Bitter Press

Coffee, yo.

Reviews: Coava’s Kone Filter




I’ve been listening lately to the Planet Money podcast, in which they have been talking a little about American manufacturing. After visiting a button maker and a place that manufactures connectors (those little gold pieces of whatever that connect different components on circuit boards), the Planet Money team found that American manufacturing mainly succeeds in the case where innovation and intellectual design come into play. This means — the button company? Out-bid by Chinese button factories. The connector factory? Dedicated to fabricating and producing new connector technology developed by their R&D side, and successful.

We’re getting somewhere with this, I promise.

What the podcast didn’t cover, however, was niche-market manufacturing. Small-scale production just doesn’t register with national economic indicators, so overlooked it went. And if there’s one industry that loves small scale niche-market manufacturing, it’s the goddamned world of high end coffee.


Whether or not you want to include hand-built espresso machines in the category of manufacturing, we’ve got companies every day trying to find a new product, or way of looking at a product, and turning that into a fabricated reality. Examples? Pour-over stands and drip trays, tampers, pour-kettle flow-restrictors, etc. While most of these companies are dedicated to improving existing technologies, the ones that reinterpret the game are the ones that everyone is excited about.

I’m talking, right now, about Coava’s K-one (Kone) stainless steel, conical filter for Chemex (and sort of V60 as well).



Now some people might say that this is just a reinterpretation of the Swiss Gold basket that drip makers have. I say phooey. Those baskets are a fine metal mesh. The Kone is something different altogether. It’s a single sheet of stainless steel that’s been wrapped into a cone shape, and has a strange array of holes punched through it at different intervals.

Marrow has a good rundown of the design, but here are some important excerpts to know:

The design is entirely custom, and the CAD drawings were drafted by a local engineer and submitted to a manufacturer on the East Coast. The stainless steel is sourced from Ohio and the filter’s holes are created by photochemical etching. The process creates a taper in the holes; the holes are bigger on the outside and smaller on the inside.


They also talk about how the Kone tapers quicker than the sides of the Chemex, so coffee can exit the filter whenever it deems necessary. This is a point of contention in pour-over brewing. Some people like the fact that water has to travel to the zenith on a Chemex filter to exit. Some people like the fact that water can exit easier through the sides of the V60.


I like the fact that pour-over style brewing can deliver a delicious cup of coffee.

Before we start discussing the potential environmental impact this has on coffee brewing, let’s talk about the results.

I’ve used the Kone with my standard Chemex and V60 brewing specs, and what it delivered made me rethink the way coffee can be brewed. I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass. It’s true.

The first Chemex brew I had with it had me swearing aloud to an empty living room —Fuck that’s good! — and if you’ve ever had the urge to yell obscenities to yourself and the reproduction mid-century modern furniture your wife picked out, then you might understand how good this coffee was (or maybe you’re just going crazy [and maybe this metaphor is too abstract]).

The profile was reminiscent of a Cafe Solo — a very “natural” cup that rings true of the flavors experienced in a cupping, but at the same time it was different. While the body and fullness of the coffee’s essence was there more than I expected, there was a singingly present acidity and brightness that I usually attribute to the Chemex’s thick oxidized filters.

Which means that — holy shitballs — maybe it’s not only the filter that helps highlight a coffee’s acidity when brewing a Chemex. Maybe there’s something else to it.

Like the hybrid of a device that it is, a hybrid cup profile it presented, and replicable it was. Chemex number two was the same business.

V60? Now that’s when this gets interesting. It was very reminiscent of, well, a V60 brew. I haven’t had the chance to play around with it as much on the V60 as I’d like to, but whatever, right? It works, it was delicious, but it wasn’t mind-bendingly different. Will have to explore that in the future.

One last note and then we can talk about sustainability, all right?

All right.

What blew me away more than anything, I think, was the way in which the filter mimicked the flow rate of paper brewing. While the flow is technically a bit faster than with a standard paper brew, the way that the pour reacted was very paper like. This is due to the hole pattern etched out instead of just a mesh filter design.


In all honesty, it reminds me of a portafilter basket. You want enough holes to allow for flow, not too many to restrict flow for a better brew time. And in the bottom of the brew? A limited amount of sediment. It’s true — the least amount of sediment I’ve seen in an metal filter style brew.

Okay, now for all you hippies out there, sustainability.

Coffee filters are bio-degradable. You can compost them right in there with the coffee. But disposal isn’t the aspect of coffee filters that’s the problem. The problem is paper. Paper which comes from trees. Trees which have to be farmed. It takes a while for a tree to mature, as well, to be able to harvested and turned into lumber/paper. While we’ve made some steps in the logging industry to replenish our forests (and swamp loggers — I salute you!), the Kone will definitely help you sleep well at night.

It’s reusable! Over and over again you can brew with it!

Except…

It’s a stainless, reusable filter. Which means clean it. No, I’m serious. One of the great advantages of paper filters is that they offer a quick clean up, and keep your equipment from getting gummed up with oils. I hadn’t thought of this, so on my third Chemex brew with the Kone, whammo: bad french press tastes.

I hadn’t experienced that in years. I’ve long since given up dirty, gross french presses for the easier to clean and less-agitated Cafe Solo. The taste of rancid coffee oil locked in a filter screen is a thing of the past. But I experienced it again with the half-cleaned Kone.

And your Chemex, too. With a paper filter, most oils don’t make it to the bottom of the Chemex. Now they do. Hot water rinses aren’t going to do the trick. Invest in some Urnex/Cafiza/Full Circle or whatevs to keep your equipment clean.

Also? Found out that the Kone is dishwasherable. I probably wouldn’t recommend throwing it in the dishwasher, but if you aren’t paying attention when loading your dishwasher, then yeah, it won’t fall apart.

To be honest, I haven’t properly given the Kone the full treatment to be able to say that yes, without a doubt, 100% this is the best idea since we decided to abandon the percolator.

But I will say is that I decided to write this review because of the absolute potential that the Kone possesses. Who cares if this thing is your favorite new brew device? What truly matters is that it’s worthy to be thrown into the arena.

What arena is that, you ask?

Why, the coffee argument arena, of course! Every brew device that we use (and especially recently invented ones [see: Clever, Aeropress]) is subject to months or even years of hot words, slander, undulating praise, and sheer vitriol.

The truth is, we have no clue what we’re doing. Oh, we have an idea, sure. But I’ve examined brew concepts for years thinking one thing, only to hear a dissenting opinion and change my mind completely. Now I’d like to think that I have a clear idea about what’s going on with my coffee brewing. I mean, I do it professionally, day in and day out. So when I say “Kone, yes!” I mean it.

Will someone prove me wrong? Doubtful. It’s great. I love it. I think you will too. But someone will probably try to prove me wrong. And that’s what I’m most excited for. Dissenting opinions about brew methods breed innovation. And innovation is what drives the coffee industry forward.

Innovation, perhaps, like designing and manufacturing a stainless steel, reusable filter for Chemex, with which I brewed the best tasting cup of coffee I’ve had at home in about five or six months.

  1. bitterpress posted this