I am trying to understand what happen when the water is poured on coffee in conical shape filter. From this video, the water move down if the resistance is low. Some factors are really important:
pouring speed, if too fast, water moves to the side and becomes under-extracted.
coffee grounds finesse, if too fine, water can’t moves easily and becomes over-extracted.
drop areas, don’t pour near the edge in the beginning unless you want under-extraction.
coffee brewed this method is more intense than just pouring carelessly.
I learn this from my Japanese friend – Ms Sentoku, who learnt it from the original Master. She said that the most important is the first few minutes. Dripping hot water on to coffee is like intravenous infusion. Very slow and contemplating. The taste is good too.
I adapted a little bit to fit my liking, such as rinsing the filter and using a bit finer grounds.
fold the paper and rinse with just boiled water, i like to put the three layers side towards the front where the funnel is, to strengthen the paper and not let it block the air coming out via the funnel.
i tend to boil a lot more than i need and let it sit there to cool off a bit before pouring onto coffee.
grind coffee right before pouring water, this will increase intensity of the flavor.
make some hole in the center of the ground and pour small amount of hot water there. this will yield even blooming. wait for about 30 seconds.
keep pouring the water in until reaching desire amount.
what is really important in affecting the taste is: coffee to water ratio, water temperature, and timing (finess of the grounds)
I found this article while searching google. It’s pretty interesting so I paste the whole thing here.
“My grandfather didn’t like the taste of the coffee in Singapore, where it’s made by putting grounds in a cloth bag and boiling them a good long time.” Masanobu Kono, President of Kono Syphon Co., Ltd. Masanobu Kono was reminiscing about his grandfather Akira Kono, who invented the coffee syphon. While working as an assistant at Kyushu Imperial University’s College of Medicine, Akira Kono was sent to Singapore in 1919 as part of the Japanese Embassy’s medical staff. It was there he first encountered Singaporean-style coffee, whose taste he didn’t much like. This motivated him to try a coffee-brewing apparatus developed by a British engineer in the mid-19th century based on syphoning principles. It was essentially a ‘vacuum coffee maker’ made of two laboratory flasks connected with a glass tube. Totally enchanted by the design, he modified it to make it more practical by using some flasks and tubes intended for medical purposes. After the great Tokyo earthquake in 1923, he returned to Japan and became a doctor, opening his own clinic in Tokyo’s Ueno district. Still, he continued working to develop a better syphon-style coffee maker. Finally, in 1926, the first Kono-style syphon coffee maker was born out of two flasks that connected vertically. “In those days, heat-resistant glass was not available, so if you used boiling water the glass could easily break. For this reason, my grandfather heated the water using an alcohol burner, which is not so hot. The technology of his day wasn’t quite ready for his innovative design.” During World War II, metals were in short supply, which forced him to use ceramic for making syphon stands as he continued refining his design. It wasn’t until the late 1960s, after 40 years of development, that the coffee syphon experienced a tremendous boom in popularity in Japan.
In any syphon, water rises due to air pressure and falls due to its weight. In a coffee syphon, steam pressure forces the water up a tube into an upper flask where it mixes with the coffee. After it has brewed for a time, the heat is turned off creating a vacuum in the lower flask that pulls hot coffee back into it after passing through a filter. Examples of the syphon principle can be found in our daily lives in everything from flushing a toilet to turning on a faucet and the recently widely discussed techniques for syphoning up deep sea water. Syphon techniques for controlling the supply of water are also used by the construction industry. Compared to dripping coffee through paper or cloth, the coffee syphon might appear complex at first glance. But according to Mr. Kono, syphoning is the best technique for making a good-tasting cup of coffee with ease. “Brewing time is just 40-60 seconds, and it’s easier to control the heat. The best water temperature for brewing coffee is said to be around 83°C. As water starts climbing the tube of a coffee syphon, its temperature is 93°C. But since the tube is cool, by the time it reaches the upper flask it has cooled about 10°C to the optimum brewing temperature of 83°C. I don’t know if my grandfather knew about this level of detail.” Coffee brewed using this method is less bitter, and has a rounded, pleasing taste.
There are many kinds of manual drips equipment in the world. Cloth filter, metal mesh, 24k gold mesh, plastic mesh, paper filter, but in my current collection I have only a Chemex 1 pint and a Hario 3 cups. I didn’t know that pouring hot water on to coffee grounds needs to have good technique until I saw youtubes of those Japanese and Taiwanese pouring through long neck kettles, precisely wet the grounds at some specific points.
I tried it out on the Hario and find that it is pretty much different from just pouring it. Good pouring technique changes taste profile significantly. On the Chemex, it does not make so much different. I find that if I use the same dose and finess, Hario lets water through the coffee much faster. I will try grinding it finer and see how much change that will make.
At the end, the coffee is all that matters. They still taste like the same coffee. If I don’t do it side by side, I will just take anyone that is done correctly and enjoy my morning dose.
This video shows my steps to fold Chemex half-moon paper filter. I started by forming the straight line first, then diagonally move to the top.
I like to turn the 3 layers side in front where the funnel is, so it is stronger and will not collapse inside the funnel when pouring. This helps to let the air out from the bottom and speed water flow a bit.
New blog has appeared in the blogosphere. This might be one blog that is not realized by many, but I intended this to be a rant about my coffee culture in Thailand.
Thailand’s coffee culture started with “Boran Coffee” meaning “antique coffee”. We accustomed to cheap robusta roasted with grains, added sugar and butter at the end of the roast. The brew is in a filter cloth and the grounds is kept on brewing for many times. The cup is both bitter and sour, so we have to cover it with lots of sweeten condense milk.
Then Nestlé’s Red Cup is famous, along with other “high quality” instant coffee. Coffee drinking ritual at home is degraded down to a boring cup of aromaless brown drink. Thai people used to quick and easy cup of coffee just to satiate daily caffeine need. (more…)
