means the grind is too fine. A faster one usually means it is too coarse.

French press

French press runs a slightly stronger ratio, closer to 1:15, with a coarse grind roughly the texture of breadcrumbs. There is no paper filter, only a metal mesh plunger, so a finer grind would pass through as sediment and also over-extract during the longer steep. Water temperature is the same range as pour over, just off boiling. The defining number for French press is the steep time: a full four minutes before pressing down, which gives the coarser grounds enough contact time to extract fully without the bitterness a finer grind would produce over the same four minutes.

AeroPress

AeroPress is the most flexible method here, with recipes ranging widely, but a typical starting point runs a ratio between 1:13 and 1:17, a medium-fine grind similar to pour over, and water on the cooler end of the range, often 175 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the recipe. The defining step is a short immersion, usually one to two minutes, followed by a slow press of roughly 20 to 30 seconds. Because the AeroPress combines full immersion with pressure, it tolerates a wider range of grind sizes and temperatures than pour over while still producing a clean cup, which is why it has so many published recipes rather than one standard.

Cold brew

Cold brew inverts nearly every variable. Instead of hot water and a few minutes, it uses room-temperature or cold water and a steep of 12 to 24 hours. Because there is no heat to speed up extraction, cold brew is typically made as a concentrate at a much higher ratio, often 1:4 to 1:8, coarse grind, then diluted with water or milk before drinking. The long, cold steep pulls out sweetness and body while extracting far fewer of the bitter and acidic compounds that hot water pulls out quickly, which is why cold brew reads as smoother and less acidic than iced hot-brewed coffee even from the same beans.

How to brew pour over coffee, step by step

1. Rinse the filter. Set a paper filter in the dripper and rinse with hot water to remove paper taste and preheat the dripper and vessel below it.
2. Weigh and grind. Weigh 22 grams of whole bean coffee for a 350 gram brew (roughly 1:16), and grind medium-fine right before brewing.
3. Heat water to 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. Just off a full boil.
4. Bloom the grounds. Pour about double the coffee weight in water over the grounds and let it sit 30 to 45 seconds so trapped carbon dioxide can escape.
5. Pour in slow circles. Add the remaining water gradually, keeping the bed of grounds saturated without flooding the filter. A gooseneck kettle makes this step far more consistent.
6. Finish the drawdown. Total time from first pour to last drop should land between two and a half and three and a half minutes.

This exact sequence carries full HowTo schema in this page's head, the same structured data type that lets search engines and AI systems extract the steps directly with attribution back to the source, covered in more depth in our schema markup reference.

Gongfu vs Western tea steeping

Coffee brew methods mostly differ by equipment. Tea steeping traditions differ by philosophy. Western steeping uses a larger teapot or mug, a modest leaf-to-water ratio (roughly one teaspoon of leaf per 8 ounces of water), and one longer steep, typically two to five minutes depending on the tea. It is built for a single cup, brewed once, and it is the steeping style most people learn first.

Gongfu steeping flips that ratio. It uses a small vessel, usually a gaiwan or a small clay pot, a much higher leaf-to-water ratio, and very short steeps, often just 10 to 30 seconds for the first few infusions, extended gradually across many rounds. A single gongfu session can run 5 to 10 or more infusions from the same leaf, with the flavor shifting noticeably from one infusion to the next. Western steeping optimizes for one good cup quickly. Gongfu steeping optimizes for watching a tea unfold over a session.

Steep time and temperature by tea type

• Green tea: 160 to 180°F, 1 to 3 minutes. Unoxidized and delicate, green tea turns bitter and grassy fast in water that is too hot.
• White tea: 175 to 185°F, 2 to 4 minutes. Minimally processed, white tea shares green tea's sensitivity to overheating, though it tolerates slightly warmer water.
• Oolong: 180 to 200°F, 2 to 5 minutes in Western style, or much shorter in gongfu style. The right temperature depends on how oxidized the specific oolong is, lighter oolongs closer to green tea's range and darker oolongs closer to black tea's.
• Black tea: 200 to 212°F, 3 to 5 minutes. Fully oxidized and considerably more forgiving of near-boiling water and a longer steep than green or white tea.
• Pu-erh: near boiling, 208 to 212°F. Traditionally rinsed briefly first, then steeped in short 10 to 30 second infusions that lengthen gradually across the session.

The pattern across every tea category is the same one that shows up in coffee: less oxidized and more delicate leaf wants cooler water and a shorter steep, while more oxidized and sturdier leaf tolerates hotter water and more time. Our coffee and tea origin guide covers why oxidation level, not growing region, is what actually defines a tea category in the first place.

Why brewing content and equipment guides belong together

A brewing tutorial that states real ratios and times is useful on its own, but it becomes a sales channel the moment it explains why a specific piece of equipment matters to the result. A gooseneck kettle is not a nice-to-have for pour over, it is what makes the slow circular pour in step five possible with any consistency. A burr grinder is not a nice-to-have either, since a blade grinder cannot hit the same medium-fine grind twice in a row. Our coffee and tea equipment guide covers grinders, kettles, and tea-specific gear in more depth, and pairs naturally with this brewing guide as supporting content in the same cluster.

This is also exactly the kind of content comparison pages are built for. A dedicated "pour over vs French press" page that states the ratio, temperature, and time differences side by side answers a real buying decision, and our coffee and tea SEO playbook and AI citation guide for this niche both cover how to structure that content for maximum reach. Use the Content Gap Analyzer to check which brew methods or tea categories your store has not covered yet.

Two ways to publish this content

Do it yourself

Write down the ratios and times you already use for the beans and leaf you carry, build one comparison page per method, and add the HowTo schema by hand. This works well for a first pass and nobody knows your specific lots better than the person sourcing them.

Let Ollie do it in 48 hours

Tell Ollie what beans, leaf, and brewing equipment you carry and it writes the brewing cluster grounded in your actual product line, schema included, method by method.