On this website, I have been narrowing my focus to gender and workplace dynamics while usually keeping the coffee talk to Instagram or my coffee notebook. A fun fact about me is that I absolutely love tasting notes and trying different brewers and recipes. Yes, it is a form of practice but it has also been a creative outlet for me during quarantine and working at a job that I’m not passionate about. My favorite part of my weekend or my before-work routine is breaking out my coffee gear and making notes about what I’m drinking.
Recently, I asked on Instagram if people were interested in my recipe testing and brewer notes to which I received an overwhelmingly positive response. So…
Enter the Kalita Wave.
One of the shops that I worked at used the Kalita as their main pour over brewer, so professionally I’ve made a number of pour overs with it. But, never had a major desire to go out and buy one myself since I have a perfectly good cone that I know and love. A couple months ago, however, someone in a Facebook group was giving away some coffee gear and I decided to jump on the Kalita Wave and do some recipe testing.
The first try with my go-to pour over recipe ended up tasting flat, muted, and slightly metallic. My grind was medium-fine for a pour over, the water (while not distilled) had never impacted the taste of my coffee before so I figured it was a recipe issue. So, I did what I always do and took to the internet asking for Kalita recipes. I read recipes with slight variances, but then I came across this one from George Howell. I had never seen a pour over recipe like this, and that challenger mindset in me kept screaming, “Do it!”
The premise of this recipe is cycling between rapid small pours and short rests.
I started with 25g of medium-fine ground Burundi from Recluse Coffee Roasters, and put that into my pre-wetted filter and Kalita wave set up. Heat your water up to 205 degrees and, when you are ready to pour, start the timer. Pour 65g of hot water in 15 seconds, starting in the center and moving outwards, then rest for 15 seconds. Keep pouring in 65g increments in 15 seconds and then resting for 15 second increments. At 2:45, you should be done pouring and you let it drain.
Overall, the whole process should look something like this:
0:00-0:15 Pour 65g
0:15-0:30 Rest (This is also where the bloom happens)
0:30-0:45 Pour till 130g
0:45-1:00 Rest
1:00-1:15 Pour till 195g
1:15-1:30 Rest
1:30-1:45 Pour till 260
1:45-2:00 Rest
2:00-2:15 Pour till 325g
2:15-2:30 Rest
2:30-2:45 Pour till 390g
2:45-4:00 Let it drain.
First off, I got so nervous pouring like this. The newness of continuously adding water made me second guess how long water takes to travel from the kettle to the coffee and worrying that I would not get the 65g in fast enough. If you are like me and my anxiety, you have time I promise.
In the review of this recipe over on Prima Coffee Equipment, the reviewer talked about how this particular method brought out a “grapefruit-like acidity” to their coffee and I got the same result, which is slightly problematic. The reviewer, Caleb Spindler, was using a coffee from Honduras while I was using a Burundi. I picked up on that same acidity which caused me to speculate about how this recipe changes the taste of the coffee if I picked up on the same acidity. This Burundi does have an acidity to it, but having made it with other brew methods, the acidity was heightened using this particular recipe. The sweetness of this coffee was not necessarily muted by the stronger acidity but rather overpowered, which I found distracting because this coffee has a bright sweetness that was what drew me to the coffee in the first place.
Biggest Takeaway: I want to experiment and play around with more recipes, of course, but was not left with an overwhelming urge to abandon my cone for a Kalita. So far, all the recipes I’ve tried have flattened the depth of any coffee I put into it and enhanced the acidity versus the sweetness in the coffees that I’ve tested. What I look for is a balanced (equally pleasant sweetness and acidity) and dynamic (unique tasting notes and good mouthfeel) cup of coffee that the Kalita has so far yet to produce.
Do you have a good Kalita recipe? Send it my way and I will workshop it.
The Non-Binary Barista 