Coffee Glossary - Bills & Beans

Glossary · Coffee

Ten terms from ratio to C-price, each with a definition, a figure a maker, the SCA or a roaster published, and the term it is usually mixed up with.

Coffee vocabulary is where a brew guide loses people: strength is not extraction, a ratio is not a dose, and a cupping score is not a price. Every entry below is anchored so a piece can link to it, and every figure is one a maker, the Specialty Coffee Association or a roaster published, kept in the brew ratios reference with its quote and read date.

A to Z

Bloom: The first small pour on fresh grounds and the pause after it, which lets trapped carbon dioxide escape before the main pour so the water can reach the coffee evenly.; Worked example Hario’s V60 instructions: “Pour twice as much hot water as the amount of coffee … and wait for 30 seconds.” For a 21 g dose that is about 42 g of water. Hario’s global page states the bloom as a multiple of the coffee weight and never as a ratio.; Commonly confused with: Pre-infusion on an espresso machine, which is the same idea under pressure, and “degassing”, which is the days-long escape of gas from whole beans after roasting.; Read next: Brew ratios: Hario V60
Brew ratio: The weight of coffee to the weight of water, written 1:16 for sixteen grams of water per gram of coffee. It is the first control of strength and the one to set before touching grind, temperature or time.; Worked example The SCA’s brewing standard is 55 g of coffee per 1.000 kg of water — 1:18.2 — while Stumptown states 1:16 for the Kalita Wave (21 g to 345 g) and 1:13 for the AeroPress (17 g to 220 g). Most maker pages state a dose and a water weight and no ratio at all; the brew ratio calculator scales those recipes and labels the arithmetic.; Commonly confused with: Dose (the coffee side alone) and strength (what ends up in the cup, which also depends on extraction). Espresso ratios are coffee to beverage out, not coffee to water in.; Read next: Brew ratio calculator Brew ratios by method
Burr set: The pair of cutting surfaces in a burr grinder — flat discs or a cone inside a ring — that crush beans to a size set by the gap between them. A burr grinder produces a narrow band of particle sizes; a blade grinder produces dust and boulders at once.; Worked example The grind-size piece on this site puts it plainly: a blade grinder “sabotages you even at the ‘right’ setting”, because the setting controls time, not size. Onyx’s recipes assume a burr grinder that can hit a stated micron figure, such as 600 µm for the Kalita Wave.; Commonly confused with: The grind setting (the gap), and the grinder’s motor speed — a slow, large burr and a fast, small one can hit the same size with different consistency.; Read next: Grind Size Isn’t a Setting
C-price: The price of the Coffee “C” futures contract on ICE Futures U.S., the world benchmark for arabica. Green coffee is bought and sold as the C-price plus or minus a differential for origin and grade; specialty lots trade at premiums above it.; Worked example The ICE contract prices physical delivery of exchange-grade green beans from one of 20 countries of origin; one contract is 37,500 pounds, quoted in cents per pound, with a minimum price move of 5/100 of a cent — $18.75 per contract (ice.com contract specifications, read 7 September 2026).; Commonly confused with: The retail price of a bag (many steps and costs later) and robusta, which trades on a separate London contract.
Cupping score: A number a trained taster assigns to a coffee on a standardised form, historically 100 points across ten attributes. It grades the green coffee’s quality for trading, not how any particular roast or brew will taste to you.; Worked example As the importer Royal Coffee describes the system (royalcoffee.com, read 7 September 2026): the SCAA form used a 100-point scale of ten attributes worth ten points each, with anything under 70 defective, 70–79.75 commodity, and “specialty” defined as any cup score over 80. Royal also notes that in April 2025 the SCA took over the Q certificate and its Coffee Value Assessment form replaced the old 100-point form; the SCA lists SCA-102 to SCA-105 as the published CVA standards.; Commonly confused with: A bag’s tasting notes (a description, not a score) and the C-price (the market price, which a score influences but does not set).

Dose: The weight of ground coffee going into the brewer. Stated in grams by every source that states it at all; scoops and tablespoons are the reason two people following the same recipe get different cups.; Worked example AeroPress’s own guide says a level scoop holds 12–13 g and a heaping scoop 16–18 g. Stumptown’s French press recipe is 56 g (“about 8 tablespoons”) to 850 g of water; La Marzocco’s espresso example is an 18 g dose in a 17 g basket.; Commonly confused with: Yield, which is what comes out (for espresso, the beverage weight), and the brew ratio, which is dose relative to water.; Read next: Brew ratios by method
Extraction yield: The share of the dry coffee’s mass that dissolved into the water — what left the grounds. Too little tastes sour and thin; too much tastes bitter and dry. It is measured, not tasted: a refractometer reads the brew’s strength, and the yield follows from the ratio.; Worked example The SCA’s 2017 home-brewer certification document sets extraction at 18.0–22.0% of the coffee’s weight; the 2021 standard that replaced it defines percent extraction but sets no number. At 1:16 with a 20% yield, a 20 g dose gives up 4 g of solubles into 320 g of water.; Commonly confused with: Strength (TDS), which is how concentrated the cup is. A strong cup can be under-extracted and a weak one over-extracted; they are two axes, not one.; Read next: Brew ratios: the SCA brewer standards
Golden Cup standard: The SCA’s published targets for a well-brewed cup of drip coffee — a brew ratio, a strength window and a temperature range — used to certify home brewers and, by extension, as the reference point most brew guides argue with.; Worked example SCA Standard 310-2021: 55 g of coffee per 1.000 kg of water, slurry temperature reaching 90–96 °C by the time a third of the water has been sprayed, and a brew strength of 1.15–1.55%. The 2021 standard sets no numeric extraction target and no brew time; both live only in the 2017 certification document (18.0–22.0% and 4–8 minutes).; Commonly confused with: A brewer’s own recipe (Stumptown’s Chemex at 42 g to 700 g is 1:16.7, well inside the standard’s neighbourhood but not the standard), and a certification of the brewer, which is what the standard is for.; Read next: Brew ratios: the Golden Cup standard Cost-per-cup calculator
Grind size (microns): The average particle size of the ground coffee, sometimes stated in micrometres. Finer grinds extract faster and slow the water down; coarser grinds do the opposite. It is the variable most often adjusted to fix a brew, and the one most often adjusted first when the ratio was the problem.; Worked example Onyx Coffee Lab prints a micron target for every recipe: 522–770 µm across its Hario-cone recipes, 800 µm for French press, 1,050 µm for Toddy cold brew (ranges derived from the page’s per-coffee recipes). Stumptown describes the same settings by feel: “about as fine as kosher salt” for V60, “coarse like breadcrumbs” for French press.; Commonly confused with: Grind consistency, which is how tightly the particles cluster around that size — the blade-versus-burr question in the grind-size piece — and grinder setting numbers, which mean nothing across two different grinders.; Read next: Grind Size Isn’t a Setting Brew ratios by method
Total dissolved solids (TDS) / brew strength: The concentration of dissolved coffee in the cup, as a percentage by weight. It is what a refractometer reports and what “strong” means when the word is used precisely.; Worked example The SCA standard 310-2021 targets a brew strength of 1.15–1.55% at its 55 g/kg ratio; the older 2017 certification document had 1.15–1.45%. A 300 g cup at 1.3% holds about 3.9 g of dissolved coffee.; Commonly confused with: Extraction yield (how much came out of the grounds); roast level (“strong coffee” on a bag means dark roast, a flavour, not a concentration); and the TDS of your brewing water — the mineral content the SCA’s water standard targets at around 150 mg/L, which the water piece covers. Same abbreviation, different substance, different units.; Read next: Brew ratios: the Golden Cup standard Why Your Coffee Tastes Different at Home Than at the Café

The short version

Strength and extraction are two dials, and the ratio sets the first one. Every figure here is a published starting point. Change one variable at a time, weigh both sides, and use the terms the way the makers and the SCA do, so a recipe from one page means the same thing on the next.

Terms used across the guide: the Coffee Guide. Every figure on this page was read on 7 September 2026; the reference pages it cites are updated in place.

Article sources

Bills & Beans, Brew Ratios by Method: The Reference Table — every maker, SCA and roaster figure above, with quotes and read dates.
Specialty Coffee Association, SCA Standard 310-2021 (public mirror; the SCA copy is member-only) and the 2017 Certified Home Brewer program requirements; SCA, Standards (published-standards list, read 7 September 2026).
Royal Coffee, Scoring Specialty Coffee — What Do the Numbers Mean?, read 7 September 2026.
ICE Futures U.S., Coffee C® Futures contract specifications, read 7 September 2026.
Hario, AeroPress, Stumptown, Onyx and La Marzocco brew pages as cited in the reference table.