This past week, the Death Wish team took a trip to the coffee city- Seattle, Washington.
While browsing the many booths of the SCAA Coffee Convention of 2015, we stumbled upon many great products, inventions, and people looking to put their work in front of thousands of eyes.
1. Cold Bruer
Slow Drip Cold Brew Coffee Brewer | $83
Typically, to make cold brew, I would use my french press and let cold water interact with coarsely ground coffee for about 12 hours. The Cold Bruer revolutionizes this system by facilitating the brew method (no filtering yourself), and cutting the brew time in half (4-8 hours). The result? Coffee brewed effortlessly, in less time, without the bitterness.
2. Disposable Pourover
Single Serve, Single-Use Pourover for the Traveler
While I didn't try the coffee that originally came in these packets (why go through the trouble of a pourover if you're using pre-packaged coffee?), I asked for a few samples without pre-ground coffee and the company happily obliged. These are fantastic if you're traveling light, but still would like to use your favorite beans from home. As with any pourover filters, rinse these before using them to avoid the papery taste.
3. Thermal Dispenser Aurora
Solar-Powered Coffee Pot
While it's not for the home, this cafe coffee pot uses solar power to retain 98% of its heat for an hour. Hopefully if this product picks up steam, we may start seeing solar powered coffee makers or reservoirs for the home.
4. Swiss Water Decaf
I know, I know. Decaf? Sure, but a lot of people physically cannot have caffeine. A lot of decaffeinated coffee actually contains plenty of caffeine (Starbucks- 25mg). Swiss Water Process takes out nearly all of it (99.9%) so that those people can drink coffee, too.
5. Invergo
An automatic pour-over
"Conventional coffee machines don't saturate all of the coffee grounds evenly; resulting in a bitter taste. The dual axis Autospout however ensures all coffee grounds are evenly saturated. Invergo produces a coffee that is evenly extracted, clear and bright."
This product is still in its testing and production phase.
And the bad...
"Bean Me Up" Coffee Grinder
The host of this booth was extremely rude- scolding a woman for stepping too close- and barking orders at her while she apologized. It was uncomfortable, but she stuck around for the demo. This product was visually striking and the mechanics of it seemed pretty legit. It stood on a rubber-like stand to adjust the orientation of the grinder. By tilting the grinder, you could put your weight on one side while grinding. That was pretty cool. That was the focus of the presentation.
I asked how the consistency of the grind was. Interrupting me, he barked that he was "getting to that" and that it's "simply the most consistent grinder there is". Though he was enormously rude and abrupt, that statement intrigued me and I told him that is awesome, and I would love to see some of the grinds that it could produce. He told me that he did not have any samples and that he didn't want to demonstrate with actual coffee beans, because it's just a prototype. Well then, how do you even know that it's the most consistent grind? Yikes!
Turns out, this is just a spice grinder that they were marketing as a coffee grinder. No thanks!
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