In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

The box

The Clover

Our Clover is finally here! We’re excited to be the first importer to add this fantastic tool to our cupping lab. We’ve been roasting up a ton of different coffees and exploring the possibilities. Here are some initial observations:

-- The Clover is built like a tank. Even the instruction manual is stainless steel. I love the machined drip tray. This machine is built to last.

-- The Clover is sensitive. Like a precision-tuned automobile, you've got to have some skills if you really want to get Clover's piston pumping. Okay, forgive the terrible analogy. What I mean is, that you the user are in control of the brew. The machine is stable and will churn out repeatable results cup after cup, but it’s up to the user to dial in the brew. This is a positive attribute for our lab. This means however, that if you just slap some coffee into the Clover, you won't be tasting it's full potential. In fact, I’ve already made some not-so-great swill out of some very nice coffees while messing about with the settings. Granted, we’ve found that within a certain general window of parameters, the coffee tastes really good, but for a truly euphoric coffee experience, some experimentation is needed. Think of it as a tweaked-out espresso machine for drip coffee. Even two seconds in dwell time can produce perceptible changes in the cup. A little time spent tweaking reaps amazing rewards.

-- The Clover’s greatness is at least partially subjective. Okay, so I'm still a little starry-eyed. I think this is a fantastic break-through for the high-end specialty market, so I'll temper my enthusiasm by admitting that the Clover's greatness may be partially subjective. The Clover has its own unique flavor “profile”, which is one I really like, but should be thought of as one really good way to brew coffee and not necessarily a replacement for traditional methods (even though I’m not missing cleaning up the mess of my usual press pot). Of course, a vac pot, pour over brewer, and press pot are all capable of making great coffee, and I enjoy them all. But the Clover is just so dang convenient. Part of the Clover’s strength lies in its instant and convenient control over brewing parameters and speedy execution.

So after a week of Clover coffee, initial impressions from everyone here are highly positive. I think the Clover will prove to be a wonderful lab tool, and has already proven quite useful in a couple of our cuppings. We look forward to continuing our extraction education. Look for continued Clover coverage in the future, including a comparison of multiple brewing methods, including the Clover.

- posted by Jamin Haddox