The Brew Blog

This guide is about understanding what espresso actually is and how to produce it well at home, not which machine to buy.

This guide walks through the major brewing methods, what each one produces in the cup, and the small handful of variables that separate a decent brew from a great one.

The V60 has a higher ceiling than any other home brewer and a lower floor. This is the grind, ratio, temperature and pouring breakdown that gets you to the ceiling instead of the floor, plus what to change when the cup comes out wrong.

The Chemex looks like a chemistry flask and brews coffee like one too: slowly, deliberately, and with a clarity that makes you wonder what's been hiding in your cup. Here's the ratio, grind, filter fold and method that earn that clarity.

The Kalita Wave is the dripper most home brewers should probably start with, and the one almost nobody recommends first. Three exit holes, a flat bottom, and a wave filter conspire to make a cup that holds its own against any cone-shaped pour-over.

The Origami takes both V60 cone filters and Kalita Wave flat-bottom filters, which means one brewer gives you two genuinely different cups depending on the paper. It looks like a gimmick. It isn't. Here's how to brew with it and when each filter wins.