Kalita Wave Series Dripper
Have you ever heard of the Kalita? What is Kalita? Now you will know! It's time to brew some coffee!!!
The company Kalita was established in Tokyo, Japan in 1958. It is now a family-owned company headquartered in Yokohama, Japan. The company manufactures paper filters, professional and domestic coffee preparation tools.*
*information courtesy of http://kalita-usa.com/about.html
The specific brew method we will be using is the Kalita Wave Series Dripper #185 Glass Dripper (http://kalita-usa.com/wave_series.html).
My fellow barista (Eric Loeffler: Quality Assurance/ Sales Director at Case Coffee Roasters) and I decided to make two cups of coffee using the Kalita dripper. We used Case Coffee Roasters' Guatemala 'La Patrona' and the Ethiopia 'Kochere'.
Our goal is to expand our knowledge of brew methods. We frequently make Chemex here at Case Coffee Roasters as our pour-over option for customers, therefore we have a lot of experience with this brew method. The Kalita however is uncharted territory for myself but not for Eric which is why I asked him to expose me to the new method of brewing.
What do we know about Chemex?
By using the Chemex we are able to create a wonderfully balanced cup of coffee, delicate yet full of body. In addition to the big body, we are able to create a very clean cup of coffee due to the tightly woven paper filter used in the brewing process.
Our hypothesis with the Kalita is that we will be able to showcase more complexity from the coffee solely because of the nature of the brewing method. The depth of the coffee bed (while brewing) is less than 1 inch high, unlike the Chemex which can range depending on the partical size, speed of pour and agitation on the barista's part during the extraction. A lower coffee bed during the extraction can result in a bigger body coffee, even somewhat astringent.
Before brewing with the Kalita dripper I thought the body might be very big and perhaps overpower the complexity of the coffee because of the nature of the brew method. Let's see what happened...
OUR PARAMETERS FOR BREW TEST #1
The brew: 24g whole beans of the Guatemala 'La Patrona' and 340g of water
Bloom: 40g of water, the crust was broken at roughly 35sec into the extraction.
Grind: #14 on a Virtuoso (slightly coarser than we would grind for a 12oz cup using the Chemex)
Total extraction time: 3:15secs.
Aroma: All spice, caramelized brown sugar
Tasting note: Silky, velvety body, spicy finish, hint of effervescent feeling on the tongue towards the finish, lingering milk chocolate quality.
What happened? What did we experience? What did we change to improve the extraction for brew test #2?
One of the first things we noticed was the complexity in this cup of coffee. There was a wonderful body apparent in the coffee as well as complex tasting notes and neither was compromised for the other. Thus, very well balanced.
OUR PARAMETERS FOR BREW TEST #2
The brew: 24.5g whole beans of the Ethopia 'Kochere' (We up dosed the coffee instead of making the particle size smaller. Our thought was it would bring more sweetness to the Ethipian coffee. Coarser + higher dosage = brighter complexity, without compromising body.)
Bloom: 40g of water, the crust was broken at 35sec into the extraction.
Total extraction time: 3:15secs.
Aroma: Jasmine, green tea, ripe strawberries
Tasting notes: Effervescent green tea quality, bright strawberry acidity, jasmine, lingering milk chocolate. (up dosing gave us a sweeter extractions than the first, more acidity was apparent)
We found that the Kalita showcases the wonderful complexities of these coffees. Whereas in the Chemex, of course complexity is apparent, however the complexity of the coffees was not at all masked by the body. In the Kalita we found there was a very well balanced body to acidity ratio. The best of both worlds.
There will be a video posted shortly after this post. This video is very boring to watch unless you are a coffee nerd. They showcase brewing techinique. If this does not interest you... I would recommend not watching. :D Also, Here is a video from Nicholas Cho on Kalita Wave coffee brewing.
http://vimeo.com/42382657
Thanks for checking out this post. If you are interested in any of the coffee or the equipment we used check out these links below! (Case Coffee Roasters is unfortunately out of the Guatemala 'La Patrona' but they do have an awesome Guatemala 'La Montañez' that I highly recommend!)
http://casecoffeeroasters.com/store/coffee
https://www.baratza.com/conical-burr-grinders/virtuoso-grinder/
