Crush on Percolator!!!

Today I’m going to introduce you another appliance to make coffee- Percolator. It’s not so common comparing to Syphon because of complication, but it is an interesting tool.

Preparation:
A cooper teapot (on the right side)
A filter (the white one)
A little pot (under the filter)
A whiskey glass (in front of the cooper teapot*1)
A thermograph
A piece of filter paper
Coffee powder (*2)
Hot water

First, we have to make sure our applications are put at right place. Put the filter paper on the filter and wet it with hot water. It is an important step because hot water can wash some chemical material of the filter paper that it won’t affect the flavor of coffee. Also, it won’t be over extracted if we use the wet filter paper.

Second, put coffee powder in the filter, and remember to shake it slightly to make the powder flat. At this time, ready to add water! However, before we add water in, we have to make sure the temperature of the water. The best water to make coffee is at 85 degrees and that’s the reason why the big coffee chin store uses 85 as part of the sign name.

Third, the key point of tasty coffee is water, we add water small to large. Initially, put water in the middle of powder and make circles from inside to outside. Furthermore, make about 15 circles in the first, 10 in the second, 9 in the third, 8 in the last, but it is just an approximate number.

This is finished one and I recommend that sway it softly to make it well mixed because the upper coffer is thicker. It’s easy to make coffee by percolator but it’s hard to make it good taste because there are too many factors will affect the flavor. Anyway, I like it much more than Syphon because it is more challenge.

*1 Actually, I do not mention it in the context but we sure have to use it when we make coffee. The whiskey glass is used to let the filter put on because when the coffee is enough we can’t let it continuously extract on the little pot. As a result, we can put it on the whiskey glass. The reason why not to let it extract when we don’t add water is that the coffee flavor is not so good at that time.

*2 Today’s coffee beans: Panama Finca Lerida Washed SHB
This one has chocolate, flower, grease fragrance in dry powder. When you drink it you can taste light lemon sour, sweet tea, chocolate.

Actually, there are many different ways to use percolator. Here is another way to make coffee by percolator, if you are interesting in it you can ask me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq--Ln1NLpY

Syphon is Coming!

This is how Syphon looks like and other tools we need.

Today I’m going to introduce you a kind of coffee appliance: Syphon which is very common to make coffee and has many names in Taiwan like “賽風”or ”虹吸式咖啡機.” The first time I knew syphon and had the chance to use it was when I joined coffee club in freshman year. Actually, syphon is fascinating to me because I will get different flavors every time when I use it to make coffee and the most important is that it’s really easy to handle as long as keep an eye on the steps.

Before we begin to make our own flavor coffee, we have to prepare a syphon, a little pot, a stirrer, a heater, and wipers including wet and dry. The coffee beans I used today are Yirgacheffee from Ethiopia which has obvious light lemon sour and flower fragrance.

First, put water in lower spherical glass to tab two and boil. Here is a vital tip that before heating water, we have to make sure the spherical glass is dry; if it’s not, use the wiper to dry it or the glass will burst because of the wet surface heated.

Second, when the water boiled which will be drawn to upper glass, put coffee powder in and stir it. Initially, we have to use stirrer to mix water and coffee forward and backward, and then make circles around the rim of glass. Don’t forget to draw a line to let coffee powder calm down which may be over extracted. Next, after doing the movements at forty seconds, one minute and ten seconds, one minute and forty seconds, we can turn off the heater. If you want to drink thicker coffer, I suggest to doing this step four or five times.

Third, use wet wiper to wipe the spherical glass to make it cool and the coffee will drop. Be careful to wipe it from the top of the lower glass to the bottom or the glass will crack because of the dramatic temperature difference.

With easy steps, we have already made our coffee. You will have surprises about the tastes every time when you use syphon. Now, what are you waiting for? Go to make your own flavor coffee!