The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
5 brewing methods to help you find your perfect cup
Mia Farrow just wanted a good cup of coffee.
So like anyone in search of answers, the actor took to Twitter to crowdsource ideas on how to brew the best cup. She got a lot of answers. More than 8,000 responses, some more serious and helpful than others.
As with most subjects, Twitter is not the ideal platform to discuss coffee brewing.
To help Farrow – and, by extension, many of us – I spent one morning testing five brewing devices, all using the same coffee: a natural Guatemalan from Vigilante Coffee, an excellent roaster based in Maryland.
For each device, except for the pour-over, I relied on a recipe and method that is publicly available, so that you can refer to it at home.
AeroPress
Pros: Small, portable and speedy. You can have caffeine in your system in just a couple of minutes, which is important on busy mornings.
Cons: Produces only espresso (usually without crema unless you follow specific techniques) or a small cup of coffee. Because of its quick, pressurized process, you typically don’t extract the full range of flavors.
Method: The classic recipe on AeroPress’s site, plus about five ounces of water for an Americano.
Taste: A rather thin cup. The tropical fruit flavors of the Guatemalan natural were reduced to background notes, though there was a lovely hint of dark chocolate bitterness.
Cleanup: A breeze. Just knock the used filter and grounds in the trash or compost and rinse the three small pieces of equipment.
Stagg X pour-over dripper
Pros: Double-walled and insulated, so it can better maintain a constant temperature throughout brewing. Its compact chamber keeps the grounds tightly packed, giving you more control over brew time and extraction.
Cons: Produces only one cup, which will frequently be too hot to drink at first, a problem for those looking for a quick fix. You need custom paper filters.
Method: Basic 16:1 ratio of water to freshly ground coffee, using 204-degree water.
Taste: Bright and full-bodied, although it took several minutes for the coffee to cool to the point where I could appreciate its flavors. Tart pineapple, ripe mango, a light cinnamon sweetness in the background. The tart fruit lingered on the palate like rock candy.
Cleanup: Simple. Dump the filter and wet grounds straight into the trash or compost. Only one small piece of equipment to clean.
Chemex
Pros: The custom bonded filters. They produce a sweet and balanced cup with less bitterness and fewer oils than with other pour-over devices. You can brew a few cups at once. The brewer, designed 80 years ago by chemist Peter Schlumbohm, is a thing of beauty.
Cons: The custom bonded filters. They’re not cheap, and they can mute the more complex flavors found in single-origin beans. The glass brewer is fragile. I’ve broken one and live in fear of the next disaster.
Method: The recipe from Elemental Coffee, which uses a center-pour technique.
Taste: Fruit forward, surprisingly bright. Bitter elements were AWOL, with an almost metallic flavor as the cup cooled.
Cleanup: Easy to dump the filter and grounds, but cleaning the hourglass-shaped brewer can be a pain, requiring a long-handled brush.
Clever dripper
Pros: This cross between a French press and a pour-over dripper requires no water-pouring skills and little oversight. Gives you pinpoint control over brew time and has a convenient stopper that allows coffee to drip straight into your favorite mug.
Cons: Unless the beans are ground fairly coarsely, the coffee can be overextracted. The plastic tends to stain after repeated usage. It’s easy to forget about, leading to grounds that steep too long.
Method: The recipe from Prima Coffee.
Taste: A cup with more floral aromas than the other devices. The fruit and acidity started to pop as the coffee cooled, though I noted a strange astringent aftertaste, like wine with a lot of tannins.
Cleanup: Nothing to it. Dump the filter and grounds in the trash or compost, and rinse the device. Note: It is not dishwasher safe.
French press
Pros: Requires no filters, no water-pouring skills and little oversight. Gives you precise control over brew time. With no filter, oils remain, often making for a full-bodied and flavorful cup.
Cons: Grounds can seep in. The French press wastes a lot of water warming up the glass carafe before steeping. Depending on the size of your press, you may need more than one kettle’s worth of water. As with the Clever, it’s easy to forget about, leading to overextraction.
Method: I trusted Stumptown Coffee’s recipe for a French press, which turned out to be a mistake. The ratio of coffee to water looked off from the start. When I punched the numbers into my calculator, it turned out to be 18 parts water to 1 part coffee. I decided to prepare it a second time with a similar, two-part pouring technique, but with a 13:1 ratio.
Taste: The Stumptown recipe led to a thin and tealike cup. There was some nice, light acidity to the coffee, but I found it underwhelming. The second recipe produced a far better cup: acidic, fruity, sweet, superb on almost every count.
Cleanup: There’s no way around it: It’s messy. Used grounds collect at the bottom of the carafe, and it can be a pain to sweep those cleanly into the trash or compost. The problem is such that people have developed “hacks” to better clean it.