DOES THE GRIND OF YOUR COFFEE BEAN REALLY MATTER?
In my opinion, yes! Of course it does!
Lets start with filter coffee; if its too coarse, then the water will flood through and make a very thin tasteless filter coffee. If its too fine, then at best, it will be over-extracted and muddy. It might even clog up and overflow. Very messy!
Cafetiere is probably a bit more forgiving. Too coarse and the flavour might not come out to its full extent. Too fine and the coffee might be a bit muddy and gritty with a mouthful of coffee sediment if you drink to the bottom!
For now, lets finish with the espresso. In much the same way as the filter, the coffee will flood through and be very watery if the coffee is too coarse but grind it too fine and you risk blowing the gasket on your coffee machine! Either that, or it might trickle through in an over extracted manner with bad tasting coffee! Not acceptable!
So to summarise; get your supplier to grind your coffee correctly!
So, what about the “omni” grind that you can buy in supermarkets. They say you can use it for filter and cafetiere……….
Oh yes, you can use it but you sacrifice flavour and your overall coffee experience. If the coffee is too fine for the cafetiere which it will be if its okay for filter, then you will over extract the flavour and result in a muddy coffee with sediment at the bottom.
If, its too coarse for filter which it will have to be for cafetiere, then the water will flow through to quickly to capture the flavour of the coffee.
So, yes it will work but just not to its full potential!