My Moka Pot routine

My Moka Pot routine

The First Women-Only Coffee Championships Held in Costa Rica

Feria del Café Frailes seeks to increase the gender diversity of coffee competitions. BY SUNGHEE TARKSPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Cover photo by Sunghee Tark The coffee industry has come a long way in the past 20 years, with innovations happening in many parts of the world and in different links of the supply chain. […]


Cerrado Mineiro Green Coffee Auction Launching Online Jan. 29

From the heart of the Brazilian coffee lands, the Cerrado Miniero green coffee auction is for the first time happening globally online this year. Taking place Jan. 29-Feb. 3, the…


María Andrée Is Honing Olfactory Skills in Antigua 

A sensorial class in Guatemala at Artista de Café teaches how to use your nose for the ultimate coffee experience. BY JORDAN BUCHANANBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Photos courtesy of Arista de Café Walking into a specialty café in Guatemala, your nostrils are infused with aromas from the best coffees in the country. Your nose recollects the […]


Toronto’s Pilot Coffee Roasters Acquiring Bridgehead Coffee for $3.6 Million

Toronto, Ontario-based specialty coffee roaster and retailer Pilot Coffee Roasters is acquiring Ottawa-based Bridgehead Coffee in a deal worth approximately US$3.6 million.  Bridgehead, which has 21 coffee shop locations throughout…

My Moka Pot routine

Brewing at Home and On the Road with Darrin Daniel

We check in with the Cup of Excellence executive director to learn his current coffee-brewing habits. BY TANYA NANETTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Featured photo by Emre via Unsplash Brewing coffee is, for many coffee professionals, more than just a job.   They usually brew coffee every day, both for themselves and their customers. Perhaps they do it […]


Interest in coffee & health is rising – what do consumers need to know?

There is a wealth of scientific research available about the many health benefits of coffee – as well as the undesirable side effects of drinking too much. But like all fields of science, research about the impact of drinking coffee on human health is ever-changing as we uncover new findings.  Interestingly, the continuous discovery of […]


Three Questions with IWCA Executive Director Blanca Castro

When International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) Executive Director began her job years ago at the Guatemalan coffee association Anacafé, she knew next to nothing about coffee.  “I just pretended that…


María Andrée Is Honing Olfactory Skills in Antigua 

A sensorial class in Guatemala at Artista de Café teaches how to use your nose for the ultimate coffee experience. BY JORDAN BUCHANANBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Photos courtesy of Arista de Café Walking into a specialty café in Guatemala, your nostrils are infused with aromas from the best coffees in the country. Your nose recollects the […]

My Moka Pot routine

Florencia y Fortunata: A Café Empowering Women in Peru

The Cusco café, founded by Carolina Peralta Minaya, sells coffee from women producers and features women demonstrating their skills behind the bar. BY JORDAN BUCHANANBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Photos courtesy of Carolina Peralta Minaya Traceability, sustainability, and conscientiousness are key values pervading the specialty-coffee trade. For many consumers and traders, these values inform their decision to […]


Know Your Sweeteners: Agave: Part One — Indigenous Use

Known today primarily as a sweetener, agave can be traced back thousands of years. BY EMILY JOY MENESESBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Featured photo by Bruno Cervera via Unsplash Recently, we launched our brand new article series “Know Your Sweeteners,” where we’re discussing a variety of sweeteners and syrups, and analyzing the unique characteristics of each one. […]


How do you roast coffee for milk?

It’s impossible to deny just how popular milk-based coffee drinks (such as the flat white, latte, and cappuccino) are in coffee shops around the world. According to 2020 data from Project Café USA, the latte was the most ordered drink in the UK, and the third-most popular beverage in US coffee shops. In line with […]


Three Questions with IWCA Executive Director Blanca Castro

When International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) Executive Director began her job years ago at the Guatemalan coffee association Anacafé, she knew next to nothing about coffee.  “I just pretended that…

My Moka Pot routine

My Moka Pot routine

minimum dose size?

Jan 31, 2024 |

I use the Hario switch to brew my coffee and am trying to reduce my caffeine consumption. Hence I would like to brew smaller cups of coffee. I am currently using 10g of coffee with 160g of water. (1:16 Ratio) I am wondering if there is a minimum amount of coffee...

My Moka Pot routine

Just thought I'd share my Moka pot routine as it differs from some of the common advice about Moka pots but it always comes out great (using it about daily for over a year). It's also a bit easier at certain steps than the common recommendations.

  1. Fill the water chamber up to the valve with cold tap water.
  2. Fill the coffee grounds chamber with ground coffee, tamp it down with your hand and scrape off excess grounds to level.
  3. Screw together entire assembly (tightly to avoid bubbling out the sides) and place on the stovetop with lid open over medium heat. Set a stopwatch to take note of how long the next step takes for future reference – later set a timer so you don't have to watch as closely.
  4. Watch for the coffee to start emerging from the lower part of the assembly. As soon as it covers the bottom of the upper chamber so you can't see it, turn the heat down to the lowest setting and leave on the lowered heat. Take note of how long it takes to get to the heat-lowering point. There's a little variation but it's sufficiently little that you can usually do other things instead of watch in the future. For me this is usually about 8.5 min.
  5. As soon as you start hearing the beginnings of a gurgle (takes practice but isn't critical to get perfect), remove from the heat and turn off the heat. If you want you can run the Moka pot under cold water to stop extraction but the amount that comes out with this approach is pretty trivial as long as you were watching/listening. Stir 'til the color is uniform and use however you like.

Some of this advice is different from common advice due to empirical testing. The temperature of the water doesn't seem to matter much (in fact colder seems better because it takes longer to go through/less chance of early "sneezing"). Not pre-boiling means it's much easier to handle the Moka pot. Tamping down the grounds, as long as it's by hand, doesn't seem to matter at least for the grind sizes I've tried (in grocery store pre-ground coffee). I do it because it gets more coffee in contact with the water, but I'm not sure it makes a difference to the taste either way. Finally the sensitivity people have to the "sneezing" seems overblown: a little doesn't make a difference at least for lattes ime (I can't vouch for black). I think the main thing is to avoid heavy sneezing, which we control with the temperature and removing from the heat early.

Still to try: deliberately oversneeze to confirm that this ruins the taste (think it does). Try tamping + not leveling to confirm this is the actual problem with overtamping (think it is). Try bottled water to see if it's significantly better than tap (suspect it isn't). Try lid down instead of lid up. Try different grind sizes to see if there's a point where it's too fine to tamp successfully.

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My Moka Pot routine

Perfect Little Beans

Chinmey Hill Coffee uses specialty-grade beans with zero primary defects (such as black beans or sour beans) and less than five secondary defects (such as broken beans). This is important because primary defects will greatly affect the taste of the coffee. Having zero defects allows the coffee to be the most optimal flavor.

Window for Optimal Flavor

Chimney Hill Coffee ships our coffee the same day it was roasted, so you will receive it before it enters the window of optimal flavor.  This means you’ll never miss the opportunity to enjoy the coffee’s peak flavor.

Coffee Ratings

Coffee undergoes many scoring processes by professionals who achieved their Q Grader certification. Coffee is first graded when it’s green. If there are defects the coffee is determined to be “not-specialty grade”. For those coffees that pass green grading, they are sample roasted and cupped. (Cupping is the official term for critically tasting and scoring coffees. The official cupping form is standard worldwide, and where the 100-point scoring system comes from.) A coffee’s dry fragrance, wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, body, acidity, balance, and overall impression are taken into consideration while uniformity issues and defects, will lower the overall score.

Specialty Coffee

Specialty coffee, coined by Erna Knutsen in 1974, refers to a coffee that receives a quality grading score of 80 percent or higher. While “premium” or “gourmet” seem like they’re synonymous with “specialty,” they simply are marketing terms with no defined standards. Specialty coffees are grown in specific and ideal micro-climates, and have distinctive and unique flavor profiles, with little to no defects.

Third-Wave Coffee

We’re currently in the third wave of coffee. The first wave of American coffee put pre-ground, vacuum-sealed cans in kitchens across America. The second wave started with the late ‘60s introduction of Peet’s coffee (by Alfred Peet) through the proliferation of Starbucks. The third wave of coffee focuses on origin transparency, nuanced flavors, and artisan roasting. The term “third wave” is synonymous with specialty coffee.

My Moka Pot routine

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