Coffee Grind Size Chart

Medium-fine — like coarse sea salt, roughly 500–700 microns. If your brew runs fast and tastes sour or weak, grind finer; if it runs slow and tastes bitter, grind coarser.

Extra fine — like powdered sugar, roughly 200–400 microns. Espresso is by far the most grind-sensitive method: a tiny adjustment changes shot time by several seconds.

Coarse — like rough sugar or breadcrumbs, roughly 1000–1500 microns. Too fine a grind in a French press causes over-extraction and sediment in the cup.

Extra coarse — the coarsest setting on most home grinders, roughly 1200–1600 microns. Cold brew steeps for 12–24 hours, so a fine grind badly over-extracts and turns bitter.

Grind size controls how fast water can extract flavor from coffee. Finer grounds have more surface area and extract faster — right for quick-contact methods like espresso. Coarser grounds extract slower — right for long-contact methods like cold brew or French press. Match grind size to contact time, or you get under-extraction (sour, weak) or over-extraction (bitter, harsh).

A burr grinder, if you can. Burr grinders crush beans to a consistent particle size, which is what makes a grind chart like this one meaningful. Blade grinders chop unevenly, producing a mix of fine dust and large chunks in the same batch — that inconsistency is a bigger flavor problem than picking the "wrong" setting on a burr grinder.