A recent obsession with coffee left me wondering if bad coffee is largely due to poorly designed coffee makers. For example:
Manual drip: water leeches through the grinds too quickly to extract maximum flavor; producing a week cup. Also, paper filters can impart off flavors.
Percolator: operation requires water at boiling temperature; however, boiling water extracts sour and bitter notes from coffee beans
French press: allows sufficient contact between coffee beans and water (approx. 4 minutes), ideal temperature (195-200 f), but presses grinds to the bottom of the vessel, requiring immediate consumption, or else the coffee will continue to brew into a bitter sludge.
Just wondering: Does anyone have thoughts on this? Has anyone found a better brewing method?
French Press
I have never found anything as simple, elegant or functional as the Melior. I think it works better than anything for making a good cup. The trick to avoiding the overbrewed sludge is to pour into an insulated carafe directly after brewing. I was in NYC this weekend and was introduced to a new place in the village to get excellent coffee. Link below, the French Sumatran Roast tastes as good as it smells, which is phenomenal!
http://www.portorico.com/
I agree with Olive
If you buy the proper grind.... Pooring almost boiling water on the coffee releases the proper aromatic oils. That's something you can not get in any other system...although the Napolitanean coffeemakers come very close if you use them properly. The Melior (now owned by Bodum) shape is not the best design but it brings an atmosphere to the coffee that's difficult to match.
I am the barbarian here who likes his Bunn, but...
I have a confession to make. When I want a really good cup of coffee I use the 200 degree water from my Bunn, which comes out instantaneously, and pore it in my old Melior with some Pete's French blend. There. I've dropped my guard and admitted that even a Bunn Barbarian occassionally has to have a Meliorized cup. 🙂
FWIW, I think it is important, as with tea making, to use water that has not been standing in the pipes all night. I always feel wasteful, however, running the water for 60 or 90 seconds to get it. So most mornings I just take the first draw out of the pipes and tough it. 🙁
A second thought...
I cannot explain it, but I have always really enjoyed coffee made around a camp site in the Sierra in some horribly blackened percolator over a wood fire. I deduce from this that a significant portion of my coffee experience is in any case caused by psychological factors not necessarily intrinsic to the coffee maker.
sheer bordum
Thanks for the link, Olive. I know where I'll be going on my next lunchbreak...
I've been using a Melior myself and have been happy with the results. But what makes the Melior design better than any of the other Bordum presses? Bordum's glass vessel and the filters all seemed interchangeable to me.
What would you guys think of this as a possible modification to the press design: Rather than "pressing" the grinds into the bottom of the vessel, begin somehow with the filter at the bottom, then cover it with the grinds and brew in water. After four minutes, you'd pull the filter up -- lifting out the grinds from the water and avoiding the need to pour excess coffee into a separate container for storage. Just a thought...
Dear Stockton
Of course the Bodum and Melior parts are interchangeable...they are the same and produced by the same company.
Your proposed method sounds good but it does not work unless you are very patient. The water will only run very slowly through the filter disk so you would have to raise the filter in that same speed. The following story will confirm that you are not alone in thinking that it would work. One day a was speaking to one of our very best customers, a kitchen store in western Canada, about the importance of explaining people how the Bodum coffee pot works. (I was involved in introducing Bodum's products on the Canadian market)She confirmed that she did and continued with showing me the same method as the one you are proposing. Of course it was an empty pot and it looked as if it was plausible...Knowing that she had sold hundreds of Bodum coffeepots with those instructions I always wondered how pleased the consumers were...I guess they soon found out.
When Carsten Jorgensen (Bodum's head of design) was asked by the British tea council to design a good teapot he designed a system that I first thought of as a good idea for the coffeepot. The filter is a separate cylinder that has holes in the top part but not in the bottom. When you press the plunger down you push the tea to the bottom where it is enclosed in the part without holes. But in testing coffee, I found out that the bitter taste is not something that is the result of continious exposure of the water to the coffee. Even when the coffee is taken out, the coffee will turn more bitter with time. Obviously a process of oxydation that changes the taste of the coffee. As with tea there is only one way of drinking good coffee: it should be freshly made.
Camp Coffee
DCW, funny you should say that. We have one of those ubiquitous 2-part aluminum pressure pots that we only use when camping. On a chilly morning, there ain't nuthin' bettah! As for water standing in the pipes, we use a Brita filter pitcher for coffee/tea water. it's the only reason we have one and I do think it makes a diference.
Stockton, our Bodum came with a basket that holds the grinds at the bottom of the glass cylinder. After one pushes down the plunger it snaps into this basket and we can lift out the grounds entirely. After a week of trying this we threw the basket out. Removing the grounds as Koen, says, really doesn't protect the coffee. I agree with him that it's most likely an oxidation reaction. Maybe we can find this out on coffeegeek.com. However, putting the coffee into a carafe not only keeps it hot, it takes it off the grounds and seals it off from air (oxidation potential), so it seems a good way to go.
I am actually more of a tea person, and I find that there is very little similarity in making a good cup of one versus the other. Especially when making green teas which like hot hot water for a short steeping time. But I do love my green tea lattes so I keep trying to perfect my methods.
sorry to rekindle this old post but...
Koen, you mentioned you were involved with Bodum at one point. I was just making a pot with a Bodum press and wondered why they don't put markers on the side of the glass to indicate how much hot water (one cup, two cups, etc.) has been poured into the vessel. Did that ever come up?
In order to measure the correct amount of water, I first need to pour it into my coffee mug and then into the french press. Seems a little silly and, plus, the water gets cooled down when it hits the cold mug.
Hi Stockton
Although most people would agree with Olive, I think that it is a good idea to put measurement on the glass. There is a small yes, but....boro-silicate glass is very heat-resistant but not un-sensitive to etching the surface...I know, Bodum puts their logo on it, so why not measurements...
I have to say that dcwilson's...
I have to say that dcwilson's great post here regarding percolater/camp site joe is without question one of the best reasons to visit this show.
We were forced in the office to drink the LaRue's ground pouches the vending guy hurled at us weekly until one of my heroes took a stand and said no to such pollution - we all pitched in to buy a used commercial Bunn, a cheap grinder, and various whole bean heavenly brews from around the world. Theories abound, long live the revolution.
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