Grind your fair-trade coffee medium-fine to medium for pour-over, about the texture of coarse sand or kosher salt. The fair-trade label does not change your grind at all, because that certification covers how the beans were sourced and priced, not how they behave in a burr grinder.
What actually decides your setting is the roast level, the bean density, and the shape of your dripper. Start at medium-fine for a V60, medium for a Kalita Wave, and medium to medium-coarse for a Chemex.
The Short Answer: Medium-Fine, Adjusted by Taste
Pour-over sits in the middle of the grind spectrum: finer than French press, coarser than espresso. Perfect Daily Grind describes the standard pour-over setting as medium-fine, and recommends dialing in by extraction time and taste rather than locking in one fixed number.
Baratza’s grind size settings guidance places pour-over in the same drip/pour-over range, and notes that grind size should be adjusted to match brew time and flavor. Fellow’s coffee grind size chart agrees, placing pour-over clearly in the mid-range between French press and espresso.
A burr grinder is the tool for this job. A quality hand grinder or entry electric burr grinder like the Baratza Encore ESP gives you the consistent particle distribution that blade chopping cannot.
Why Fair-Trade Certification Does Not Change the Grind
Fair-trade certification is a sourcing standard. It guarantees farmers a minimum price and supports community investment in the supply chain.
It tells you nothing about density, moisture, roast color, or cell structure, which are the bean traits that actually affect grinding. Most fair-trade certified coffees are 100% Arabica, often single-origin and specialty grade, and those beans brew like any other Arabica of the same roast level.
So grind your fair-trade beans exactly as you would any specialty coffee: by roast and dripper, not by label. This is the common mistake worth heading off early, because expecting a “fair-trade grind” can send you hunting for a setting that does not exist.
Grind Settings by Roast and Dripper
Roast level is your biggest variable. Light roasts are denser and extract more slowly, so they benefit from a slightly finer grind to open up more surface area.
Dark roasts are more porous and dissolve faster, so running them a touch coarser helps prevent bitterness and astringency. James Hoffmann, 2007 World Barista Champion and author of The World Atlas of Coffee, recommends a medium grind with the look and feel of kosher salt for a standard single-cup pour-over.
Dripper geometry matters too. In conical brewers like the Hario V60, water channels down a narrow center path, so a medium-fine grind gives enough contact time.
Flat-bottom brewers like the Kalita Wave drain through a wider, more uniform bed, so a medium to medium-coarse setting works better and reduces the risk of clogging. Use the table below to choose your starting setting for your own setup.
Use the table below to pick a starting grind setting for your dripper and roast, then fine-tune from there.
| Brewer | Starting Grind | Texture Match | Brew Ratio | Target Drawdown |
| Hario V60 (conical) | Medium-fine | Regular sand | 1:15 to 1:17 | About 2:30 to 4:00 total |
| Kalita Wave (flat-bottom) | Medium | Coarse sand | 1:15 to 1:17 | About 2:30 to 4:00 total |
| Chemex (thick filter) | Medium to medium-coarse | Kosher salt | 1:15 to 1:17 | About 2:30 to 4:00 total |
| Light roast, any dripper | One step finer | Finer than table salt | 1:15 to 1:16 | Slower, toward 4:00 |
| Dark roast, any dripper | One step coarser | Kosher salt to sea salt | 1:16 to 1:17 | Faster, toward 2:30 |
A scale makes these ratios repeatable, since a tablespoon of grounds changes weight with roast and density. A pocket-sized gram scale like the 0.1g coffee brewing scale removes that guesswork entirely.
Troubleshooting: Sour or Bitter?
Taste is your feedback loop. Sour, thin, or weak coffee that finished brewing too fast usually points to under-extraction, and the fix is a finer grind.
Bitter, dry, or astringent coffee with a slow, muddy drawdown usually points to over-extraction, and the fix is a coarser grind. Barista Hustle, the education platform founded by Matt Perger, describes this sensory mapping directly: dry, bitter, hollow cups often trace back to an excessively fine grind, and small coarser adjustments correct it.
Change only one thing at a time. Brew once, taste, and note the total time before you touch the dial again.
Some sourness in a bright fair-trade single-origin is also just the coffee, usually from a washed process and a light roast. Keep your fair-trade beans fresh for pour-over and compare across a few settings before blaming origin acidity.
Water Temperature and Brew Ratio
Grind does not work alone. Water temperature changes how fast flavor dissolves, so it interacts directly with particle size: hotter water extracts faster, cooler water extract more slowly.
A common working range for pour-over is 92 to 96°C (198 to 205°F). If your cup runs sharp and sour even after grinding finer, dropping temperature a little can help, and if it tastes flat and papery, a slightly hotter brew can pick it up.
Brew ratio holds everything else steady while you adjust. A starting dose of 15 grams of coffee to 250 grams of water (about 1:16.7) sits inside the standard 1:15 to 1:17 window and keeps comparisons honest from brew to brew.
For the same reason, keep your pour pattern consistent, since an erratic pour can mimic grind problems. A gooseneck kettle like the variable temperature gooseneck kettle controls both flow and heat.
A Simple Dial-In Routine
Here is one full cycle you can run in ten minutes. It works whether your fair-trade coffee is a light Ethiopian single-origin or a dark Latin American blend.
- Set your burr grinder to a medium-fine starting point, roughly the texture of regular sand.
- Weigh 15 grams of beans and grind them fresh, right before brewing.
- Heat water to about 94°C and rinse your paper filter thoroughly.
- Bloom with about 45 grams of water for 30 to 45 seconds, then pour in slow circles to 250 grams total.
- Note the total drawdown time and taste the cooled cup.
- Adjust one small step finer if sour and fast, or coarser if bitter and slow, then repeat.
That loop, grind, time, taste, adjust, is the same method Perfect Daily Grind and Baratza both teach, compressed into one session.
Conclusion
Grind fair-trade coffee for pour-over at a medium-fine setting, roughly kosher-salt texture, and know that the certification itself changes nothing at the grinder. A 1:15 to 1:17 ratio with a 2:30 to 4:00 drawdown is your baseline window. Set your grinder, taste the result, and move one small step at a time until the cup tastes balanced.