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The Secret To Making The PERFECT Coffee

2022-06-06 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, James Hoffmann · recording, 17:51 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health, sleep and habits · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own numbers

Coffee expert James Hoffmann brings Ali a home coffee setup to replace his instant coffee: a comparative tasting finds Ali's taste, he shows a forgiving Clever Dripper immersion brew, and he prices the kit, saying the grinder is where the money should go; two weeks later Ali says he is sold on freshly ground coffee.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — James Hoffmann, appalled by Ali's instant coffee, unboxes a grinder, a Clever Dripper, scales and a water filter

  • ★★ When Ali talked with coffee expert James Hoffmann on his Deep Dive podcast, Hoffmann was appalled that Ali was still drinking instant coffee. — 00:00:00 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ James Hoffmann calls the Fellow Ode a good little grinder, and very good once its burrs are changed out. — 00:00:58

00:02:16 — A comparative tasting to find the coffee Ali likes

  • ★★ James Hoffmann: To compare coffees in a tasting, James Hoffmann advises picking one attribute, such as bitterness or acidity, and comparing the cups one pair at a time. — 00:02:16
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says the hotter coffee is, the harder it is to taste, so cups get easier to taste as they cool down. — 00:02:46
  • ★ In the coffee tasting Ali could see himself drinking samples one and five. — 00:03:29
  • ★★ Ali likes sample five because it is not overly bitter and tastes pretty basic, what he would expect from coffee. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ James Hoffmann: Sample five, the one Ali likes, is a low-acidity coffee from India; James Hoffmann says he bought it because Ali had mentioned liking the coffee at Dishoom, which he suspects serves Indian coffees. — 00:04:51

00:05:20 — Brewing with the Clever Dripper: dose, grind, misting, water first, steep and drain

  • ★★★ James Hoffmann: For Ali's 250 to 300 ml morning cup from a Clever Dripper, James Hoffmann recommends 60 grams of coffee per litre of water. — 00:05:20
  • ★★★ James Hoffmann says a finer grind extracts more flavour but too fine a grind turns into sludge, so grind fine enough for flavour while the coffee still brews and drains easily. — 00:06:09
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says weighing coffee to within half a gram is plenty accurate and not worth obsessing over. — 00:07:07
  • ★★ James Hoffmann gives the coffee beans a quick mist of water before grinding to prevent static building up. — 00:07:07
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says rinsing the paper filter with hot tap water removes any papery flavour, though the step can be skipped. — 00:08:11
  • ★ Ali left his coffee equipment in Cambridge when he moved to London. — 00:08:40 · London, Cambridge
  • ★★★ James Hoffmann: With the Clever Dripper, James Hoffmann puts the boiling water in first and then the coffee, stirs so all the grounds are wet, and starts a timer. — 00:08:40
  • ★★★ James Hoffmann says brewing by immersion, as in the Clever Dripper, is pretty hard to get wrong. — 00:09:09
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says an immersion brew, like a French press, still tastes fine if left to steep two, three or even ten minutes, while pour-overs are fussier about timing. — 00:09:32
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says a Clever Dripper brew might take four minutes in total, but you are active for only about 30 seconds of it. (hedged) — 00:10:02
  • ★★ James Hoffmann steeps the Clever Dripper for two minutes, stirs or swirls it, and waits about 30 seconds more before draining it into the mug. — 00:10:44
  • ★ During lockdown in Cambridge Ali often showed his Chemex brewing in his vlogs. — 00:11:23 · Cambridge

00:11:53 — What the setup costs and where the money should go

  • ★★★ James Hoffmann says the grinder should be the biggest expense of a coffee setup: with the coffee itself it matters most for quality, and a better grinder gives a sweeter, less bitter cup. — 00:12:22
  • ★★ James Hoffmann: The grinder James Hoffmann chose for Ali costs £300, while a coffee grinder can cost £3,000. — 00:12:22
  • ★★ James Hoffmann recommends a burr grinder with cutting discs, ideally motorised. — 00:12:22
  • ★★★ James Hoffmann says a £300 grinder is a definite jump in quality and still good value, but above about £500 a grinder for filter coffee runs into diminishing returns. — 00:13:09
  • ★★ Ali's YouTube channel has nearly reached 3 million subscribers. — 00:13:09
  • ★★ James Hoffmann: The Acaia Pearl smart scales James Hoffmann gave Ali cost £170. — 00:14:09
  • ★★ James Hoffmann calls the Acaia Pearl the best coffee scales there are, with the most features, from a good company. — 00:14:09
  • ★★★ James Hoffmann says you do not need to spend as much as the Acaia Pearl on scales; he chose them to future-proof Ali's setup as the last set he should ever need. — 00:14:46
  • ★★ James Hoffmann: The Clever Dripper costs about £23 and lasts forever, with nothing to change out. — 00:15:16
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says a water filter is not essential where the water is good, but in a hard-water area like London it makes a big difference to coffee. — 00:15:45 · London
  • ★★ James Hoffmann says Ali could brew with this setup for the rest of his life without missing out on people who brew with really expensive equipment. — 00:16:14
  • ★★ Ali says he will make brewing coffee with the Clever Dripper part of his morning routine. — 00:16:14

00:16:58 — Hoffmann's book; two weeks later Ali is sold on freshly ground coffee

  • ★★ James Hoffmann's book How to Make the Best Coffee at Home comes out on 18 August 2022. — 00:16:58
  • ★★★ After two weeks of making coffee with the setup every morning, Ali is sold on freshly ground, freshly made coffee done properly. — 00:16:58
  • ★★ Ali says the instant coffee and Nescafe he used to drink now tastes absolutely grim to him. — 00:17:28
  • ★★ Ali's Deep Dive podcast interview with James Hoffmann is about entrepreneurship, toxic productivity and hustle culture. — 00:17:28 · Deep Dive

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Clever Dripper · Fellow Ode Brew Grinder · James Hoffmann

Also: Projects: Deep Dive

Works: How to Make the Best Coffee at Home

Organizations: Dishoom

Concepts: diminishing returns

Places: Cambridge · India · London

Products: Acaia Pearl · Chemex · Nescafe

Also centred on Clever Dripper: The BEST Way to Make Coffee

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