How many grams of coffee to use with the George Howell Kalita Wave recipe?

Question

Ever since reading this article from Prima Coffee comparing Kalita Wave recipes, I've been using the George Howell method. This recipe calls for 25-28g of coffee for 390g of water.

I find this to be fairly strong and I wonder why the recipe calls for this large amount of coffee. In the past I had done ~18g of coffee for my pour overs and thought it brewed a decent cup. I understand I'm free to change the amount per my own tastes/roast, but I want to know if there's specific reason why 25/390g seems to be the chosen ratio.

Thanks

Answer 1

The given ratio is maybe a bit unusual - many sources for pour-over irrespective of the exact brand (Chemex, Hario,...) give 1:17 or 60g per liter of water, which is 16.666. This seems to be the ballpark number for pour-over.

But is the Kalita different?
Your source calculates between 1:13.9 to 1:15.6. Interestingly, at least one source (in German, sorry) agrees with the ratio of 1:15.4 for the Kalita, yet another goes as low as 17.8.

Conclusion, sort of:
The ratio is opinion-based and a matter of taste.

Of course it’s up to you to go significantly lower - you won’t be breaking any laws - and I will freely admit that I am a total whimp when it comes to coffee strength.