Kalita Wave Brewer Tutorial & User Experience Guide

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

Introduction

Coffee enthusiasts with some knowledge will understand that coffee has gone through three waves of popularity, and we are currently in the third wave of specialty coffee. The concept of specialty coffee involves cultivating coffee beans with regional flavors influenced by microclimates and soil conditions in growing regions.

Pour-over coffee, which offers both visual appeal and showcases the inherent flavors of coffee beans, perfectly aligns with the third wave specialty coffee trend. The brewing characteristic of pour-over coffee lies in using a filter cup to filter coffee, preventing coffee grounds from passing through and resulting in a cleaner taste. Different filter cups also produce different extraction characteristics. For example, the v60 filter cup commonly used by FrontStreet Coffee features a conical design that adds depth and complexity, while the large filter hole allows for fast flow rate, giving baristas more control over flow speed.

The Kalita Wave Filter Cup

Today, we're sharing a filter cup that's completely different from the v60 filter cup—the Kalita Wave filter cup.

What is the Kalita Wave Cake Filter Cup?

The Kalita Wave Dripper is a flat-bottom pour-over filter cup from Japan, also known as a cake cup. Kalita has been producing coffee equipment since 1950, and the streamlined style of Kalita Wave is typical of their company's products. This filter cup comes in two sizes: #185 and #155. The #155 is smaller and suitable for brewing one cup at a time, while the #185 is larger and suitable for 2-4 servings.

What are the Features of the Kalita Wave Filter Cup?

Feature 1: Flat-Bottom Filter Cup Design

The Kalita Wave cake filter cup adopts a flat-bottom structure in its design, used in conjunction with flat-bottom cake filter paper. What's the difference between the conical design of the v60 filter cup and the flat-bottom design of the cake filter cup?

The v60 filter cup used by FrontStreet Coffee in their store is the most classic conical filter cup, shaped like an inverted cone. The coffee powder is distributed wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, with water flowing from top to bottom and converging at one point, thus creating more layers and complexity.

The flat-bottom filter cup design allows the coffee bed to be distributed evenly in a flat structure. With the same amount of coffee powder, the flat-bottom structure creates a thinner coffee bed, allowing water to flow through the coffee powder in less time while also enabling more even extraction.

Feature 2: Tendency Toward Immersion-style Extraction

The Kalita Wave cake filter cup has three small filter holes at the bottom, resulting in slower water filtration speed. This makes the cake filter cup more inclined toward immersion-style extraction during pouring (where coffee grounds are soaked longer than the dripping time). Therefore, unlike the v60 filter cup which adds complexity, coffee brewed with the cake filter cup is more full-bodied and rounded.

Feature 3: Unique Multi-Groove Design of Filter Paper

The cake filter cup utilizes the folds of cake filter paper to replace the guiding ribs. On one hand, the grooves help dissipate heat and carbon dioxide, avoiding over-extraction of coffee powder at the filter cup wall due to excessive heat. On the other hand, coffee liquid can be filtered out from the grooves around the powder layer and converge at the bottom.

How to Brew with the Kalita Wave Filter Cup?

FrontStreet Coffee's baristas choose 15 grams of coffee beans when using the Kalita cake filter cup for brewing, with a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:15 and a medium-coarse grind level.

The entire brewing process is also divided into three stages. In the first stage, 40 grams of water is poured. Because the flat-bottom powder bed structure provides a larger surface area for the entire coffee powder, 40 grams of water is used for the first bloom stage to fully saturate the coffee powder.

In the second stage, water is poured to a total of 125 grams, using gentle circular pouring during the process. After a 10-second interval, the final water is poured to a total of 225 grams. Water temperature is selected at 90 degrees Celsius, with a total extraction time of 2 minutes.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473