Dinner at Umi, the popular new Buckhead sushi bar, ended recently not with the expected cup of green tea but rather a steaming mug of coffee. The waitress brought out a pot, a ceramic cone fitted with a paper filter and a kettle with a graceful, long handle. She poured the hot water in a thin, arching stream over the coffee, swirling the spout as if she were piping frosting on a cupcake.
She was performing what some might call a "Japanese pour over," a method for brewing coffee that has started to gain popularity in Atlanta. The city's top coffee bars, such as Octane in Grant Park and the Bakery at Cakes & Ale in Decatur, offer pour-over coffee as an alternative to steamed espresso and French press beverages. And they can charge a pretty penny — often $3-$4 a cup.
The technique, long been popular in Japan, has become trendy here in the past couple of years, which means a lot of focus on gear and ritual. Umi uses equipment manufactured by the Japanese company Hario, while the new managers at Cakes & Ale (Dale Donchey and Jordan Chambers, formerly of Steady Hand Pour House) use hourglass-shaped Chemex coffeemakers. These have been around since the 1940s but are enjoying a renewed popularity with the resurgence in hand-poured drip coffee. While the two companies give rationales for why their designs brew superior coffee, they also offer competing aesthetic visions. One has the swan-neck kettle, the other the elegant glass beaker.
While today’s pour-over proselytizers codify the finer points of technique, much of it is familiar to anyone who has made drip coffee without benefit of an electric machine. I was reminded of this fact recently when I rewatched the 1986 French movie “Betty Blue.” In one scene, an older man shows an impetuous young man how to brew pour-over coffee, and his advice sounds exactly like that of a hipster barista on a YouTube video demonstration.
I started experimenting with pour-over coffee several months ago when I purchased a $22 Hario V60 coffee dripper. At the time, I was only interested in using it to brew a fresh cup in the afternoon but shared a pot of French press with my wife in the morning.
The problem: My afternoon cup of pour-over coffee always tasted different. Sometimes it was bright and interesting, sometimes harsh and thin.
So I visited with Donchey and got him to give me some pointers. I also researched the technique online and found a great tutorial in Imbibe Magazine taught by Jason Dominy, formerly of Atlanta's Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters. The trick is all in that slow, steady extraction.
Even though my pour-over coffee improved, I can’t say that it has become consistent. Two cups of coffee made from exactly the same beans will taste different, depending on how I pour the water and saturate the grounds. It’s almost like when you buy a case of wine and then notice how the wine expresses itself differently at different temperatures and level of aeration.
Sometimes I still prefer the French press for its oiliness and (to use another wine analogy) mid-palate flavors. French press coffee tastes more roasted and rounder, coffee as comfort. Pour-over coffee really lets you taste the beans.
Here are some tips for a fine pour over, with thanks to Dale Donchey and Jason Dominy:
- Use a burr grinder; it makes a huge difference. Grind the coffee on the fine side of medium. Coffee gurus recommend using 22 grams of coffee per cup. I eyeball it.
- Set the coffee dripper and paper filter over a cup or pot.
- Use filtered water if you can. Take it off just before it boils and pour enough through the empty filter to rinse it. This removes any papery flavor and warms the cup. Remember to dump the water out of the cup. (This can be hard to remember in the morning before, you know, your first cup of coffee.)
- Add the ground coffee to the filter. Make a divot in the center of the ground with your index finger. This helps the grounds saturate evenly.
- Add enough water to just cover the grounds and wait a few seconds. They should swell up. The grounds are now primed for extraction.
- Pour the water in a slow, steady stream, swirling it to wash the grounds down the sides toward the bottom.
- If you make 2 cups or more, give the coffee a quick stir with a spoon to mix it well. We've found this final step really can change the flavor of the coffee.
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