How to Use Paragon Ice Puck? Is Pour-Over Coffee Flavor a Mystery? What Are the Reasons for Not Being Able to Smell Coffee's Aroma?

Flavor is a product of coffee's obsession with detail. To chase more flavor in the cup, people have not only improved bean quality but also invented auxiliary tools for the extraction itself - tools that claim to trap more aromatic compounds and deliver sharper flavor definition. The small golden ball "Paragon," popular on competition stages, claims exactly that.

What is Paragon?

Paragon is an auxiliary brewing tool invented by World Coffee Championship winner Sasa Sestic - a sphere clad in "golden armor," as the picture shows.

According to Sasa, brewing with this golden ball yields coffee with 40% more aroma than before. The principle: the Paragon rapidly chills the coffee liquid as it extracts, preserving more aromatics. Confused? What do aroma and flavor have to do with each other, and why would cooling a liquid preserve aromas? Don't worry - FrontStreet Coffee will walk through it step by step.

Much of what we call coffee flavor actually comes from the aromas it releases! As coffee enters the mouth, those aromas travel up the retronasal passage and trigger our associations with specific flavors.

Roasting generates thousands of aromatic compounds in coffee beans, but most are volatile, and a great deal escapes during grinding and extraction. By the time the coffee reaches us, only a fraction of the aromas remain to be detected.

Enter the ice ball: by rapidly cooling the extracted liquid, it lowers the volatility of the aromatic compounds, slowing their escape - so we get to taste more of the coffee's full flavor.

Sasa also stressed an important detail: the golden ball is meant for the early stage of extraction. Research shows the largest quantity of aromatics is released at the start of the brew, so cooling only the early liquid should, in theory, preserve the most aromatic compounds.

Brewing Experiment

Is it really as magical as advertised? FrontStreet Coffee ran an experiment!

Two pots of the same coffee: one brewed with the golden ball for "aroma preservation," one brewed conventionally. The bean: Hartmann Geisha from Panama; 15g of coffee; 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio; 92°C water; ground on an Ek43 at setting 9.5 - fine-sugar grind, 80% pass-through on a #20 sieve; three-stage pour on a V60.

First, bloom with twice the coffee's weight in water for 30 seconds.

After the bloom, pour the second stage (130ml) in small, gentle circles. Wait for the water level to drop! Once it falls to half, remove the golden ball!

When the grounds at the bottom become visible, pour the final stage in a larger flow, in small circles. When dripping finishes, remove the dripper and the extraction is complete!

Thermometer check: the conventional coffee came out at 66.7°C, the golden-ball coffee at 55°C - a gap of about 10°C.

Tasting Results

Now the tasting! The conventional Hartmann Geisha showed bergamot, passion fruit, and pineapple juice flavors, prominent sweetness and acidity, and a distinct Earl Grey tea aftertaste. The golden-ball version did show slightly more defined flavors, but the difference wasn't dramatic; its acidity read more pronounced, though that came mainly from the lower temperature.

Verdict: the golden ball does slightly improve flavor perception (thanks to temperature), but the effect is modest. Whether to buy one depends on your own pursuit - it isn't cheap. If you don't have especially high demands for flavor detail, skip it. But if you want to explore coffee's flavors more delicately, it may be worth the investment.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Aroma-focused beans that reward any tool - or none - from FrontStreet Coffee:

• FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Guodingding - washed, with elegant white florals and clear citrus; exactly the kind of aromatic pour-over whose top notes benefit most from a slow, cool sip.
• FrontStreet Ethiopia Huakui - a natural bursting with passion fruit, strawberry, and jackfruit aromas over obvious sweetness; the kind of layered fruit character that gives you plenty to "smell" in every sip.
• FrontStreet Panama Esmeralda Red Label Gesha - grown at 1600-1800 meters, each single-plot batch cupping above 90 points; jasmine florals, citrus, and bergamot with a long finish - the ultimate aroma experience.