Photo by Lotzman Katzman
Until I started Daily Shot Of Coffee, I only knew one way to make coffee – a drip coffee maker. Along the way and by doing research for the blog, I discovered that the drip coffee machine was just the beginning. I’ve seen some pretty wild and crazy looking contraptions in the last few months, so I thought I would share with you some of the most interesting methods that I’ve come across. The bad thing is that I want to try them all, but I don’t know if I have room in my cabinets.
Drip Method
AKA the Filter Method
The drip method is by far the most popular method of making coffee. I can’t even think of the last time I was in a house that didn’t have a drip coffee maker.
How It Works: Water is poured on to ground coffee. The water filters through the coffee grounds into a pot or mug below. For more instruction please locate the nearest coffee maker and take a look inside.
French Press
AKA the Plunger or Cafetiere
The French Press extracts the most flavor from the coffee grounds and is currently the second most popular way to make coffee at home.
How It Works: Ground coffee is added to to the bottom, then hot water is poured in and stirred. The water saturates or infuses (the cool way of saying it) with the coffee grounds for a few minutes, then the plunger is pushed down to separate out the coffee grounds.
Turkish Coffee
AKA the Arab Method
It’s probably the originally way coffee was made and produces a dark and very strong tasting coffee. It’s not for everybody.
How It Works: Coffee is ground by hand, then placed in a pot called an ibrik with sugar and water. It’s brought to a boil three times than poured into a cup.
Percolator
Before the drip coffee maker, the percolator was the most common method of producing coffee, but now you’re more likely to see it in a retro movie than anywhere else. The reason that it’s not so popular anymore? The coffee it produced was horrible. Pretty simple answer.
How It Works: Water cycles through a heated reservoir at the bottom,then through grounds above, over and over until it’s ready.
It smells good, sounds good, but the taste isn’t so good.
Espresso
Same machine is used to make cappuccinos and lattes.
Espresso machines are becoming more and more common in households across the US. I know that an espresso machine is on my wish list.
How It Works: Hot water is injected through the coffee grounds into the cup below. Some espresso machines also includes a way to steam or froth the milk.
Vacuum
It’s slow and very unusual looking proccess. Once you see one, you’ll probably never forget it.
How It Works: Near boiling water is forced into a glass chamber with coffee grounds. The mixture steeps until the heat is turned off. As it cools, the water is sucked back into the lower chamber.
Cold Water Method
This is the method for those who don’t mind waiting a really long time for their coffee.
How It Works: Ground coffee is mixed in large container with water. Then it’s left at room temperature for 10 to 12 hours. Afterward the grounds are strained out, then the remaining extract is added to a cup with hot water.
Neapolitan Flip
AKA the reversible drip pot.
It looks like two coffee pots on top of each other.
How It Works: In between the two chambers, is ground coffee. The lower chamber is filled with water and brought to a boil. Then it’s removed from the stove and flipped over. The water drips through the grinds into the serving pot.
Instant Coffee
It might be the easiest type of coffee to make, just add water, but the taste is often lost in the process.
How It’s Made: Water is removed from the coffee grounds by heating or freezing it. That produces a powder that you can buy at the grocery store.
Single Serve Coffee Machines
Really don’t know how to explain this other than the obvious: a coffee maker that will make a cup of coffee. They use those k-cups, pods, discs and other futuristic sounding things. It’s another thing that’s on my wish list, especially for the first thing in the morning when I really need caffeine.
Photos from Amazon.
{ 6 comments }
Interesting. I’ve tried coffee from four of those methods… I need to get myself a French Press–the coffee is so good. An espresso machine however, is a bit out of my price range. I’ve had coffee from one of those Keurig machines a couple times, but not enough to really judge it…. do any coffee connoisseurs out there care to give it a good judgment compared to other methods? Seems really convenient, but is some flavor lost in the process? What about available coffee varieties?
I saw a few moderately priced espresso machines, however who knows what the quality is like. I’d like to review some at some point. Same thing with a Keurig machine, I’m really curious what they taste like versus more traditional methods.
I’ve wanted a vacuum for some time — very cool looking. Nice novel way to make coffee for company on occasion. It seems I saw a video about Kopi Luwak that insisted that was THE way to extract the flavor from the beans most perfectly.
I like my coffee strong, and most single-serve coffee cups (disks or whatever) are made according to the way most Americans like their coffee – a lot lighter than I like mine. For the most part, though, they make decent coffee if you don’t like your coffee strong enough to dissolve your coffee spoon like I do.
Allen – A vacuum is something I want to try, or at least see it in use.
Chameleon – By decent cup, you mean they’re drinkable? or they’re acceptable for every day drinking?
Actually, the Presto Percolator you have pictured is one of the better ones on the market, attest to it by reading the near-perfect reviews. That rarely happens in response to any type of electric coffeemaker, let alone a drip coffeemaker.
I own the aforementioned Presto, my first. Perhaps I am fortunate to have no preconceived bias about terrible coffee in my youth (before I even DRANK coffee I suppose any of it would have been a turnoff). I am pleased to report that my Presto percs at 195°F. In the same way the drip coffeemaker manufacturers can put a heating element that is supposed to reach a certain temperature, the percolators of today have a thermostat that can limit the boiling potential. There are duds on the market, but the Presto isn’t one of them. The company has been making this for decades and it has only gotten better. Progress hasn’t left the electric percolator in the dust, but a lot of outmoded notions and recollections from people who learned what they did from a friend or from their parent’s nasty canned robusta coffee beans probably contributes to the longstanding aversion some have toward the percolator. Is it superior? Absolutely not. It’s just a different set of tradeoffs relative to the other electric alternative, the more popular automatic drip coffeemakers.
The first problem with automatic drip coffeemakers is that their manufactures haven’t made an attempt to remove the phthalates and BPA that are known endocrine disruptors. This made headlines with respect to baby bottles but it’s in a whole lot of other plastics too. Plasticizers and heat are not a good combination. Even worse, plasticizers, heat and acidic liquid.
The second problem with the more popular electric coffee brewing method is that COOKS ILLUSTRATED points out in their 2008 coffeemaker comparison that few reach the proper 195°F-207°F brewing temps. The coffeemaker they recommended was the $230+ Technivorm. For about $70 you can buy a percolator that can do the same thing. Apparently, the Presto percolator is not unique in its ability NOT to boil coffee. I just saw a major department store ad for a Faberware percolator that advertised a temperature under boiling. Generally, you can’t get anybody who sells a coffeemaker to specify what temp it brews at. You just have to hope that it does what it is supposed to do. And if the editors from COOKS ILLUSTRATED are to be believed, that doesn’t happen on most drip coffeemakers until late in the brewing cycle, something that might not happen at all if you brew partial pots.
It’s time that people who love talking about coffee, and particularly those who claim expertise, get with the times. I’m tired of the same old complaints from the 1950s, back when there were fewer local coffee roasters, fresh whole beans and far more robusta in common use, setting the tone for the 21st Century. Don’t comment on a product you haven’t used. I’ve tested the temp in mine. That’s why I can speak from experience rather than the hearsay that prevails for “knowledge” on the Internet. Somebody’s gotta start setting the record straight, and it might as well start here.
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