Night Apes Dream

Update: I seem to be getting a stack of search hits for Harios on this post. I would love to hear from other people who use them, so if you’ve bought a Hario leave a comment. Would love to hear about how it’s going, any great coffees you’ve discovered etc…

For my birthday last month Bec bought me a Hario TCA-2 vacuum syphon. Vacuum syphons have been returning to popularity lately, and I had been toying with the idea of getting one myself. I won’t go into the full details of how they work or how to use them, but CoffeeGeek has a really good rundown if you are interested. Basically it is a coffee maker that returns an excellently brewed coffee that displays the full range of flavours of the grind you are using.

I was surprised at how well made the Hario is. It is a really well finished product that feels much sturdier to use than it looks. It’s looks are definately a big part of the fun of using it; it is unquestionably the sexiest coffee maker I’ve owned. When seeing it for the first time most people assume it is a bong/meth lab/science experiment.

Using a vacuum syphon also really shows off the coffee you are using. The flavours in single origin coffees really stand out, and the difference between different varieties is much more pronounced. So far I have only used beans from St. Ali in South Melbourne, but am looking forward to getting to The Brunswick East Project and Seven Seeds soon to try some different suppliers.

If you are interested in trying a syphon coffee, St. Ali are currently serving them in the cafe, as well as selling them (this is where mine came from). They are also currently building a syphon only cafe. Last time we whent looking for it we had no luck though.

For good reading on all things coffee, check out Coffee Snobs.

Rest of my shots of it are on the Flickr set.