This is the recipe I brew pretty much every morning. If you've got a bag of our Costa Rican Tarrazu and a V60, this is how I'd brew it.
I'm not just going to list steps. I'll tell you why each one matters, because once you know the why, you can fix a bad cup yourself instead of guessing.
What Costa Rican Tarrazu Tastes Like (and Why the V60 Suits It)
Tarrazú is one of Costa Rica's best-known coffee regions, a mountainous area south of San José where coffee grows at high elevation. Cooler temperatures at altitude slow down how the coffee cherry ripens. That usually means denser beans with more developed sugars and a clean, bright acidity. Costa Rica is also known for careful processing, and a lot of Tarrazú coffee is washed, which tends to give a clean, well-defined cup.
Ours is a medium roast. In the cup you'll get warm chocolate and cocoa up front, some red berry, and a sweet, jammy finish. There are no added flavors. That's just the coffee.
The V60 is a good match for that profile for two reasons:
- The paper filter gives you a clean cup. It catches most of the oils and the really fine particles, so the berry and jammy notes come through clearly instead of getting buried under heavy body. (A French press gives you a bolder cup where the fruit is more subtle.)
- You're in control. The V60 is a cone with one big hole at the bottom, so how fast you pour (and how fine you grind) has a big say in how long the water stays in contact with the coffee. That lets you steer the cup toward balanced and sweet.
What You'll Need
- A Hario V60 and a matching paper filter
- 40 g of Costa Rican Tarrazu, ground about like fine sea salt (setting 24 on my Rancilio Rocky)
- 600 g of water at 200°F (about 93°C)
- A gooseneck kettle, for a slow, controlled pour
- A scale and a timer
- A carafe or a couple of mugs
The Recipe at a Glance
- Ratio: 1:15 (40 g coffee to 600 g water)
- Grind: about like fine sea salt, not table salt (setting 24 on a Rancilio Rocky; see the grinder chart below)
- Water temp: 200°F (about 93°C)
- Bloom: 120 g of water, swirl, wait 1 minute
- Remaining pours: 150 g each to 270 g, 420 g, and 570 g, then a final 30 g to 600 g, swirl
- Makes: roughly 500 g of coffee, enough for two mugs. Not all 600 g ends up in the carafe because the spent grounds hold onto some water, about twice their weight.
Step by Step
1. Rinse the filter and preheat
Put the filter in the V60, set it on your carafe, and pour hot water through it. Dump that water out.
Why: Rinsing gets rid of the papery taste. It also warms up the brewer and the carafe, so your brew water isn't losing heat to cold ceramic or glass the second it hits.
2. Add the coffee and make a big divot
Add your 40 g of ground coffee and give the V60 a gentle shake to level the bed. Then press a large, deep divot into the center with your finger or the handle of a spoon.
Why: 40 g makes a deep bed of coffee, and in a cone the thickest part is right in the middle. If you pour onto a flat bed, the water tends to sit on top or run down the sides, which leaves dry clumps in the center. The divot gives the water a direct path into the middle so all of the grounds get wet at the same time. Even saturation means even extraction. You don't get pockets of under-extracted grounds (sour) sitting next to over-extracted ones (bitter).
3. Bloom: 120 g of water, wait one minute
Start your timer. Pour 120 g of 200°F water into the divot and work outward until all of the grounds are wet. Right away, give the V60 a gentle swirl. Then leave it alone for one full minute.
Why: Freshly roasted coffee is full of carbon dioxide left over from roasting. Hot water releases it fast, which is why the bed bubbles and puffs up. While that gas is escaping, it pushes water away from the grounds and makes extraction uneven. Letting the coffee bloom first gets the gas out of the way so the rest of your water can actually get into the coffee. We roast to order, so your bag shows up fresh and gassy. Expect a big bloom, and don't skip this step. 120 g is three times the weight of the coffee, which is enough to wet a 40 g bed all the way through. The swirl knocks loose any dry clumps and settles the bed flat, so every bit of coffee starts out wet and even.
4. The main pours
After the bloom, add the rest of the water in stages. Watch the scale:
- Pour to 270 g (150 g)
- Pour to 420 g (150 g)
- Pour to 570 g (150 g)
- Top off with a final 30 g to hit 600 g
Right after that last pour, give the V60 one more gentle swirl.
Why: How you add the rest of the water decides how long it stays in contact with the coffee and how much the bed gets stirred up. That's where you steer the cup between bright and rich. Pouring in 150 g stages keeps the water level in the cone fairly steady and gives the bed a little stir with each pour, instead of flooding it all at once. The final swirl flattens the bed out again so the water drains through all of the coffee evenly, rather than running down one side and leaving a high, dry ring of grounds on the filter wall.
5. Let it drain, swirl, and serve
Let the coffee drain all the way through, then give the carafe a swirl before you pour.
Why: The first coffee to drip through is stronger than the last. A quick swirl mixes it all together, so both mugs taste the same.
Matching My Grind on Other Grinders
I grind at setting 24 on a Rancilio Rocky, which comes out about like fine sea salt. Grinder numbers don't translate one to one, though. A "15" on one grinder has nothing to do with a "15" on another, and even two of the same model can differ a bit. So here are approximate starting points that should land you somewhere near my grind, based on published grind charts (sources at the bottom of this post). Start here, brew, taste, then adjust using the tips in the next section.
| Grinder | Approximate starting point |
|---|---|
| Rancilio Rocky (what I use) | 24 |
| Baratza Encore | 14–16 |
| Comandante C40 MK4 | 21–23 clicks from zero |
| Fellow Ode Gen 2 (Gen 2 burrs) | 4–5 |
| 1Zpresso JX | about 2.1–2.3 rotations from zero (roughly 63–69 clicks) |
| Timemore C2 | 18–20 clicks from zero |
These are starting points, not exact matches. Your roast, your beans' freshness, and your own grinder's calibration will all nudge the right number up or down. Trust your taste over the dial.
Taste and Adjust
Taste your cup and change one thing at a time:
- Sour, thin, or sharp? That's under-extraction. Go a little finer on the grind next time.
- Bitter, harsh, or drying? That's over-extraction. Go a little coarser.
- Tastes balanced but too strong or too weak? Change the ratio, not the grind. On our Costa Rican, 1:14 makes a stronger cup, 1:16 is balanced, and 1:17 or 1:18 is lighter. My 1:15 is a touch richer than balanced, which keeps the chocolate front and center.
If you change two things at once, you won't know which one fixed it (or broke it).
A Couple More Tips
- Buy whole bean if you can. Ground coffee loses aroma fast, so grinding right before you brew makes a noticeable difference. More on that in Grinding Whole Coffee Beans.
- Want to go deeper on the V60? Check out our V60 guide for fruit-forward coffee.
That's it. Grab a bag of Costa Rican Tarrazu, make your divot, respect the bloom, and enjoy a damn good cup of coffee.
Boom. Done.
Grind chart sources (approximate): Honest Coffee Guide grind settings for the Rancilio Rocky, Baratza Encore, Comandante C40 MK4, Fellow Ode Gen 2, 1Zpresso JX, and Timemore C2; Baratza's Encore manual; Fellow's pour-over guide; and 1Zpresso's J-series manual.