Categories / Coffee

Kalita Wave Ceramic Coffee Dripper

Kalita Wave Ceramic Dripper is a beautiful, manual pour-over coffee maker – $30

Using an automatic coffee maker to brew your coffee is quick, easy and the result is always reliable. But how good does the coffee taste and how fun is it? If you have a bit more time on your hands, and if you’re really starting to become interested in the craft of making good coffee, then you could explore using manual pour-over methods.

If you’ve visited any serious and/or hipster coffee shop lately then you have probably already seen these manual coffee drippers in action. Most coffee shops are using the amazing Hario V60 setup, but as always I’m going to introduce a very nice alternative here on Pixels & Objects.

Kalita is a Japanese company that’s been making coffee paper filters, drippers and other related gear since 1958. Their Wave coffee drippers are praised around the world for its great performance and beautiful design. Compared to Hario V60 with its large hole in the bottom, the Wave dripper has a flat bottom with three smaller holes for the coffee to drip through. This design gives you a very even extraction, and in my opinion it is easier and more reliable to get your brew right, compared to a V60.

The Wave Coffee Dripper is available in ceramic, glass or stainless steel, and comes in two different sizes. The bigger 185 size is made in all three materials, while the smaller 155 size is only available in glass and stainless steel. Be sure to pick up some Kalita paper filters in the right size and also check out the Wave Pot and Glass Server to complete your pour-over setup.

Still not convinced? Check out this video by Nicholas Cho. Pure coffee art:

➤ Get Kalita Wave Ceramic Coffee Dripper now

Photo by: Pixels & Objects

Wilfa Svart Presisjon

Wilfa Svart Presisjon is a quality coffee machine with great design and features – 2000 SEK

It’s time to revisit one of my favorite topics and the fuel that keeps this site updated; coffee. An important trend in coffee right now is that drip coffee is coming back in a big way, and many coffee shops and home enthusiasts experiment with manual brewing equipment. So do I, but I think there’s always a place and time for a great coffee brewing machine in your home.

Here in The Nordics people often get a Moccamaster when they’re aiming for a good automatic brewer, and those are indeed good, but I want to introduce a great alternative. The Wilfa Svart Presisjon has been developed in collaboration between Norwegian company Wilfa and one of the most respected roasters and coffee shop owners in the world; Tim Wendelboe.

First and most importantly, this machine makes very good drip coffee. It has all the benefits of a Moccamaster and other quality machines, but it’s the first one that I know of with flow control. This feature lets you configure how fast the water flows through your coffee grounds, based on how much coffee you’re making at the time. This way your coffee is extracted pretty much the same no matter if you brew one or six cups of coffee and this results in better tasting coffee. There are a lot of useful guides printed on the machine to help you find a good balance between grams of coffee, milliliters of water and flow control. As always I recommend using scales to measure your coffee and to grind your coffee beans yourself.

The Wilfa Svart Presisjon is available in black or white and it sure looks good in either color. The water tank is removable for easier handling and cleaning, and the same goes for the filter holder. This machine is easy to find in many big department stores in The Nordics, but if you’re from another part of the world then you’ll probably have to import one or wait for Wilfa to expand their territory.

➤ Check out Wilfa Svart Presisjon now

Photo by: Wilfa

Hario Skerton Ceramic Coffee Mill

  • February 26, 2014
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Hario Skerton is a beautiful, high-quality ceramic coffee grinder – $34

If you have any ambitions to make coffee that actually tastes good then you need to buy freshly roasted, whole coffee beans and grind them yourself right before you brew your coffee. There are no shortcuts available here so just do it and enjoy a whole new level of coffee experiences. There are many other factors that you can experiment with to make better coffee, but fresh beans and a grinder is the absolute best way to start out. I’ll leave it to you to find good coffee beans that suits your own taste but I will recommend a few good grinders here on Pixels & Objects in the coming months.

When you start looking for the right coffee grinder you have a few options to consider. The first one is whether to get a burr grinder or one that cuts the coffee beans using metallic blades. The answer is always to go for a burr grinder since they produce much more evenly cut coffee particles and this results in far better coffee. The second choice is between an electrical or a manual grinder. Electrical grinders are fast and easy to use but they also take up a lot of space. Manual grinders are often nice design objects that are easy to store and pack when traveling, but they do require you to put in some work every time you use them.

The first grinder featured on this site is Skerton, a manual, ceramic burr grinder from the legendary Japanese glassware manufacturer Hario. Skerton is a beautiful piece of hardware that you probably don’t want to hide in a kitchen drawer. It lets you grind approximately 80-90 grams of coffee at a time which is enough to brew 5+ cups of coffee. You will have to put in a lot of manual work to grind that much coffee beans and my recommendation is to use it to make smaller batches of coffee. It’s perfect for brewing 1-3 cups, either as your main grinder or as a less noisy alternative to your electronic grinder when you don’t want to wake your family up. It can also be very useful while traveling or at a place where you simply need an extra grinder, like at work. The price is also pretty attractive compared to almost any electrical burr grinder available.

Hario Skerton is made out of metal, plastic and glass and all parts can be disassembled very easily if you want to perform some serious cleaning. It comes with a plastic lid that you can use on the glass container if you want to store some grounded coffee, but that’s not something I would recommend. Use a scale to measure exactly the amount of beans you need for your brew and you’ll get better tasting coffee every time.

➤ Get Hario Skerton Ceramic Coffee Mill now

Photo by: Pixels & Objects