Yet again, thanks to Boing Boing and it’s awesome power to expose the most amazing things in the world, I’ve gained another instrument in my coffee arsenal: The Chemex brewer.
A generous gift from a friend, who had a tip from someone who watches me gaze over the Intelligentsia website with a sense of awe and desire, I received the pot, along with a couple boxes of filters a couple months ago, and it has become my exclusive brewing method ever since.
The coffee it makes is very similar to the “clean” brew that the vacuum/siphon pot makes, except it’s virtually free of any sort of bitterness or acidity. So much so, that it’s far to easy to gulp down an entire pot… and amazingly, if you let the coffee sit in the fridge, when you go back to warm up a cup, it still is free of any bitterness.
It’s almost as demanding as the vacuum pot; there’s a multi-step process of starting the “bloom” before manually pouring your hot water on the grounds, and a very careful pouring method that must be observed.
While everyone raves about the design of the pot (it is quite beautiful really, and I’m partially to the vintage “wooden collar” style), the nature of the coffee is truly sculpted by the special Chemex filters. It’s a square filter folded down into a cone shape, and is made of a specially treated paper much heavier than your usual filter.
It’s a pretty common theory amongst baristas and most hard-core lovers of the bean that any form of espresso, alongside steaming milk, is something best left to the professionals who pour thousands of cappuccinos and lattes a week. They say, don’t bother with your home machines… they might pay themselves off in a few years (if you got a decent one), but you should really stop drinking your lousy home capps and leave it to the experts.
So while I agree, it’s also interesting to note that most decent cafes won’t brew “drip” coffee, just for the fact that it’s hard to keep it from going stale in a matter of a year or so. It seems a lot easier now to get a French Press to go, or let an expert like Sam James make you a vacuum pot of coffee (which if you do it yourself, can be pretty hit-or-miss sometimes).
That’s what makes the Chemex pretty cool; this is the simple, affordable instrument that allows you to make coffee like the experts do (as long as you are grinding up your freshly roasted beans, natch). For example, when Toronto Star food writer Corey Mintz had Stumptown Coffee roaster Duane Sorenson over for a meal, he brought a Chemex with him.
So while I’m not a coffee expert by any means, it pleases me to know I’m not too far off the mark of perfection with my usual morning cup.
Want to get inspired? Check out the most high-energy coffee brewing how-to video you’ll ever see here.
Previously, my post about the siphon method.
