Coffee Crawl: Understanding Pour Over Coffee

It was not until I came to college that I realized how prevalent coffee has become in our day to day lives. We wake up, craving coffee. We spend time with friends, grabbing coffee. We survive the day after an all-nighter, drinking coffee. Simply, coffee has become more than an energy booster. It is a tradition with a culture of its own; expressing itself through fashion, music, lifestyle, gastronomy, art, design and more.

Exciting as it might sound, however, coffee culture can be intimidating, especially when faced with a selection where the only item you recognize is a cappuccino. I can’t even tell you how many times I ordered a hot chocolate instead of a coffee because I was too scared to keep a line of caffeine-deprived coffee heads waiting to ask about the difference between an aero press and a syphon. 

This is why I created “Coffee Crawl”—a guide that will take you through the intricate and interesting corners of coffee culture, so you don’t have to stick to hot chocolate (nothing against hot chocolate, I do love a good cup of cocoa). I hope this series will serve as a roadmap for all your caffeinated escapades, making your daily coffee more than just a cup that gets you through the day. 

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The Pour Over

The first stop on our Coffee Crawl is the “Pour Over,” a coffee that my friend described as “insulting and confusing” because it’s twice as expensive as the “drip” coffee at Plein Air even though it looks the same. I completely understand the frustration, the look of the coffee doesn’t do it justice; however, when it comes to taste, that is a whole different story. Compared to the drip coffee that you can simply make at home by pressing a button on your coffee maker, a pour over is manually brewed, requiring significantly more time and skill for which you get a morning cup with a whole new depth of flavor that your Nespresso could never give in return. 

A Bit of History

Before explaining the magical process behind this brewing technique it might be interesting to know that the pour over is nothing new. In fact, it’s been around for more than a century thanks to a German lady named Melitta Bentz who got sick of drinking bitter and muddy unfiltered instant coffee. To get rid of the unpleasant sludgy and thick texture she hated so much, Melitta went against the coffee mainstream of her time and started drinking her coffee poured over a brass pot with holes and a paper on top. The paper would catch all the freely floating coffee powder, leaving her cup cleaner and less bitter. Sharing this technique with her friends and community, Melitta slowly started changing the global coffee scene to a point when even the so-called Viennese café intellectuals switched from their adored rough black sludge to the Bentz filter.

The original Bentz pour over “brass pot”, 1910

Pour Over Now

Funnily enough, not much changed since Melitta’s days. Her approach to coffee is, in fact, what grounds our ever-changing coffee drinking society into tradition. We still prepare coffee the same way she did— we take a filter paper, put it into our pot of choice, throw in coffee grounds and pour in hot water. The only difference is that now we use prettier and more refined brass pots to do so. The ones you will see around the most are Chemex, V60, and Hario Switch; the others, I would say, are designed for first league coffee enthusiasts, and you will probably never see them on a coffee shop menu. 

 For those interested, here is a quick run down of the three “main” brewers.

Chemex

A sleek hourglass design that self regulates the contact with water and the beans.

Produces the lightest tasting coffee.

V60

A spiraled brewer that makes every coffee ground count.

Produces the clearest coffee without filter paper flavor— very common with other brewing methods.

Hario Switch

Looks like a V60 but has silicone base for immersion brewing (water soaks and mixes with the beans instead of passing straight through).

Produces a rich dark flavor and a smooth thick texture.

And for those that are a little less enthusiastic but still want to know why it’s worth to pay $2 more for a cup of simple black pour over coffee, the main take away is that a pour over will give you a lighter and smoother coffee taste without the grittiness of unfiltered coffee—which I think worth every extra cent.

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For an Uncommon Study Space, Check out Build Coffee

As midterms draw to a close and hours in the Reg start to tick away, yo might appreciate a change of scenery for busting through psets or hammering out essays. Allow me to suggest Build Coffee, your new favorite caffeine station and pleasantly aesthetic workspace.

Located at 61st and Blackstone, Build sells delicious, decently priced coffee and, as an extra bonus, used books and local publications. Don't be fooled by its unassuming location—Build is located in the Experimental Station in an innocuous brick building just south of campus. It shares its space with the Invisible Institute, a longform journalism initiative with a social justice bent as well as the South Side Weekly. Head there next time you've got a chunk of reading to do, are looking for excellent local journalism workshops (Thursdays from 6-8pm!), or are just craving a carefully made cardamom rose latte. 

All photos via Build's website; Feature gif via

Want Better Skin, Hair, and Nails? Start Your Morning Right

While the age-old adage says breakfast is the most important meal of the day, let’s face it, eating breakfast, let alone a healthful breakfast, often proves challenging. Many people resort to a cup of coffee and get on with the day or feel trapped by quick, often sugary breakfast options. Vital Proteins Collagen Creamer provides a quick solution to skipping out on breakfast while bringing flavor and protein to your cup of joe.

Two scoops of creamer come packed with 10 grams of protein—almost as much as two eggs, but without the dirty dishes that come with frying or scrambling eggs in the morning. Vital Proteins creamers are made with coconut milk, making them dairy and lactose free, and contain no gluten. Additionally, the creamer contains no added sugars or sweeteners, giving them flavors that do not overpower that of the coffee and allows for sweetness added according to the individual’s liking.

The creamer puts off an aromatic scent according to its flavor—vanilla, coconut, or gingerbread—without ruining the natural flavor of the coffee or tea. The coconut flavor smooths out a dark cup of coffee, but also adds a coconut tang at the end of every sip. While its most obvious function may be adding a nutritious boost to a hot drink, collagen creamer also has a place in any baker’s pantry. Incorporate a couple scoops to cookie and pastry batter, oatmeal, smoothies, or frappuccinos to add the healthful benefits of collagen to desserts and breakfast meals.

Collagen holds many health benefits aside from protein. As the most abundant protein in the body, collagen gives structure to hair, skin, nails, bones, ligaments and tendons. Adding collagen as a routine supplement to one’s diet helps strengthen connective tissue and keep skin healthy and glowing. Vital Proteins Collagen contains a unique 18 amino-acid blend, which includes 8 of 9 essential amino-acids that are not found in other sources of supplemental protein such as whey and casein. In addition to supporting connective tissue and skin health, these amino-acids aid in hair, nail, and gut health.

The flavor, benefits of collagen, and clean ingredients of Vital Proteins Collagen Creamer make it a worthwhile purchase, but its price certainly makes it a less accessible supplement. At $29 for a twelve serving container, the added collagen boost costs $2.42 per serving, almost as much as a cup of coffee itself. However, as a supplement that adds 140 calories per serving, or about half of a breakfast meal replacement, its cost almost balances out with that of a grab-n-go breakfast item.

As far as quality of collagen, Vital Proteins persists as a leading source of clean collagen protein. They source collagen from grass fed cattle in Brazil where laws prohibit the injection of rBGH, a hormone often injected into dairy cows to make them produce more milk, making the collagen source free of hormones from feed and outside sources. Vital Protein's most popular original Collagen Peptide supplement also acts as a great option for those looking to get the health benefits of collagen in their diets. Odorless and tasteless, the Collagen Peptides make a great addition to smoothies, baked goods, coffee, or even a glass of water.

Visit Vital Proteins website, here, for more of their products