In February this year, Melbourne’s Toshiyuki Ishiwata realised a dream of his many years in the making: to hold a coffee syphon brewing session in Melbourne with Japanese syphon champion Mieko Koike. I tagged along to one of the sessions and wrote an article setting out the brewing technique demonstrated by Ms Koike. The article was published in Cafe Culture Magazine (Issue 17, 2009, page 22). I would like to thank Cafe Culture Magazine for graciously providing a copy for the readers of this this web page. Copyright in the following image and pdf files belongs to Cafe Culture Magazine; you may not reproduce them without their permission.
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Whilst I enjoyed Ms Koike’s style of syphon brew, it did certainly seem to be much stronger and less extracted than the SCAA and SCAE golden cup standards. I personally usually use a lower dose of coffee, perhaps 14 to 18g for my TCA-2 syphon. I have also had memorable syphon brews by using a higher dose of coarsely ground coffee, such as 24g for a TCA-2, with the fine particles sieved out and a slightly longer brew time.
Ultimately, by controlling brew time, dose, grind size and, to some extent, brew temperature, syphon offers diligent coffee brewers flexibility to achieve a pleasing combination of strength and extraction. Please feel free to describe your favourite syphon brew recipes in the comments below.
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