Thanks!

I, along with most I would assume, would Much rather have a homely tasty coffee – rather than beautiful rubbish. That being said, of course I would prefer tasty AND beautiful coffee.

One of the advantages of siphon brewing, besides the tasty coffee it can make, to me; It helps engage the customers at a greater percentage rate than other methods. This makes for less work for the barista. Anything that will help to capture attention, to get them to ask questions, makes all of our lives easier; Allowing more customers to experience amazing coffee. Then you tell them that excellence can be obtained from a simple pour-over method as well? Attainable excellence!

If you were to brew a siphon in the back room, would some of the appeal be lost? I think so. It parallels with coffee as being culinary. You would expect great presentation from a high-end restaurant would you not? You would also expect excellent food. Taste and presentation are inexorably married to each other – probably even more so for those at the top.

Of course there are always those who fetishize anything that is ‘in the moment’. Some you may be able to talk sense into, some not. Some will use only coffees they feel taste the best via this method, some will care not.

All that being said: Siphon Domes are rubbish :)

That said, I can remember reading with a fair amount of glee the resurgence of the method with folks like the Barismo people talking about it as the next great thing, and coffeed people talking up the method. I used to bug Vince about getting siphons into Artigiano back in the day… and Alistair at Elysian, and Jeff at Zoka… and probably a few others (I remember talking up restaurateurs about doing a vacpot service in their restaurants, back when I was a helluva lot more naive about the realities of restaurant service staff). I hoped and wished for the day I could walk into a quality-driven cafe and get a vacpot brew.

I mention all of this because yeah totally, siphon coffee is the “next big thing” and what the cool kids are pursuing right now. Intelly’s got their slow bar. 49th’s got their hario stations. I half expected 15th Ave Coffee and Tea to set up a multi-siphon station next to their Clovers… er Starbucks Gourmet Extraction Units. Gotta say I love the fact that this is the trendy thing to do today – wishes can come true lol :)

I really, really hope that siphon stays around and is not a flash in the pan… because for me at least, I’ve gotten more satisfying cups off a siphon than any other non-espresso brewing method in the past 10 years. But, in reading siphon history (especially with regards to commercial use – widespread in the US prior to WWII) siphon coffee isn’t for the faint of heart. It is very user-involved. It’s not easy to clean or maintain. It saw commercial death for these very reasons.

This time around, the people promoting siphon coffee in commercial venues are arguably much more quality driven than the typical 1930s diner brewer running six Corys on a multi electrical burner station. The owners recognize the brewing standard the siphon is capable of, and want it. Staffing’s another issue. I’ve had some very bad siphon coffees in some of these new siphon-enabled cafes, and it is all down to operator error in most cases.

I also worry that form over function (or taste) is a concern. When Barismo (sorry to single them out – but hey, they were at the forefront of this) and others started promoting the dome and the “ritual of the stir” I starting thinking – really? Domeporn is that important? Like many I did my fair share of experimentation with stirs, with time, with when to add the coffee, yada yada, and at least in my own testing, stirs at the end, cloths wrapped about the siphon bowl, etc contributed nothing positive to the taste, and even some potential cup defects. Because of this, whenever stirs as a subject came up, I’d promote stirring at the start to saturate grounds, and leave the siphon alone after that. I remember one discussion on CG forums where someone actually said “but then you won’t have that beautiful dome of coffee!” or something like that and I was flashing back to crazy latte art discussions all over again.

All of this said, I don’t deny the fact that some folks who preach the dome stir method aren’t getting some great cups of coffee from their practiced and tried methods. The problem here is I’ve seen advice saying “you should see a nearly perfect dome, with dimples / craters as the coffee is vacuumed dry” etc etc and really, come on, that’s totally irrelevant advice with regards to how the coffee should come to be. I’ve seen domestirs that come out with loopy domes and the coffee tastes fine. Cuz the dome is loopy, should I expect something is wrong?

This is my long rambling way of saying that, at least when it comes to siphon coffee, I am firmly convinced there is no pretty aesthetic to indicate a great cup vs. a bad cup. In fact, lately I’ve come to believe that certain aesthetics could in fact be indicators of potential problems. Here’s one example: Since getting the hario halogen burner, I’ve discovered that the more gentle brewing processes throughout (kick up, saturation time, kick down all being remarkably more “gentle”, even, slow than with butane burners or cloth wicks) usually contributes to a better cup. A short time ago we did a small and very informal siphon test in the Lab – head to head brews, halogen burner vs butane, every other factor kept as even as possible (steep time, stirs applied, filters used, volume of water, grind fineness, etc). We even finessed the butane burner to be as gentle as possible, controlling the flame quite a bit after the water kicked up.

Long story short, the butane was a FAIL compared to the halogen in terms of taste. The main differences were how the brew happened – butane kicked up hot water quicker; it created more turbulence in the top portion; it somehow contributed to a more rapid kickdown, including some minor foaming in the bottom bowl.

But a rapid kickdown with some nice foamy action looks cool :)

Keep up the inspiration!