The Boise Weekly recently posted a great article about pour-over coffee in the Boise area. I’d like to throw in a few thoughts for consideration and thank them for promoting the local coffee scene.
When I started this blog in 2009, I was a high school student with very little experience in coffee. I worked at a local Boise drive-thru coffee shop during my sophomore and junior years of high school, and I trecked around Boise checking out what local coffee had to offer. In those not-so-long-ago days there were two primary methods of brewing coffee in Boise: espresso and drip. My first foray into new coffee territory was when I purchased my Aeropress as a college freshman in 2011. The Aeropress is a unique brewer because it’s not quite pour-over, but it definitely is not espresso and brews a better cup than standard drip machines. I began researching new methods of brewing coffee, and this led me to experimenting with pour-over coffee in 2012, starting with the Clever immersion/pour-over combo device, and eventually the Hario v60.
In my opinion, nothing is quite like coffee brewed using a pour-over technique. Making a great cup of pour-over coffee requires dedication and persistence. The method matters: everything from the type of kettle you use to the style of pour, the length of pour, the temperature of the brewing device and the cup, and especially the grind of the beans. That’s why I’m always thankful when coffee shops with expert baristas offer pour-over coffee. I know that they know what they’re doing, and it’s always impressive to see their experienced hands at work. I’ve had great cups everywhere from Seattle to New York.
But, strangely, my growth into appreciating pour-over coffee has not been matched in Boise. The coffee community is largely stuck in the same place they were when I left town for college: espresso and drip. According to the Boise Weekly article, this may be changing.
The District Coffee House and Neckar Coffee now offer coffee brewed using the pour-over method. The article does a great job of outlining their process and why they believe that pour-over offers something completely absent in the Boise coffee community so far. My hope is that other coffee houses like Dawson’s Downtown and the Flying M will follow this same path – their locally roasted coffee would taste wonderful coming out of a Chemex or a v60.
My call is that the scene is beginning to change and soon pour-over coffee will be in every coffee shop and cafe in the Boise area. This will do wonders for pushing locally-roasted coffee back to the front and will ultimately benefit the community as a whole. The more people experience this unique and delicious style of brewing, the less they will desire to purchase from large chains like Starbucks, Dutch Bros, and Thomas Hammer. And while the huge chains do the service of selling comfortable coffee that meets expectations, when people taste great coffee that blows expectations out of the water they will never want to go back.
Dawson’s Downtown has a bumper sticker in the back of their store behind the counter that says “friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks.” My hope is that the Boise coffee scene will pursue pour-over coffee to give people one less reason to spend their money on bad coffee.
The Coffee Guy
Links:
Boise Weekly Article
The District Coffee House
Neckar Coffee Company
