7 ms·

Pour over Coffee Got Good

63 points by mxstbr 2y ago

jhbadger 2y ago
>Coffee – and what Americans like me mean by that is black coffee, filter coffee, drip coffee – is much more popular in the US than Europe. It became popular after the Boston Tea Party as a more patriotic alternative to the unjustly taxed tea. Sort of. What a lot of people don't realize is that coffee used to be very popular even in England. Isaac Newton was a coffee drinker. The intellectual elite of England met in coffee houses in the 1600s and 1700s. The Boston Tea Party may have led to the decline of tea in the US, but it wasn't as if coffee was some weird unknown drink to them that they had to learn to drink in the aftermath of it.
- sham1 2y ago
  Also that quote seems a bit silly anyway. Because if we look per-capita, European countries beat the US in terms of coffee consumption. Of course, in absolute amounts, the US will have more consumption than most, but then again, with a population of 300 million people, it'd be more surprising if the absolute numbers weren't in the Americans' favour. OTOH, for per capita consumption, it has tended to flip between The Netherlands and Finland, wherein for example here[0] it's said that the Dutch drank 8.3 kilograms of coffee per capita in 2020, while Finns drank 7.8 kilos per capita. For comparison, the Americans used 3.5 kilos. Of course, TFA could have also meant that drip coffee is more popular across the Atlantic than here, but even that I do find hard to believe. Besides, if that's the case, then this point was expressed in an odd manner, frankly. --- [0]: <https://www.statista.com/chart/8602/top-coffee-drinking-nations/ https://www.statista.com/chart/8602/top-coffee-drinking-nati...>
  - memkit 2y ago
    I was similarly confused and finally decided that the commenter could have also been referring to the unsubstantiated fact that Americans drink more black/drip/pour over than Europeans, who mostly drink espresso-derived variants. I say "unsubstantiated" because a cursory web search didn't turn anything up. Anecdotally, it seems true.
    - dagw 2y ago
      mostly drink espresso-derived variants. I'd say in general there is a very clear north/south divide in Europe when it comes to coffee. Northern Europe drinks more filter coffee and souther Europe drinks mostly espresso. Of course over the past couple of decades a lot of 'foreign' influences has greatly changed how Northern Europeans drink coffee (much like in the US)
matrix87 2y ago
My problem with coffee hobbyism is it's just people constantly trying to upsell each other more expensive gear. I'm not sure why $400 for just a grinder makes sense to some people, people can get computers and phones for that money And there's this general attitude of snobbishness, like you have to spend at least 600 on gear to have a "real espresso". Pretty much r/coffee in a nutshell (r/espresso even worse). And in typical reddit fashion, calling them out on their bullshit isn't allowed And I don't have a problem with spending more to get nicer stuff, it's just if there's no objective measure of how it's "nicer" (e.g. pixel density on a monitor), then it raises my bullshit meter and makes me wonder if there's some shilling going on
- cainxinth 2y ago
  That happens in every hobby. There was just a thread on Reddit about cheeky names for people who spend too much on gear. Apparently, mountain bikers call them 007s: 0 skills, 0 style, $7,000 bike.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - belval 2y ago
    I think for coffee in particular the GP is missing that a lot of people are buying lattes every other day for 5$+. In a year that's +900$ which is definitely enough to get excellent gear. My mignon grinder and rancilio silvia set me back 1000$, but I have been using them daily for 4 years to make lattes for my partner and I. That's over 2920 lattes at an average of 0.34$ each!
    - Angostura 2y ago
      Sure, a bought latte every day is expensive. That doesn’t mean you have to chase the expense with your own spending
    - Kirby64 2y ago
      Are you ignoring the cost of coffee and milk? Even modestly priced coffee ($14/12oz) ends with each shot being roughly $0.75 in just ground coffee. No idea what milk costs for you since pricing can be so variable, but in actual raw components you can quickly get above $1 purely in cost of goods. Even easier if you're drinking expensive or special stuff. Expensive coffee truly can have raw material cost exceeding $4/cup, although it would be unusual to use that in a latte.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Hadn’t heard of the clover. Over $10k for 1 cup at a time. Nice
- ccwu9999 2y ago
  The clover was a magical device. Andy Rubin, of Android/Danger fame, was a huge coffee aficionado and would have all sorts of coffee machinery in the Android offices at Google. When we were in a partnership with the team, when we had to meet if I could help it, it would be at the Android offices just so I could get a cup of clover brewed coffeee. The most satisfying part of the ritual was after the coffee was brewed, the piston would push up the spent grounds to the top of the clover and you would use a rake shaped squeegee to clean the grounds from machine in a motion that resembled tending a zen garden. Aeropress is a rough approximation of the richness of the resulting brew. But it was a delightful machine. Shame Starbucks could not make it more ubiquitous. Bulk filter coffee is just faster. On an unrelated note, I am surprised the author didn’t mention Philz which is pourover using Mr. Coffee style filters. The volume Of coffee used for a cup a Philz is epic.
p00dles 2y ago
This is such a well-written and informative article. Wow.
shaggie76 2y ago
The inventor of the Aeropress believed that over the last century there was a trend towards shorter and shorter brews and that if you left the beans in water for too long it extracted unpleasant sour flavours. I know it's a matter of taste but I'm inclined to agree: I'd rather a faster brew with an Aeropress or an espresso-Americano than a pour-over. Again, it's a matter of taste, but I was an espresso bar a few weeks ago and had the worst coffee I've had in many years because I decided to wait for pour-over (and they roasted the beans in-house so I assume they were fresh!) FWIW I had Clover coffee once and I hated it too; maybe I just have bad taste in coffee.
westcort 2y ago
Great article. I wonder if anyone has experimented with ultrasonic vibrations to extract more or different flavors from beans, as this technique has been used to extract the flavors of barrel-aged whiskeys in a short period of time, rather than through an aging process [0]. 0. Science 2.0. The Acceleration of Spirits Aging Using Ultrasound. https://www.science20.com/scott_beers/the_acceleration_of_spirits_aging_using_ultrasound-242874 https://www.science20.com/scott_beers/the_acceleration_of_sp.... Published May 31, 2018. Accessed September 6, 2024.
melody_calling 2y ago
Great read! I love a pour over, but it's always "...but only if you have time" because I know how much of a pain they are for the staff. I wonder if the Starbucks story was one of those situations where the CEO had a pet project but the rest of the company silently conspired to kill it? I feel like I'd be the exact target market for this, yet I've never heard of either Clover nor Starbucks Reserve before.

63 points by mxstbr 2y ago

>Coffee – and what Americans like me mean by that is black coffee, filter coffee, drip coffee – is much more popular in the US than Europe. It became popular after the Boston Tea Party as a more patriotic alternative to the unjustly taxed tea. Sort of. What a lot of people don't realize is that coffee used to be very popular even in England. Isaac Newton was a coffee drinker. The intellectual elite of England met in coffee houses in the 1600s and 1700s. The Boston Tea Party may have led to the decline of tea in the US, but it wasn't as if coffee was some weird unknown drink to them that they had to learn to drink in the aftermath of it.

sham1 2y ago
Also that quote seems a bit silly anyway. Because if we look per-capita, European countries beat the US in terms of coffee consumption. Of course, in absolute amounts, the US will have more consumption than most, but then again, with a population of 300 million people, it'd be more surprising if the absolute numbers weren't in the Americans' favour. OTOH, for per capita consumption, it has tended to flip between The Netherlands and Finland, wherein for example here[0] it's said that the Dutch drank 8.3 kilograms of coffee per capita in 2020, while Finns drank 7.8 kilos per capita. For comparison, the Americans used 3.5 kilos. Of course, TFA could have also meant that drip coffee is more popular across the Atlantic than here, but even that I do find hard to believe. Besides, if that's the case, then this point was expressed in an odd manner, frankly. --- [0]: <https://www.statista.com/chart/8602/top-coffee-drinking-nations/ https://www.statista.com/chart/8602/top-coffee-drinking-nati...>
- memkit 2y ago
  I was similarly confused and finally decided that the commenter could have also been referring to the unsubstantiated fact that Americans drink more black/drip/pour over than Europeans, who mostly drink espresso-derived variants. I say "unsubstantiated" because a cursory web search didn't turn anything up. Anecdotally, it seems true.
  - dagw 2y ago
    mostly drink espresso-derived variants. I'd say in general there is a very clear north/south divide in Europe when it comes to coffee. Northern Europe drinks more filter coffee and souther Europe drinks mostly espresso. Of course over the past couple of decades a lot of 'foreign' influences has greatly changed how Northern Europeans drink coffee (much like in the US)

matrix87 2y ago

My problem with coffee hobbyism is it's just people constantly trying to upsell each other more expensive gear. I'm not sure why $400 for just a grinder makes sense to some people, people can get computers and phones for that money And there's this general attitude of snobbishness, like you have to spend at least 600 on gear to have a "real espresso". Pretty much r/coffee in a nutshell (r/espresso even worse). And in typical reddit fashion, calling them out on their bullshit isn't allowed And I don't have a problem with spending more to get nicer stuff, it's just if there's no objective measure of how it's "nicer" (e.g. pixel density on a monitor), then it raises my bullshit meter and makes me wonder if there's some shilling going on

cainxinth 2y ago
That happens in every hobby. There was just a thread on Reddit about cheeky names for people who spend too much on gear. Apparently, mountain bikers call them 007s: 0 skills, 0 style, $7,000 bike.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- belval 2y ago
  I think for coffee in particular the GP is missing that a lot of people are buying lattes every other day for 5$+. In a year that's +900$ which is definitely enough to get excellent gear. My mignon grinder and rancilio silvia set me back 1000$, but I have been using them daily for 4 years to make lattes for my partner and I. That's over 2920 lattes at an average of 0.34$ each!
  - Angostura 2y ago
    Sure, a bought latte every day is expensive. That doesn’t mean you have to chase the expense with your own spending
  - Kirby64 2y ago
    Are you ignoring the cost of coffee and milk? Even modestly priced coffee ($14/12oz) ends with each shot being roughly $0.75 in just ground coffee. No idea what milk costs for you since pricing can be so variable, but in actual raw components you can quickly get above $1 purely in cost of goods. Even easier if you're drinking expensive or special stuff. Expensive coffee truly can have raw material cost exceeding $4/cup, although it would be unusual to use that in a latte.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

Hadn’t heard of the clover. Over $10k for 1 cup at a time. Nice

ccwu9999 2y ago
The clover was a magical device. Andy Rubin, of Android/Danger fame, was a huge coffee aficionado and would have all sorts of coffee machinery in the Android offices at Google. When we were in a partnership with the team, when we had to meet if I could help it, it would be at the Android offices just so I could get a cup of clover brewed coffeee. The most satisfying part of the ritual was after the coffee was brewed, the piston would push up the spent grounds to the top of the clover and you would use a rake shaped squeegee to clean the grounds from machine in a motion that resembled tending a zen garden. Aeropress is a rough approximation of the richness of the resulting brew. But it was a delightful machine. Shame Starbucks could not make it more ubiquitous. Bulk filter coffee is just faster. On an unrelated note, I am surprised the author didn’t mention Philz which is pourover using Mr. Coffee style filters. The volume Of coffee used for a cup a Philz is epic.

p00dles 2y ago

This is such a well-written and informative article. Wow.

shaggie76 2y ago

The inventor of the Aeropress believed that over the last century there was a trend towards shorter and shorter brews and that if you left the beans in water for too long it extracted unpleasant sour flavours. I know it's a matter of taste but I'm inclined to agree: I'd rather a faster brew with an Aeropress or an espresso-Americano than a pour-over. Again, it's a matter of taste, but I was an espresso bar a few weeks ago and had the worst coffee I've had in many years because I decided to wait for pour-over (and they roasted the beans in-house so I assume they were fresh!) FWIW I had Clover coffee once and I hated it too; maybe I just have bad taste in coffee.

westcort 2y ago

Great article. I wonder if anyone has experimented with ultrasonic vibrations to extract more or different flavors from beans, as this technique has been used to extract the flavors of barrel-aged whiskeys in a short period of time, rather than through an aging process [0]. 0. Science 2.0. The Acceleration of Spirits Aging Using Ultrasound. https://www.science20.com/scott_beers/the_acceleration_of_spirits_aging_using_ultrasound-242874 https://www.science20.com/scott_beers/the_acceleration_of_sp.... Published May 31, 2018. Accessed September 6, 2024.

melody_calling 2y ago

Great read! I love a pour over, but it's always "...but only if you have time" because I know how much of a pain they are for the staff. I wonder if the Starbucks story was one of those situations where the CEO had a pet project but the rest of the company silently conspired to kill it? I feel like I'd be the exact target market for this, yet I've never heard of either Clover nor Starbucks Reserve before.