“Palatable Beverage”
Last night, while we were watching the Dallas Cowboys beat the Eagles (two arch-rival teams in the American National Football League, for you non-US readers of this photo-journal), our good friend John brewed coffee using a method that is quite intriguing (the host that night is another good family friends of ours from church).
The method employs an apparatus that looks complicated until John explained how they all fit together.
Despite the complicated setup, the process itself is very interesting to follow.
Basically, this method produces non-bitter coffee brew that utilizes air vacuum principles that leaves the unwanted stuff out of the final beverage. The key things are: water temperature (must be 190 degrees Fahrenheit), brewing time, and of course, the coffee choice.
Having done this for quite a while, John adeptly performed the barista duty for the night.
I took this opportunity to try out the Olympus E-P2 which had an old Konica lens on it.
Photo-geek note: This lens is quite rare on the used market nowadays. It’s a Hexanon AR mount 35mm 1:2. Its signature is the smooth out-of-focus area and as all Konica Hexanon from that era, sharp. All of the pictures in this journal was taken with this lens… wide-open ;)
The burner looks like a Bunsen burner (as featured in chemistry-lab in high-school), fueled by ordinary liquid lighter fuel.
After a few minutes of heating the water at the bottom flask, the hot water vapor brewed the coffee located in the upper flask, leaving a layer of boiling water behind:
When the timer chirped indicating that the brewing time was up, John turned off the burner and true to the thermodynamics law, the vacuum created by the heat quickly pulled the brewed coffee from top to the bottom flask through a tiny (washable) filter.
John told me that sometimes he didn’t even have to use the timer, he can tell if the temperature is correct by observing the patterns of the air bubble. Neat!
Here’s the coffee ready to be served:
I’m not a coffee connoisseur by any means, but even I can taste the difference between coffee brewed this way compared to they more common hot-water-and-filter method.
What’s the difference?
Regardless the coffee type, the bitterness is strangely absent, leaving a smooth taste but with all the flavors intact. Perfect for the cold-wave that is currently hitting the Southern part of US including Texas (global-warming, huh?).
“The Setup”
I jokingly suggested to John to get a roller suitcase with foams (think those Pelican heavy-duty camera cases) so he can quickly setup and tear-down the brewer apparatus. Given that we all enjoy his “presentation.”
At the end of the night, it’s quite an educational experience for me. Maybe John sees the art of brewing coffee the way I see tinkering with old cameras and lenses. Be it brewing coffee or taking pictures, you go for the stuff that is satisfying, and those are usually quite a handful and takes time to learn, but the end result is worth the trouble… usually :)
For those who are interested in the brewing process (like I did), here’s a website that has a fascinating amount of details on the subject.
So until next time … coffee anyone?
| Posted by admin under 
March 16th, 2010 at 9:54 am
I get the connection with photography. No matter how many wonderful things newer technology brings to us, there are some older technologies that represent the best you’ll be able to do. Some cameras really are the perfect camera for a given situation. Faith and I have a Bodum vacuum style coffee maker and it simply makes perfect coffee every time. Hard to imagine what that means unless you’ve tasted it, but it is remarkably better for the reasons you stated. No matter how advanced our other electric coffee makers have been over the years - if we are drinking coffee because a good cup of coffee is what we are craving (as opposed to making the morning brew just to get us going) - for those times we use the Bodum.