NYT Article: "At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee"

[jesawdy]

On the NYT site today: At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee. The aricle discusses a rather expensive "siphon bar", the Clover, and quality coffee and cafes beyond espresso. I had no idea about this notion of coffee "domes" and whirlpools in siphon brewing. Is it that involved? Read the article for more.

Here is a snippet:

Photo - Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Article By OLIVER SCHWANER-ALBRIGHT

WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company.

"If you just want equipment you're not ready," Mr. Egami said in an interview. But, he added, James Freeman, the owner of the cafe, is different: "He's invested time. He's invested interest. He is ready."

Professionals have long been willing to pay prices in the five figures for the perfect espresso machine, but the siphon bar does not make espresso. It makes brewed coffee, as does another high-end coffee maker, the $11,000 Clover, which makes one cup at a time. Together, they signal the resurgence of brewing among the most obsessive coffee enthusiasts.

Could this be the age of brewed coffee?....

[CoffeeBuzz]

Darn, just when I thought I had the urge to upgrade under control.

-dg-

[coffee_monkey]

$20K is just for the burner. You still need to buy the vacpots and accesories separately.

The $30 butane burner from EPNW does as good of a job (if not better) as the halogen unit. If you MUST have a halogen unit, a single pot version goes for around $275 in Japan (sans S/H).


- Ben

[mckolit]

What is the advantage of a halogen lamp as opposed to a gas/lamp burner or electric plate? It's still vacuum brewing right?

[cannonfodder]

Well, I think I see a fundamental problem with using halogen to heat the vac pot. Coffee is light sensitive. Wouldn't using a high intensity light to do your coffee brewing do damage to the coffee that you are brewing?

I can see the convenience behind it. You could us a timer or even a PID to regulate your water temperature verses the constant attention a gas burner would need. Electric would work just as good and just as controllable but does not have the gee-whiz factor that the light gives you.

[Nick]

Well, I think I see a fundamental problem with using halogen to heat the vac pot. Coffee is light sensitive. Wouldn't using a high intensity light to do your coffee brewing do damage to the coffee that you are brewing?

Coffee is sensitive to temperature too... but how would you brew coffee... um, without heat?

['Q']

... but how would you brew coffee... um, without heat?

With one of these of course.

[oofnik]

Well, I think I see a fundamental problem with using halogen to heat the vac pot. Coffee is light sensitive. Wouldn't using a high intensity light to do your coffee brewing do damage to the coffee that you are brewing?

I can see the convenience behind it. You could us a timer or even a PID to regulate your water temperature verses the constant attention a gas burner would need. Electric would work just as good and just as controllable but does not have the gee-whiz factor that the light gives you.

I think that it's mostly the UV end of the spectrum that we have to worry about. We keep our coffee out of sunlight because of the ultraviolet radiation, which has a tendency to destroy organic things. Halogen burners emit a negligible amount of UV radiation as far as I know, so it wouldn't really be much of a concern I don't think.

I just found this article independently and wanted to post it here, but Jeff beat me to it! Anyway, as I started reading it, my first reaction was that the thing is more eye candy than anything else, just a super fancy vac pot or something. But it started comparing it to the Clover, mentioning Terroir coffee, and the Zen of the stir.. got me thinking. I can totally feel the "Zen" when pulling my morning espresso on the lever. I'm lucky enough to have a fresh Clover brew 20 minutes away, and I wonder how this would compare.
What do you guys think, are they really on to something here or is it just eye candy?

['Q']

I just saw that Yahoo News has a video on it too.

[cannonfodder]

Coffee is sensitive to temperature too... but how would you brew coffee... um, without heat?

Nescafe!

I was just thinking of the high intensity of the light speed staling the coffee/brew. Now if we can find a way to brew whole beans in absolute dark while sitting in a vacuum with no heat, the coffee would never go bad.

[pauljolly65]

It struck me as rather over-the-top, too...but I know how much I love those times when I can get a macchiato or a Gibraltar at Blue Bottle's Hayes Valley hole-in-the-wall, and I think that a vac-pot done by them would likely be stellar. I also expect that they'll sell $20k worth of vac-pot coffee in the next month.

But for mathematic's sake, anyone want to guess what a vac-pot of R Miguel's Nectar would run you at Blue Bottle, assuming you could get it? Does $100 sound far-fetched?

Paul

[tcampbells]

Well, I think I see a fundamental problem with using halogen to heat the vac pot. Coffee is light sensitive. Wouldn't using a high intensity light to do your coffee brewing do damage to the coffee that you are brewing?

However with a siphon pot, the halogen is only used to heat the water in the bottom, not to brew the coffee directly in the top, so I don't see how this would be a problem anymore than the light from a gas burner.

However one of the useful things to it would be the lack of gas residue on the bottom of the vacuum pot, not needing to run gas lines in a coffee shop (or store gas tanks) and the clean up simplicity if something spills. Plus of course the exactness of temperature.

Here in Asia many coffee shops sell only Siphon coffee, or use espresso machines only when making "caffe Latte", so I can see the popularity, as well, a good siphon put can be bought for less than 30 dollars and under skilled hands makes an amazing cup of coffee (even those unskilled can usually do OK) but when it comes to espresso machines you take your chances when ordering coffee in a coffee shop.

[Matthew Brinski]

Well, I think I see a fundamental problem with using halogen to heat the vac pot. Coffee is light sensitive. Wouldn't using a high intensity light to do your coffee brewing do damage to the coffee that you are brewing?

I don't believe it is really a concern, although it is a good thought when trying to consider all the variables which may contribute to coffee's flavor being potentially destroyed.

Although halogen lamps are considered to release less UV light than flourescent lamps, the actual wave lengths of halogen lamps have been shown to be more mutagenic to certain bacteria than that of both flourescent and even sun light. Because of this, I would reason that coffee would then oxidize more readily under halogen lamps, but I don't think it's a big deal in the context of the halogen burners for vac pots.

- The exposure to the halogen lamps is extremely short

- There are different types of halogens (tungsten vs quartz filaments) which emit different amounts of UV light, both in quantity and quality. Who knows what the vac pot lamps are.

- There are various reflective coatings / filters in modern halogens to minimize or near eliminate UV light. Again, who knows what the characteristics of these lamps are.

I think this particular exposure to halogen light is inconsequential, and that more concerning would be something like the open storage of coffee beans under sustained flourescent light (but that is a wild ass guess and is also probably not a big deal either).

Returning to the core of the thread, I don't think that what Blue Bottle is doing is over the top any more than having a Clover. I think it's great. I don't know for sure, but it seems that gas would be more controllable for a specific temp than the halogens. Either way, I think it's about time that vac pots are showing up.

[2xlp]

did anyone else notice that they're just using standard Yama vac-pots?

[tcampbells]

Nope, those are Hario pots not Yama Vac-pots. I have the same Hario Vac pot here, TCA-3 and TCA-5
You can clearly see the word "Hario" on the pots in a few shots, and in the shot at the top of this topic the traditional white sticker with red words in japanese is on the ball bottom pot at the right (not sure why it hasn't been removed, as is the usually case)


and you can see the words HARIO on the top section of the pot when looking down at the grounds in the attached pictures (from the article)