The Chemex

This is part of a new, occasional series in which we take a look at the icons of coffee, the classics in the field. These will be part review, part technique, part history and story.

I hope you enjoy it!

Music:
"Luxury" by Mullaha

Links:

Neewer Products I Use:

[mikevithek]

I’m going to be completely honest with you folks. You ever get so depressed and borderline suicidal that your escape is finding something new to be completely engrossed in and passionate about? For me that’s coffee. This guys YouTube channel has given me a coping mechanism during this damn quarantine that I have desperately needed. Also I get to drink phenomenal coffee now so that’s also cool. Thanks.

[jordan]

in case anyone's looking for it:

30g beans to 500g water.
Grind your beans, boil your water.
Put the paper filter into your chemex (3 folds towards the spout)
Rinse filter with boiling water, dump the water.
Add grounds, make a divot in the middle. Place on scale and zero it out.
0:00 Add 60-90g water and stir to wet all the grounds, let it bloom.
0:45 Begin adding water in a circular motion, breaking up any clumps. Goal is 300g total water by 1:15
1:15 should have 300g total water added by now. Goal is 500g total by 1:45
1:45 hit 500g in, use a spoon to give a good stir clockwise, and then another counter clockwise
2:00 give the chemex a little shake
4:10 drawdown complete. toss filter, swirl your coffee, and pour

[mattyg_hd]

One of my favorite things about the chemex is that it's materiality directly reflects the time that it was designed in. 1943 America was not allowing for the use of metal in almost anything except for the war effort, so product designers had to get creative with what was left over. Three materials that were fair game were glass, wood, and leather.

[ronaldmaloney]

I bought my Chemex almost 25 years ago at a coffee shop in Hoboken NJ. I'd lived in Hoboken immediately after graduating from college, and at the end of my block was this store front that seemed to cycle through stores and owners unusually rapidly. Nothing really took. I loved Hoboken, but hated my roommate, so eventually I moved away. Came back to NYC for work a few years later, and swung by Hoboken. The empty store front was now Empire Coffee and Tea, and I was so pleased to see such a cool business in there that I went in and bought my Chemex. And I still have it, two and a half decades later. It's in very good shape! The glass is not scratched or chipped. Still has it's original wood collar. The leather strap finally broke a couple years ago, so I use a rubber band to keep the collar in place. It is easily the oldest piece of equipment in my kitchen. Any morning I am not at work, be it a weekend, a vacation day, a sick day, I am using that Chemex. It is the key component of my morning ritual anytime my morning is my own. I can't imagine my kitchen without it. I'd immediately get a new one if this one ever broke, but tat would be a very sad day.

[damjan]

I remember telling my grandma about my new super cool way of making coffee, when i showed her she laughed and said she used to have one in the 50's when my mum was a little kid who dropped it and smashed it.

[jannis]

James... Could you please finally start your career as a audiobook reader! Just start with an audio version of the coffee atlas 😁

[aemaramathews]

I don't currently drink coffee, but I've gone on a bit of (really, a lot of) a rabbit hole watching these videos. I absolutely love them, and James has made me seriously consider getting into coffee as a hobby. If I did, I think I would start on the classic Chemex, and it would be ENTIRELY because of emotional attachment. I remember as a kid getting up early in the morning before the sun rose and finding my father making coffee using the Chemex. I had no idea what it was called until watching this video; all I knew was that that shape, those papers, the smell of the coffee, THAT was what coffee was. When I think of home-brewed coffee, the Chemex is what I think of. It's amazing that I've formed such a strong emotional association with it, even though I've never even tasted the coffee that comes from it!

[Kabz]

I love my Chemex. This quarantine turned me into a coffee fanatic. Crazy how many others have fallen into the same pattern

[samsowden]

You'd never think that was an 80 year old design

[andrewbarbour]

Rather than the chopstick - I use one of those bent stainless steel straws with regular coffee filters. You just put the bent bit over the lip of the brewer and it basically just hangs and doesn't reach the bottom. Works like a charm.

[pmbrig]

I started using a Chemex way back in the 1970s, hand-grinding my beans (hard to find whole beans back then). I think I figured out the trick of rotating the filter so the 3-layer side covered the pouring channel myself, but it's possible the directions that came with the Chemex mentioned it. This was all back in the days when a cup of coffee in the Boston area was at best a thin translucent brown liquid, at worst boiled and reboiled in a percolator for hours. My father had always drunk strong Medaglia d'Oro so I knew that there were alternatives. Chemex was my savior. It was really the only thing around at that point, but it was terrific. I had that glass carafe for years.

[---dfsr]

I put a little glass straw (got off ebay) down that little groove when brewing to avoid the airlock whilst using standard size paper. Works a treat

[mickreynolds]

Love how at 8:50, he gently reminds us to "be mindful of the gap, " effortlessly classing up a classic British saying. Lovely, James. Just lovely.

[dianebonneau]

Aesthetically, the proportions and angles are perfection in the original. The collar creates an attractive mid point focus. Love it

[michaelcloresandersm.d.]

I have been brewing with a Chemex for only 1 month and I love it! My morning ritual with my Comandante, Mayorga Cafe Cubano, scale and Chemex is such a pleasure. Now that I am retired, I look forward to it each day. Many tips I use, I got from your videos. Thank you.

[JoeFrogz]

There’s just something fundamentally attractive about natural wood against glass like that too.

[hotwhiskey]

So heartening to hear such fond sentiments about something so timeless.
My father poured devotional Chemex coffee from the brink of the 1960's, before my head reached the countertop, well on into his dementia 55 years later, making brilliant Kenya coffee from Zabar's beans, relying on religiously ingrained muscle memory. My dad Max was an atheist, yet he worshiped at that hourglass altar.

And what a lovely sense of resurrection in this thread; I thought Chemex has been passed by as a flawed beauty...

[macsarcule]

It looks great because it’s so cleanly filtered with that chemistry filter paper. It sparkles like a diamond. I love my chemex, but I’m not a chemex-only. It’s one of several brew methods I love 🙂

[straightAfilms]

I am a huge fan of coffee brewers such as this one because there aren’t as many moving parts to maintain and the water in my area can be a bit hard. Therefore, the less places for scale build up, the better the coffee make is in my opinion!

[FrogRider]

I was wondering when this video would happen. Chemex was what started my coffee journey over a decade and a half ago and it’s still with me now. Thanks for the great video James!