This article attempts to delve into the world of hand-brewed coffee, which became a trend in the professional barista world after Starbucks acquired the Coffee Equipment Company for its Clover Machine in 2008. The Clover was an $11,000 coffee maker that allowed for the precise digital control of every aspect of the brewing process. When Starbucks yanked the machine from the market for exclusive use in their stores, the coffee industry rebounded to more analog brewing methods that relied on the art and craft of the brewer. By providing pourover bars with $12 ceramic funnels in place of $50K espresso machines or $10K brewers, baristas strived for perfect coffee through individuality, as they highlighted method, bean, and flavor. What this article attempts to highlight is the fact that this hand-brewed coffee equipment is both accessible and affordable, thus allowing home brewers the opportunity to appreciate the effects of coffee freshness, grind, temperature, and proportion during the brewing process.

The article could be drastically improved by highlighting the bisection between immersion and pourover brewing methods in hand-brewed coffee. Immersion methods, like the French Press, leave all coffee beans in the full quantity of water for the brew time, and by using filters that remove only coffee grounds, produce a flavorful, full-bodied cup of coffee with natural oils. Pourover methods, such as the Chemex or the V60, generally combine the use of a paper filter with a specific coffee grind to limit the rate at which water flows through the coffee, generally in a cone-shape, which results in a "clean" (less oily) cup of coffee with more fruity and citrusy flavors. The line between immersion and pourover coffees is blurred by hybrid brewing methods such as the Aeropress or the Syphon, which mix ground beans and water for the full brewing time, then extrude through a filter that extracts oils from the coffee.

To get started in the world of hand-brewed coffee, I suggest the Aeropress and a burr handgrinder (total <$40). This combination allows full experimentation into the effects of grind size and extraction time on coffee flavor. The next step would be acquiring a scale, to perfect the proportion of coffee and water. A thermometer would then provide insight into the variable of water temperature, which generally is about ten degrees Farenheit below boiling. Moving forward, the brewer learns about the benefits of preheating the device, the speed of extraction (here, plunging) and its effect on flavor, and about the freshness of beans based on the bloom period of the coffee.