KitchenAid Pourover Coffee Brewer vs. Chemex
This past Saturday, the CoffeeCon show for coffee enthusiasts hit Los Angeles.The media team met for lunch to hear a presentation from KitchenAid representatives on their newest coffee brewer. The KitchenAid Pourover Coffee Brewer is meant to accommodate the growing demand for pourover coffee but in a less manual, more automated way. They presented some data showing increased interest in the pourover brewing method. For those that are not familiar with pourover coffee, a couple of the more popular brands are Chemex and Melitta. You may recognize the Chemex as a glass pitcher designed with a cone at the top for the filter and ground coffee. The Melitta that I've used is a plastic cone with a base that sits on your coffee mug and makes one cup at a time - the filter and ground coffee go in the cone.Read: CoffeeCon Los Angeles 2014 – planningRead: Official CoffeeCon website
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I'm traveling next week, but the following week, I'll be setting up a blind taste test in my kitchen to compare the new KitchenAid brewer to the Chemex. My Chemex is the most used coffee gear in my kitchen after my grinder. It's what I use to make most of the coffee that I drink. I want to put the new KitchenAid brewer to the test, and what better way than against one of the main companies raising awareness and interest in pourover coffee.
There are other factors that will go into my evaluation of the KitchenAid brewer. Right out of the gate, I don't expect it to beat my Chemex in terms of flavor in the cup. I'm confident that my Chemex will win, but that bias won't affect the all-blind taste test. Specifically besides flavor, I'll be evaluating:
- Time to brew.
- Temperature of coffee. This will be to personal taste. I don't like to wait long for my first sip.
- Clean-up.
Ease of use will be a slam dunk for the KitchenAid brewer. It's an automated brewer, where the Chemex is intentionally manual. I feel as though the manual process of using a Chemex is part of its charm - however, if the KitchenAid brewer makes comparable coffee, it will be tough not to use it more. Especially since it makes eight cups, twice as much as my Chemex makes.
Stay tuned! We'll find out how well KitchenAid's new pourover brewer performs against one of the stables of pourover coffee. KitchenAid vs. Chemex. Check out KitchenAid's official site to learn more about the new brewer.