Five Senses Coffee Blog

It’s a Clever little dripper

They’ve taken a while to arrive but now they are here. The Clever Coffee Dripper is one of the most recent progressions in making brewed coffee an even more practical an offering to customers than ever before.

I’ve been watching the so called “Black Coffee revolution” with interest over the last couple of years.

Until the end of 2007 there was an intense focus on espresso coffee. This manifested itself in things like the progression of espresso machine technology relating to controlling brew temp etc and also the increasing popularity of the Barista and Latte Art Competitions worldwide. It seems that by the end of 2007 the consumer masses had also plugged in to espresso coffee and were buying domestic espresso machines in an effort to bring their espresso experiences into their homes.

While espresso coffee remains alive and well there has been a re-emergence in the market of enthusiasts who are now looking to embrace other brew techniques as just another way to enjoy and explore coffee. These methods include a coffee made though a syphon, french press (plunger) or a drip filter device. In the last 10 years, in Australia at least, these brew methods have pretty much been forgotten or dismissed in favour of espresso. Now it seems, they are making a comeback.

I can understand why brewed coffee coffee has struggled. Let me explain. Most brewed coffee tastes its best when it is freshly roasted specifically for the brew method and then ground immediately before brewing. Back in the days when we experienced our first drip filter coffee or plunger it is highly likely that the coffee we used was some vacummed packed brick that was roasted for a generic purpose and was ground for a generic purpose. In other words – our chances of a sensational coffee experience was almost going to be zero from the outset even if the brewing technique was good.

We’ve got much cleverer now – and so have the manufacturers. There are companies that have evolved devices so that by design they are able to positively affect the potential outcome of a cup rather than destroy it (remember the jug of filter coffee that sat on the heating plate all day to stay warm).

Unfortunately many of these devices have not been that practical or have been too expensive for both the domestic consumer or the cafe operators. For example, syphon brewers are affordable for a cafe but gobble up a lot of barista time to brew a cup. They are also quite fragile therefore susceptable to breaking in a busy commercial environment. The famous Clover, another excellent brewer is too expensive for most, airpots no thermal or steeping control etc and the list goes on.

Enter the market – the Clever Coffee Dripper. This little thing ticks nearly all the boxes. It’s robust, cafes can offer customers individual/different coffees, steep time is fully controllable, it’s cheap and very easy to use and clean.

We are growing our understanding of brewed coffee through both science and sensory evaluations. We have access to the Extract Mojo, tons of good palates, exacting roasting equipment and soon the Uber Boiler to help us generate knowlege in this area of coffee. I’m sure you’ll see more posts on this subject over the next few months.