A Coffee Brewing Experiment – Brewing Coffee Twice

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you brewed a coffee, using coffee?

No? Well, I have. I conducted a little coffee brewing experiment to see what would happen. Intrigued? Read on.

To explain further, for this experiment I made a pot of filter coffee using a Chemex as I normally would. Then, I prepared another filter coffee but instead of adding water… I added the coffee I had just brewed!

Effectively, what I am doing in my coffee brewing experiment is blending coffee, just in an alternative way that will most likely never be used, other than for pure enjoyment.

One thing I noticed straight away when using filter coffee to make coffee is; it takes a lot longer to brew the coffee than just using hot water. Looking into this further, I can explain why this happens.

When water is poured through coffee, it takes with it some of the coffee itself. To know how much coffee is in the water, you need to find the TDS of the water. TDS is short for Total Dissolved Solids.

When the water takes on some of this coffee, it makes the water ‘thicker’ and therefore harder to pass through the gaps in the coffee bed. To counteract this, I adjusted the grind size for a coarser grind.

Let’s see what happened when I mixed some of my favourite coffees below.

‘How Many Is A Brazilian?’ over ‘Ready, Set, Bananas!’

Before I started the first test, I knew this blend was gonna be a good one! Both of these coffees are crafted for a filter, so they did not disappoint when I brought them together.

Choosing coffees with completely different notes, such as this chocolatey Brazilian and this fruity Costa Rican meant I was creating a tension blend. That’s right I like to live dangerously!

From my first sip, I got an instant buzz which came from ‘Ready, Set, Bananas!’ as it’s a morning coffee.

The second thing I noted was how intense the flavour was. It was as if all the flavours were so much stronger and you could really pick out some of them. The fruity notes in both coffees were brought out more as they were mixed, meaning the plum-like acidity of ‘How Many Is A Brazilian’ was a lot more obvious and that juicy taste you can find in ‘Ready, Set, Bananas!’ was a lot stronger.

‘How Many Is A Brazilian’ over ‘The Tiny Horse’

This blend of coffee was gonna go one way or the other!

These coffees are roasted completely differently but should have mixed nicely. The chocolatey Brazilian coffee with the biscuit-like El Salvadorian coffee should have created a harmonious blend. However, this time the coffee gods weren’t looking out for me. The smooth and creamy taste you expect from ‘How Many Is A Brazilian?’ had disappeared entirely and instead I was left with a very different taste.

The flavours didn’t mix well at all which meant I couldn’t pick out any individual flavours from either of the coffees. The only thing I could find was an almost distractful aftertaste.

I think it’s safe to say you won’t be seeing these two coffees as our next limited edition blend, certainly not blended like this anyway!

‘Captain Caffeination’ over ‘The Cat’s Pyjamas’

I wasn’t too sure about this blend. ‘Captain Caffeination’ is crafted for the mornings whereas ‘The Cat’s Pyjamas’ is crafted for the evenings. The only quality they share is that they have both been crafted with an Espresso machine, Aeropress and Moka pot in mind. Considering I was using a filter device, it wasn’t looking good. Was my coffee brewing experiment going to blow up in my face?

Surprisingly, the first sip I had was incredibly smooth. There was also a pronounced fruity taste from the first sip to the last. I also noticed that the toffee-like sweetness from ‘Captain Caffeination’ was brought out more and seemed to get stronger the more I drank.

So that’s what happens when you make a coffee twice. I can rest easy now.

Want to try my coffee brewing experiment at home? Let us know how you got on by getting in touch! It’s just a bit of fun!

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