Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is the fourth in a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted. Oh, Chemex, you're gorgeous! Those curves, those exquisite lines, the alluring reflection from your gleaming, glassy surface. All that and you make fantastic coffee? Seriously.
Brewing in one of these babies is the kind of treat that's made for late Saturday mornings and idly flipping through the New Yorker ... for the cartoons. It's the Nat King Cole of coffee-brewing equipment: mellow and sophisticated, but with a sly wink. (Plus, the inventor was the kind of guy you almost wouldn't mind losing to at poker. Almost.)
In order to achieve a batch of the super clean and flavorful brew this pot can create, I like to use about 30 grams (or 5 tablespoons) of fresh ground coffee (medium-fine) for 16 ounces of just-off-the-boil water (as always, adjust to your taste). (These instructions can also be followed for other pour-over brewers, but I've got a crush on ol' Chem.)
Open your Chemex filter so that one side has three layers and the other only one. The three-thick section should go in on the spout-side. (I advocate rinsing your filter with hot water prior to use to retain the heat of the brew while vanquishing any "papery" taste.)Slowly pour just enough water to saturate and "bloom" the grounds ("blooming" is the release of gases in fresh coffee), and wait to add more water until you see some coffee dripping through the bottom of the filter. Carefully pour the rest of your water in a steady stream in the center of the grounds, pausing occasionally if the coffee level flirts with overflowing.
Once you've emptied your water into the pot, spend the next minute or so salivating over how good that coffee will taste while you wait for it to finish dripping. When the drips stop, chuck the filter and drink the heck out of that liquid gold! Unforgettable.
6-04-2009 @2:09PM susteph said... so what's the difference between this coffee making and a melita drip coffee maker (the manual kind, not the electric kind)?
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6-04-2009 @10:23PM Meister said... Hi, Susteph, a great question.
Technique-wise, there isn't much difference, as they use similar types of filters and follow similar "recipes." One difference, though, is that often Melitta-type brewers have raised ridges on the inside of the cone body that keeps the filter from sticking flush to the ceramic (or plastic) walls. The filter in a Chemex does flush against the walls of the brewer, which changes the science of the extraction a bit.
Also, the more sort of obvious difference is that the Chemex brews into its own serving vessel, whereas a Melitta or other kind of cone brewer is a little more portable and can be used atop basically any kind of caraffe—they are often designed to fit over a mug and brew individual coffees, whereas the smallest Chemex can still brew 3 cups.
Is that a longer response than you wanted? Haha, sorry!
Happy caffeinating,
Meister
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6-04-2009 @11:38PM Aizat said... Known as a pristine coffee maker, Chemex employs all of the chemically correct methods for brewing. It's hourglass shaped flask is made entirely of glass, a chemically inert material that does not absorb odors or chemical residues. The Chemex has no moving parts and will work forever, unless it is dropped or in some other way demolished. Chemex filters are made of the highest quality filter paper. All of the Chemex Classic series coffee pots come with the wooden collar and leather tie.
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6-05-2009 @6:11PM Seth M. Stevenson said... I would agree that it is a very very pretty product, and is at least as good a method as any other. A friend of mine bought one about a year ago, and would not stop bragging about the superiority of the Chemex. It seemed to me that this was more due to the perception of the marketing involved than to any appreciation of the flavors, so I gave him a blind tasting. Over three trials neither he nor any of the other 5 participants could tell the difference between the Chemex and a traditional brewer with any reliability.
Just food for thought. That said, the Chemex is pretty, and a fair price.
(Although they could all distinguish between the chemex/brewer and a french press.)
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