What is the difference between siphon pot coffee and hand-brewed coffee? What coffee bean parameters and water temperature ratio are appropriate for the siphon pot to make coffee?

Although the siphon pot is no longer a mainstream tool produced in coffee shops due to its troublesome production and long time consuming, its ornamental nature and the characteristics of the brewed coffee have always been a topic that coffee guys talk about.

"Compared to hand-brewed coffee, the coffee brewed with a siphon pot will be thicker and more fragrant. "This is everyone's general evaluation of siphon pot coffee. Then, after some inquiries on Qianjie, we found that everyone believed that the reason why the siphon pot coffee was more fragrant was the special operation method of the siphon pot.

So is this really the case? Let's review the production process of siphon pot coffee.

The production of siphon pot coffee The structure of the siphon pot can be roughly divided into three parts: the upper pot, the lower pot, and the bracket. The lower pot is not only the main carrier of the liquid, but also the main part of the heating process, so its appearance is similar to a sphere in order to be evenly heated;

The design of the upper pot is relatively unique. The upper part of it is cylindrical, which is the place where the coffee powder comes into contact with the water, and can also be said to be the place where coffee is extracted. The lower part has been shrunk and extends a slender conduit. Its role is to guide water from the lower pot to the upper pot, and to guide coffee liquor from the upper pot to the lower pot;

The bracket plays a fixing and supporting role. It will hold the lower pot, and then the lower pot will join the upper pot. The production process of siphon pot coffee is very simple: heating the hot water in the lower pot to generate a large amount of water vapor, and then sealing the lower pot with the upper pot, so that the presence of water vapor can generate "pressure";

At this time, the hot water from the lower pot will be pushed towards the upper pot due to the increase in pressure! When the hot water rises to the top pot, we can start pouring in coffee powder and start making coffee.

After the extraction is almost complete, we can remove the fire source and lower the temperature of the lower pot, so that the coffee liquid will flow back into the lower pot, and we can declare that the coffee production has been completed.

As you can see, although the operation of the siphon pot is very complicated and cumbersome, in fact, its coffee extraction method is "soaking". It is a way to throw the powder and water together, stir and soak it, and then filter off the coffee powder after the extraction is complete. In an article published a few days ago, Qian Jie shared that because the coffee powder is all soaked in hot water, the substances dissolved into them are roughly the same. Compared to the rich layers of drip coffee, this extraction method will give the coffee a more balanced performance.

But what makes siphon pot coffee more fragrant is not just the soaking, but also the way it is filtered. A filter with a boiling chain will be hung in the upper pot of the siphon pot. The filter net can be equipped with flannel filter cloth or filter paper. Its function is to filter out the coffee grounds and prevent them from flowing with the coffee. and fall into the lower pot. Traditional siphon pots use filter cloth. If you want to be more convenient to clean or have better filtering performance, you can choose to use filter paper. But no matter which one is, because the filter does not cover completely, there will still be some substances other than coffee that "sneak" out of the upper pot and fall into the lower pot.

These substances are the lipids of coffee and fine powder with extremely fine particles. Generally, when making coffee in hand, they will be filtered out by the extremely strong filtering performance of the filter paper. But they can bring a stronger aroma and a more solid taste to coffee. Because many of the aromas are oil-soluble substances, the addition of oil can increase the aroma of coffee, which Qianjie shared before. So what is the difference between coffee made with siphon pots and hand-brewed coffee? The following is a comparison made by Qianjie with Qianjie Jamaica·Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee in the bean list. You can refer to it ~(Since Qianjie has made siphon pot coffee in previous articles, I won't go into it too much here. Interested friends can read it and understand it themselves.)

The taste of the Blue Mountain brewed by hand is already very mellow, with an aroma overflowing, soft and clean to drink. The flavor is expressed by chocolate, hazelnut, cream, and caramel, with a long aftertaste. Blue Mountain coffee brewed in a siphon pot has a stronger aroma based on hand-brewed, a more solid taste and a longer aftertaste. It's just that compared to hand-washing, its taste will not be as clean. Each has its own benefits.

So everyone can know why the coffee brewed in the siphon pot is more fragrant. The reason is that it will have fat and coffee powder added to the coffee. This taste is not unreplicable. When we use French press pots or arbitrary infusion coffee making, as long as the coffee is not filtered so cleanly, we can get the same aroma and taste as siphon pot coffee.

But using siphon pots to make coffee must not only focus on its taste, but also the ritual or experience brought by the entire production process. It is the cumbersome process and extremely high ornamental quality that add a lot of impressions to the taste of siphon pot coffee, making it feel different from the conventional ones. But it is precisely because of this that in this fast-paced era of pursuit of efficiency, the siphon pot will gradually deviate from the mainstream and become a very niche coffee appliance.

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