The Journal Guides
How much coffee per cup? Start with the water
A useful ratio, a small table and a way to understand your own scoop.
For a starting point with filter coffee, try 15 g of coffee with 250 ml of brewing water. That follows the 60 g per litre ratio in Square Mile's V60 guide. Adjust it for your coffee, brewer and taste. A scoop moves the coffee; a scale tells you how much you have.
The word 'cup' causes a surprising amount of confusion. It might mean the small mark on a coffee machine, your favourite mug or a recipe's measuring cup. Begin with the amount of water you intend to brew, rather than the name of the vessel you will drink from.
A coffee-to-water ratio you can calculate
At 60 g per litre, multiply your brewing water in millilitres by 0.06 to find the coffee weight in grams. The quantities below follow that ratio. Treat them as starting points for your brewer.
| Brewing water | Ground coffee |
|---|---|
| 200 ml | 12 g |
| 250 ml | 15 g |
| 300 ml | 18 g |
| 500 ml | 30 g |
| 750 ml | 45 g |
The Specialty Coffee Association's explanation of brewing ratios distinguishes brewing water from the finished beverage. For drip and immersion coffee, the recipe describes water used to brew. Espresso commonly uses the weight of the finished drink relative to dry coffee. Don't transfer this table straight to an espresso basket.
How many grams are in a coffee scoop?
There is no dependable answer for an unspecified scoop. Its size, the coffee and whether you fill it level or heaped all matter. Even 'one spoon' leaves the next person guessing which spoon you meant.
To understand the scoop you already own, place a small bowl on a scale and zero it. Add one level scoop of your usual coffee and note the weight. Empty it and repeat a few times. You will see both the approximate dose and how consistent your filling is. Repeat the check when you change the coffee or the way you fill the scoop.
Our Daily Measure coffee scoop has a stainless steel bowl and a dark timber-effect handle. It is currently unavailable, but the same method works with a scoop you already own: use it for transferring coffee, with a scale when you want to repeat an exact dose.
Where a dosing tray or cup fits
If you weigh whole beans, put the empty container on the scale first, then zero the reading before adding them. Otherwise the container becomes part of your supposed coffee dose. Check that your scale is back at zero whenever you change vessels.
Quiet Measure is a walnut dosing tray with a narrow pouring end and a matching plug. The Measure dosing cup offers a stainless steel cup with a pouring lip. Check the selected capacity on the product page. A capacity in millilitres describes volume, rather than the weight of coffee it holds. Neither piece replaces the scale.
Change one thing in tomorrow's brew
Write down the coffee weight, water quantity and grinder setting for a brew you enjoy. If the next one disappoints, you have a starting point. Changing the beans, grind and ratio at the same time makes it difficult to learn which adjustment helped.
Follow the brewer's instructions and your roaster's recipe for the method you use. The table above gives you a way to calculate a filter-coffee starting dose; it cannot account for every brewer or every preference.
Keep the tools within reach and the note somewhere you can see it. Our guide to setting up a small kitchen coffee station arranges the counter around that sequence, from beans to washing up.