Antonio’s Coffee Journey
Finding the Right V60 Recipe for 24Terre San Gerardo Guatemala
A personal brewing note about patience, sweetness, a finer grind, and the moment this coffee finally started to make sense in the cup.
Image and coffee dossier from 24Terre. Click the image to open the official San Gerardo Guatemala page.
There are coffees that reveal themselves immediately, and others that ask for a little more patience. The 24Terre San Gerardo Guatemala was definitely part of the second category for me.
On paper, it had everything I usually find intriguing in a filter coffee: a pure origin from Guatemala, a sweet and comforting profile, and tasting notes built around pistachio and marron glacé rather than bright acidity.
But my first V60 attempts did not immediately give me that. This article is not only about a final recipe. It is about the process of getting there — a slow dialogue with the coffee until it finally started to express itself properly.
The coffee
24Terre San Gerardo Guatemala
Origin
Guatemala · San Gerardo · Amatitlán
Varieties
Typica & Bourbon
Process
Washed / careful process
Main notes
Pistachio · Marron glacé · Round sweetness
First attempt
A cup that felt too distant
My starting point was not bad in an undrinkable way, but it was clearly not what I was hoping for. The cup had a very light acidity, almost far away, with a small trace of chestnut. But there was also a woody character, and the coffee felt too open, too diluted, and not expressive enough.
The promised pistachio and marron glacé were simply not there. It felt like the coffee was speaking, but from another room.
Starting recipe
Coffee: 15 g
Water: 255 g
Temperature: 90.5°C
Grind: 100 clicks on Kingrinder K6
Bloom: 45 g at 0:00
Pour 1: up to 150 g at 0:35
Pour 2: up to 250 g at 1:00
The turning point
I stopped chasing openness and started brewing for sweetness.
The main changes were simple, but they completely changed the cup. I ground much finer, increased the water temperature slightly, moved to a shorter ratio, and replaced the two-pour structure with a single continuous pour.
No swirl. No aggressive agitation. No complicated pouring structure. Just a more focused extraction, designed to bring out body, sweetness and that gentle gourmand side I was looking for.
Final V60 recipe
The recipe that finally made the coffee work.
This recipe gave me the cup I was trying to reach from the beginning: cleaner, sweeter, fuller, and much more coherent with the coffee’s aromatic profile.
Brewer: Hario V60 glass
Filter: Classic Hario paper filter
Water: Filtered water
Coffee: 15 g
Water weight: 225 g
Temperature: 92°C
Grind: 82 clicks on Kingrinder K6
Bloom: 45 g for 30 seconds
Pour: single continuous pour up to 225 g
Agitation: none
Total brew time: around 3 minutes 10 seconds
In the cup
Clean, sweet, full-bodied, and quietly gourmand.
With the final recipe, the coffee became clean and surprisingly full-bodied for a V60. The acidity was almost gone, or at least so well integrated that it no longer felt like a separate element. Instead of that distant brightness I had in the first test, the cup became rounder, softer and much more comforting.
The aromatic profile finally started to make sense. I could clearly feel the marron glacé direction, with a chestnut-like sweetness and a gentle gourmand character. The pistachio was more delicate, not an obvious or explosive note, but it appeared in the background as the cup cooled down.
The best moment was when the coffee became warm rather than hot. At that temperature, the texture became more pleasant, the sweetness opened up, and the cup found its balance. It was still clean like a filter coffee, but with a gourmand side that made it feel more comforting than purely tea-like.
Sweetness
High
Soft, round, and finally expressive after moving to a more focused recipe.
Acidity
Very low
Almost absent in the final cup, or at least fully integrated into the sweetness.
Aromatics
Delicate
Marron glacé, chestnut sweetness, and a subtle pistachio impression in the background.
Style
Tea-like gourmand
Clean and delicate, but with enough body and sweetness to feel comforting.
What I learned
The recipe became simpler, but the cup became clearer.
This coffee taught me something important about V60: not every coffee needs to be pushed toward maximum clarity. Some coffees need concentration, sweetness and patience.
With the San Gerardo Guatemala, the turning point was not adding complexity to the recipe. It was actually simplifying it: finer grind, slightly higher temperature, shorter ratio, single pour, no agitation. The coffee finally started to taste like itself.
Final thoughts
A coffee that needed patience.
Am I convinced by this coffee in V60? Yes, quite convinced.
It is not the kind of coffee I would recommend to someone looking for a very floral, bright or explosive V60. This is not that kind of cup. But for someone who enjoys sweet, round, soft and gourmand filter coffees, it makes much more sense.
It did not reveal itself immediately. It needed patience, a slightly more focused recipe, and a V60 approach built around sweetness rather than brightness.
I probably will not buy it again immediately, simply because I want to keep discovering new coffees for now. But I would definitely come back to it later. And more than anything, this test made me curious to try other 24Terre coffees with the V60.
Antonio's Coffee Journey 
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