Making good coffee at home isn’t difficult, complicated, or expensive – but it does require that you have the right equipment. This is pretty easy to get a hold of (personally, I’ve ordered everything I use online).
If you want to make good coffee you need to look into using the pour over method. It has been around for a very long time, but only in the last twelve to eighteen months has it really caught on is mass numbers. It’s becoming more and more popular, and upscale restaurants as well as the very best cafes and coffee shops are beginning to engage in it and show their customers what pour over coffee makers are capable of.
But if you don’t know anything about pour over coffee it can be difficult to know which one is best for you.
The Chemex Pour Over Device
We recently ordered a 6 cup Chemex for our kitchen and de facto coffee lab. Even the box the hand blown glass carafe came in was elegant in its design. The Chemex itself looked incredible. Any time someone new enters my kitchen they ask, “hey, what’s that?”.
It’s a Chemex. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, it makes the best coffee you have ever tasted. Even non coffee drinkers want a second cup. More often then not they drink it black, because the Chemex (which was designed by a chemist for this exact purpose) will not make bitter coffee. It just won’t. It is designed so you can brew an especially strong and thorough extraction using whatever roast of coffee beans you desire without pulling any weak flavor notes or flatness.
Even for people who are new to brewing high quality coffee at home, it is very easy to learn how to use the Chemex and make phenomenal java.
Ease of Use
The first time that I used the Chemex the coffee came out fine – I used a little less coffee than I should have for the brewing, so I wished that it had been stronger – but the extraction itself, the oils and nuances and flavor notes of the bean were all very present in the cup that I was drinking. I believe it was Intelligentsia House Blend (a very popular medium roast coffee) that I used to brew, because I typically opt for Intelligentsia as a control when trying out new equipment.
The second time I used the Chemex I brewed the perfect cup of coffee. When I say perfect, I don’t mean it was good and I drank it, I mean I wish that coffee shops I frequented could serve me coffee of this magnitude. Everything about the extraction was precise, it was like I wasn’t even drinking coffee but instead a nutty, full bodied ‘beverage’ that had hints of rose and cherry. Everything Intelligentsia described on the package was true – I just hadn’t been brewing their beans to their maximum potential.
Inexpensive, Simple, Worth the Investment
The Chemex won’t cost you a fortune. And you’ll be brewing the bast coffee you have ever had. I have written several reviews and documented my personal exploits with the device at my blog, www.vvlgar.com.