I got started at Canabru in Chino, CA. I left a few months ago and now I work for Cafecito Organico in Orange County. I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about coffee. Intelligentsia and Blue Bottle, while still generally unknown to the public at large, are big companies. I mean they sell Intelligentsia beans at Target now. But I think for most people they're the intro to specialty coffee. I like Blue Bottle but can't stand Intelli. I've never had a good experience and to me they perpetuate the "snobby barista" stereotype that so many people think of when they think of specialty coffee. Luckily the industry is exploding so theres plenty of places, especially in major cities like Los Angeles, to find great coffee.
Its a manual method of brewing coffee. Rather than using an automated coffee maker, the barista grinds the coffee and brews it manually using a kettle and some kind of brewing device. They pour the water manually over the beans, hence the name "pour over." The most popular are either the chemex or the hario v60. Theres different schools of thought on using them. The idea is that by grinding the coffee immediately before brewing, you can get a fresher cup (which is true, you don't want to grind your coffee until as close to brewing as possible, which is why pre ground sucks) and the construction of the devices themselves allow you to extract different flavor notes from the coffee. This requires lots of time and effort from the barista as it takes an expert to really brew it correctly. I've had the same coffees side by side brewed as a pour over and from a machine and sometimes the machine brews just as well.
It's a brew method. In short, you have the vessel that holds the coffee (you can google V60, Chemex, or Kalita Wave for examples). Load it with a filter, then coffee, and pour water (usually with a gooseneck kettle) onto the grounds which filters through into your cup or a vessel. Voilà! I said in short, but in reality it really is that simple.
Gonna definitely hit you up if I'm ever in your neck of the woods. Personally, I've never been to any of the "big 3" shops (BB, Intelli, Stumptown). I've had a couple of their coffees at home though. Lame to hear about barista snobbery. It's the worst. I will say I really like James Freeman or Blue Bottle coffee. He seems like such a cool guy!
Love coffee. Drinking it, making it, roasted beans once in a hot air popcorn popper (it was weird). Barista-ing for a few years really made me appreciate it a lot. Portland is great for loving coffee so that's pretty rad. As far as brewing: -at home, when I have enough time to want to enjoy the process or want more than one cup, I use a Chemex. It makes a very flavorful cup of coffee, but it can be pretty inconsistent, especially if you aren't using a burr grinder then every pour will be different and with a process that depends pretty heavily on timing it can either be really good or really mediocre. -I keep an aeropress at work, not much to say about it really. It's pretty quick and really consistent, I've made some really good americanos with it.
I spent a month in seattle 4 years ago with my uncle who did a home pour-over every day with some mystery brand of beans and nothing has ever been as good since. I'm pretty lucky to work in Ann Arbor and have a lot of great choices for coffee-- Starbucks will win out for convenience or sugary treat drinks, but I try to go local at the office at least. We have this very small shop called Comet Coffee that I like a lot. Question-- have anyone bought Death Wish coffee, and if so, is it worth it?
From what I've heard, it's a really dark roast (which I'm not a huge fan of, and think often is incorrectly assumed as being stronger), but they do use robusta beans instead of arabica which I'm p sure has a lot more caffeine so it isn't totally a gimmick. Plus they seem like super nice people and are really into what they do, they just don't make coffee that I think I'd like. If you're into dark roasts I'd say go for it. However though, $20 before shipping for a pound seems like a lot to me idk haha
I'm with Chris on it being something I probably wouldn't be a fan of (being a super dark roast). As far as the super strong caffeine part of their coffee, Chris is totally right about the robusta beans (which is typically said to be not as high of quality as Arabica) having more caffeine. In addition to that, the fine print on their caffeine says its stronger IF you prepare using their recipe, which is a much higher coffee to water ratio than what is standard. So by that measure, you could make any coffee with a higher ratio and the caffeine content could be higher.
Speaking of, if anyone get's a chance to hit up a Stumptown Coffee, get the nitro cold brew. It's life changing
Nitro infused cold brew is one of the big trends right now. So big that even Starbucks is starting to roll it out. That being said I'm biased in that I pretty much hate any cold brew and I never really drink it.
ha yeah I saw the starbucks one, I had no idea they were that popular anywhere else outside of locally. I'm hesitant of cold brew sometimes, I've had some pretty bad ones.
Only pour-over I've had is at this cuban cafe in town. It was really good -- best coffee I've had in my town for sure, but that's not saying much since we don't really have any independently owned coffee shops here. I currently use a French Press and I'm pretty happy with it. I had a Keurig before but stopped using it because the coffee was just bad. As far as blends go, the best coffee beans I've ever had were from Hilo Coffee Mill (though I don't remember the exact blend, you can't go wrong with any of them). I actually visited the mill while I was in Hawaii and they have a really great operation going on, and they're awesome people. Every bean is handpicked and pesticide free. It's about $35-$50 per pound though.
While not my favorite form of coffee, I picked up a couple cans of the Stumptown Nitro, and it's pretty dang good. One of my favorite roasters, Perc Coffee out of Savannah does nitro, often using an African coffee, and that's pretty killer as well. Guess it depends how much effort the shop/roaster puts into the cold brew. A lot of time in the industry it's an afterthought at best.
As much as I love good coffee, I have plenty of coffee guilty pleasures: -starbucks isn't bad if you go blonde roast -keurig makes a decent cup if you use the starbucks pods (though I hate myself for how terrible they are for the environment) -if I'm lazy making pour over i'll pretty much dump the water in in one fell swoop instead of slowly wetting all the grounds -it's a tough sell on black coffee but anything sugary at dunkins hits the spot So while I'm a huge nerd about making my own generally and will splurge for the pour over a good amount of the time if the cafe has the option, I don't really get coffee snobbery. For the most part, coffee has to be reallly bad for me not to enjoy it. Blue Bottle are the best beans I've had though in Boston the George Howell beans are really good.
Any of my coffee snobbery aside, give me a large iced coffee from Dunkin any day of the week. Seriously so good
i've still never had Dunkin! there's none where i live. i love flavored coffees so i've been buying the Archer Farms brand from Target. and NOT just because it makes me think of if Archer from the TV show had a farm. no, that's TOTALLY not why.
for hot coffee at home i love dunkin donuts store bought stuff actually, and if i want cold brew there is a shop here that lets you buy growlers and take it home, being it is summer majority of my coffee intake is cold brew now. haha