One “medium grind” setting does not fit every bag of Costa Rican coffee. The right pour-over grind depends on how the beans were processed, and it lands between medium-fine and medium.
For a washed Costa Rican coffee, that means roughly 600 to 750 microns, about the texture of coarse table salt. Honey and natural processed lots from the same country need a slightly coarser setting to stay clean and sweet.
Costa Rica grows Strictly Hard Bean (SHB) coffee at high elevations, and those dense beans respond differently to your burr grinder than softer, lower-grown beans do. Getting the setting right protects the bright citrus and floral notes these coffees are known for.
Why Processing Changes the Grind Setting
Strictly Hard Bean is a density grade for Costa Rican coffees grown at high altitudes, often above about 1,200 meters. Cafe Imports, a leading specialty green coffee importer, notes that these elevations produce the hard, dense cell structure behind the country’s clean, complex cups.
That density matters at the grinder. According to Barista Hustle’s research on grind size and surface area, dense high-elevation coffees like SHB Costa Ricans shatter differently and produce a higher share of fine fragments when ground.
For percolation brewing like a pour-over, Barista Hustle found that an average particle size around 600 to 750 microns gives dense coffees enough contact time without those fines clogging the filter paper.
Processing creates a second variable. Honey processing, which was popularized extensively in Costa Rica, leaves some of the sticky fruit mucilage on the bean during drying. Cafe Imports reports that honey lots retain residual sugars that make them more soluble, so they behave differently in the brewer than fully washed lots.
Their technical briefing recommends slightly coarser grind profiles for these processed coffees to prevent over-extraction. In practice, that means black honey and natural lots sit at the coarse end of your pour-over range, while washed lots sit at the fine end.
Your Starting Grind by Processing Method
A “medium” grind is a vague target because every grinder and every dripper reads it differently. Anchor the setting to a physical reference instead: coarse table salt, close to sandbox sand.
Dripper shape shifts the baseline too. A conical Hario V60 does best at medium-fine to medium, a flat-bottom Kalita Wave at medium, and a thick-filter Chemex at medium-coarse.
Use the table below to pick your starting grind based on how your Costa Rican coffee was processed, then plan to fine-tune by taste.
| Processing Method | Starting Grind | Texture Reference | Target Drawdown (starting point) |
| Washed / SHB | Medium-fine | Coarse table salt | About 2:45 to 3:15 |
| Yellow or Red Honey | Medium | Sand-like | About 2:30 to 3:00 |
| Black Honey or Natural | Medium to medium-coarse | Between sand and sea salt | About 2:30 to 3:00 |
A common baseline recipe for a single cup uses 15 grams of coffee and 250 grams of water. Weighing both on a gram scale keeps things repeatable while you adjust the grind.
Exact Grinder Settings to Begin With
Click numbers translate the texture talk into something you can set today. Fellow’s pour-over dial-in guide recommends a medium-fine setting for high-density Central American coffees on conical pour-overs.
- Comandante C40 MK3/MK4: about 18 to 22 clicks
- Fellow Ode Gen 2 with stock burrs: about 4.1 to 5.2 on the dial
- General hand grinders: Fellow’s guide cites roughly 18 to 22 clicks as the standard pour-over band
If you use a Baratza Encore, a Timemore, or another burr grinder not listed above, start in the middle of your grinder’s filter-coffee range. Confirm with a test brew rather than chasing someone else’s exact number.
How to Dial In by Taste and Drawdown
Your taste buds and the clock tell you everything the numbers cannot. A fast drawdown paired with sour, thin, hollow coffee can indicate under-extraction, and the fix is grinding one or two steps finer.
Bitter, drying, muddled flavors with a stalled drawdown can indicate over-extraction. According to Fellow, if total drawdown exceeds 3:30 and the cup shows a dry, chalky aftertaste, coarsen by one or two steps.
Roast level refines the picture further. As a general practice, light roasts extract slowly and often reward a slightly finer setting, while medium-dark roasts lean slightly coarser.
Here is a subtlety most guides miss: if two Costa Rican lots behave differently at the exact same setting, the processing method is usually the reason, not your technique. A washed Tarrazú and a black honey coffee can sit side by side on the shelf yet need settings one or two steps apart, because the extra soluble sugars in the honey lot extract faster from the same particle size.
All of this adjusting serves one goal, an extraction yield in the Specialty Coffee Association’s widely referenced 18 to 22 percent ideal range. Grind size is the main lever you control to get there on a pour-over.
These adjustments also assume reasonably fresh coffee, since stale beans skew every diagnosis. Check how fresh Costa Rican coffee should be for pour-over before blaming your grinder.
When You Brew Other Methods With the Same Beans
Pour-over is sensitive to fines in a way other brewers are not, so this setting does not transfer. Espresso needs a dramatically finer grind than anything in this guide, and you can find the right target in grinding Costa Rican coffee for espresso.
An AeroPress tolerates Costa Rican brightness nicely at its own coarser setting, covered in the AeroPress grind guide for these beans. If you are still choosing which bag to buy, see which Costa Rican coffee works best for pour-over first.
The Bottom Line
Start your washed Costa Rican coffee at a medium-fine grind around 600 to 750 microns, or roughly 18 to 22 clicks on a Comandante. Move coarser for honey and natural lots, then adjust one step at a time by taste. Your next action is simple: run one test brew, time the drawdown, and let the cup tell you which way to turn the dial.