#cone filter

Like any self-respecting coffee drinker, I have a few personal criteria for a cup of good coffee: 

1. Full, unadulterated flavor (no sugar, no milk, no paper taste from the filter, no cardboard taste from the cup). 2. Aroma (the smell alone should wake you up) 3. Body (must be strong enough to slap my senses awake but not too heavy that it coats my tongue with an unpleasant and bitter aftertaste) 4. Smoothness (no grits or grounds floating around, especially in the bottom of the cup) 

All these criteria are met by my favorite cafetière, except that it is too common to have pesky bits of grounds in my coffee. I don't want them in my cup as they are bitter and unpleasant. Try as I may, and even with a coarser grind, particles pass through the mesh and end up going through the second line of defense, which is the slotted lid. 

The first time I paid attention to a barista doing the pour over method was in Djournal, in Grand Indonesia Mall in Thamrin, Jakarta. I wrote about Djournal Coffee in my review of the awesome coffee shops and cafés that I visited in Jakarta and Bandung in early June.

Up to now, I still can't get over the surreal coffee experience that I had there. No, actually, I can't get over the fact that the barista, Gerry, was one of the cutest guys I saw in Jakarta, but I digress. Gerry introduced me to the brewing method and gave me a demonstration on how the perfect cup of pour over coffee is made. 

First, Gerry measured all the ingredients carefully with precision scales and graduated measuring cups. The bean-water ratio is Djournal's closely-guarded secret, but I bet it will be easy to figure out. 

Then, Gerry prepped the setup by placing a single use cone filter on the glass drip cone. The next step is very important. He took off-the-boil water and rinsed the paper filter thoroughly. He used a glass decanter and a cup to catch the water under the cone. I was told this serves three purposes: to make sure that the cone, the filter, the decanter, and the cup is thoroughly warmed up; to eliminate the papery taste from the filter; and to wet the filter so that it doesn't absorb the water and ruin the proportions of the brew. 

Djournal has an array of specialized equipment. One of them is the super cool single-serve burr grinder that grinds the coffee beans into the perfect size for the pour over assembly's cone filter. After the rinsing of the brewing equipment, Gerry passed the beans through the grinder and immediately plopped the grounds on the cone filter. The grinding is done after all the accoutrements for brewing have been prepped, so there is little time for exposing the grounds to air, which will make it stale.

The grounds are deposited at the bottom of the cone, and Gerry tapped the sides of the cone to make sure that the grounds are compacted at the bottom of the filter. The tapping also makes sure that the grounds are distributed evenly and that there are no air pockets that may result to uneven brewing.

Gerry used a stick to poke a small hole in the grounds to kind of make an outlet for water. It appears that for the first part of the brewing process, you want the water to course through the grounds and extract as much initial flavor without soaking the grounds through. 

He then started the meticulous process of pouring the water ever so slowly to make sure that all of the grounds are being wet evenly. Gerry used a gooseneck pouring kettle to direct the stream of water on the grounds. The gooseneck kettle has a small spout that aims the water exactly where you want it.

  The technique is to let the coffee open up, so at first, you only want to pour enough water to cover the ground and develop a frothy flume. After the initial pour of water has seeped through, Gerry counted 7 seconds and started slowly pouring the rest of the water in. The almost ritualistic and time-bound pouring is fascinating to watch. The care that goes into making sure that the grounds are wet as evenly as possible is astounding.

Look at all that rich coffee pouring out of the cone slowly.

Poetry in motion. 

The resultant coffee is strong, vibrant and untainted by non-coffee aftertastes that you usually get from conventional brewing methods. If you every get the chance to sample pour over coffee, you should give it a try. It may just be your next favorite cup