There is hip and there is hip. The Hario V60 is definitely what the doctor ordered for the new slow coffee movement, that is brewed coffee done by hand, one cup at a time. I heard some marketing guru state the other day that the single-cup coffee market was going to be big. Really? That would have been big news a few years ago. Frankly, I’ve been using one-cup brewers for a dozen years, but I’m
Equipment Review: Sowden SoftBrew
When I first laid eyes on this brewer, visiting Oren and Nancy Bloostein, I thought it was a teapot. Elegant, it was attractive. Maybe I thought it could serve coffee, but who transfers coffee from the brewer to the server anymore? Oren insisted I take it home and try it out. All the way home all I could think about was the opportunity to try out a new technology. I’m beginning to think there
Those Little Scoops
How many of you measure coffee using a tiny scoop that came with your coffee maker? Maybe things are different around an august group of coffee aficionados, but I just returned from a weekend retreat and all I could find was a subminiature spoon. I resisted the urge to remove it from my hosts’ residence for evaluation, but I suspect it measured between 5 and 7 grams of coffee. This let me to a
Mission Coffee Can.com – Web series about coffee?
Coffee has never been successful on TV. We keep trying, but thus far, I think it’s fair to say that the beverage coffee just doesn’t translate well to the screen. Why I’m not sure, having a foot in both subjects, as a producer for much of my adult life, and a coffee lover and writer. I’ve been to all the major cable TV networks and heard the same responses when I brought them coffee concepts. The
Steep or Brew? One and the same or different?
There are many unknowns in coffee. Regardless of how scientific some of us can make it sound, most of the brewing practices are a product of tradition, not science. At best, it’s practical observation, a very good first-step in scientific inquiry, but hardly definitive. Let’s take the agitation of grounds during brewing, sometimes called turbidity. One analogy expressed is that of a clothes
Consumer Reports Coffee Brewer Survey
As part of my self-improvement goal to become a kinder gentler person, I’ll resist the urge to ask, “What were they smoking?” Like a lot of baby boomers, I have a nostalgic appreciation for Consumer Reports. They represent the hard-line leftist/socialist bent of many workers in post-World War II. They stand for uniformity, the illusion of tight product tolerances. The skinflint in me wants to
How Strong Should My Coffee Be?
Those of us who’ve ever asked a coffee professional how to brew coffee have likely gotten the following industry recipe: 6 ounces water 10 grams ground coffee 4-6 minutes contact time Water temperature: 195-205º F Extraction target: 18-22% extracted soluble solids by weight This all seems pretty clear. Except, maybe the “extraction target”. But, how many people end up really brewing using
