US – Coffee-shop chemistry: The Resurgence of Single-Cup Brewing

MILAN – Haloge heat lamps, glass beakers, siphon hoses and wood stirring
sticks – when John Piquet brews a cup of coffee, it’s not a mindless morning
ritual. It’s more like a science experiment.

With these lab-like utensils and the simple laws of physics, Piquet creates
what serious coffee drinkers believe is one of the clearest, most complex cups
of coffee on the planet. So perfect it doesn’t need to be doctored with cream
and sugar.

“Siphon coffee has twice the complexity of the finest wine,” said the
40-year-old co-owner of Caffe d’Bolla in downtown Salt Lake City. “You wouldn’t
add cream or sugar to wine, so you shouldn’t have to add it to coffee.”

The siphon or “vacuum pot” brewing method — which makes one

Caffe d’Bolla owner John Piquet makes siphon coffee. This single-cup method
for brewing coffee is extremely popular in Japan and has now made its way to the
United States. Cafe d’Bolla is one of only two places in Utah to offer this
unique brewing method. (Leah Hogsten / The Salt Lake Tribune)

cup at a time — originated more than a century ago, but fell out of favor
with the development of percolators and drip coffee makers, which makes multiple
cups at the same time. Of course, aficionados believe flavor was sacrificed in
the name of convenience.

Today the single cup brewing method is making a resurgence, and has become
especially popular in Japan. But now the taste of such complex coffee is making
its way to boutique coffee shops in major metropolitan cities across the U.S.,
including three Salt Lake City shops — Caffe d’Bolla, No Brow Coffee and Jack
Mormon Coffee — offering different variations of siphon brewing.

Costs vary depending on the shop and the quality of coffee beans being used,
ranging from $5 to $12 for a 5- to 7-ounce cup.

Caffe d’Bolla’s Piquet and his co-owner and wife, Yiching, began offering
siphon brewing about a year ago at their shop at 249 E. 400 South, across from
the Salt Lake Main Library. It took two years of planning, studying and
traveling to Osaka and Kyoto, Japan, to learn the proper techniques. “It’s
harder than you think,” understates Piquet, who recently demonstrated how siphon
brewing works.

The siphon is made of four parts, including: a Cafe d’Bolla is one of only
two places in Utah to offer this unique brewing method. (Leah Hogsten / The Salt
Lake Tribune) heat source (either a halogen lamp or an alcohol burner); a bottom
container made of glass that holds the water; an upper chamber, also made of
glass, where the cotton filter and finely ground coffee sit; and a siphon tube
that connects the two.

As the water in the bottom container is heated, it creates vapor that forces
the water up the siphon tube and into the upper globe. When all the water is in
the top chamber, it’s stirred by hand to circulate the coffee grounds. At just
the right moment the glass containers are removed from the heat.

Without the heat, the vapor in the lower chamber cools creating a natural
vacuum that pulls the liquid back into the bottom chamber. The force is so
strong that the grounds are practically sucked dry. The whole process takes less
than two minutes, but is considered by aficionados to be the perfect coffee
extraction method.

Siphon coffee is always poured into a tapered china cup — don’t ask for it
in a Styrofoam cup to go — and allowed to cool. The shape of the cup helps
bring out the flavors, which change as the coffee cools.

“You get a more robust flavor with siphon coffee than what you get out of
your pot at home,” said Joe Evans, owner of No Brow Coffee, at 315 E. 300 South,
Salt Lake City. “Bright flavors of fruit that are muddled in regular coffee,
jump out more.”

This perfect brewing technique only works when paired with the highest
quality beans and roasting methods. Don’t even consider using grocery store
coffee.

Piquet and Evans both use beans from small producers in numerous coffee
growing regions including Kenya, Guatemala, Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica and
Columbia. Piquet buys the beans raw and roasts them in small 5-pound batches.

Much like a good wine or chocolate, these beans will impart different flavor,
depending on where they are grown and how they are processed. A bean from
Guatemala may initially have notes of cocoa and pecan flavors, but as it cools
will take on red grape and dark berry flavors. A different bean from Kenya may
taste of peach and mango, followed by toffee and caramel.

It’s the flavors – and the spectacle of the process – that attracts customers
such as Sean Tibbitts, “I love watching them brew it right in front of me and
then the coffee is so exquisitely clean and bright and complex, “said Tibbitts,
who works at the Salt Lake library and enjoys a cup of siphon coffee about once
a month. “I always ask the owner to describe the coffee, then I try to identify
the flavors

Pictures at http://www.sltrib.com/features/ci_13393729