Patience & Coffee: Why Slow Brewing Matters

In this episode, I dive deep into my experience with the Oxo brewer, a slow brewing device that has completely changed my perspective on coffee extraction and patience. I share how I've been using this brewer for about a month and a half, and the valuable lessons it has taught me about working within constraints to create exceptional coffee. I explore the concept of slow brewing and how it differs from the fast filters that dominate today's coffee scene.

I discuss four key insights I've gained from using the Oxo brewer: how slower doesn't mean worse but rather less forgiving, how slow brews demand your attention and mindfulness, how they serve as excellent teachers for understanding extraction, and how they can highlight balance and body in ways that faster brewing methods often miss. Listeners will learn about the importance of grind size optimization for slow brewers, the value of patience in coffee brewing, and how embracing constraints can lead to better coffee and deeper self-understanding. Whether you're a seasoned coffee enthusiast or someone looking to slow down and appreciate the nuances of coffee brewing, this episode offers practical insights and philosophical reflections on the art of making coffee.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:07 Understanding Slow vs Fast Brewing
• 2:14 Coffee Variables and Brewing Fundamentals
• 3:20 Comparing Oxo to Bonavita Drip Brewer
• 4:30 Lesson 1: Slower Doesn't Mean Worse
• 6:00 Lesson 2: Slow Brews Demand Attention
• 7:09 Lesson 3: Teaching Extraction Principles
• 8:36 Lesson 4: Highlighting Balance and Body

Transcript

[00:00:00] We live right now. Today is Tuesday, 20th, 2025. We're doing pretty good right now. I hope you're doing pretty good right now. We're just talking, doing our thing and loving life. This is of course a coffee podcast, so we're going to be talking about coffee.

[00:00:26] I know if you've really been introduced to this brewer in particular. It's actually called an Oxo brewer. It's kind of like a newer brewer. Well, it's new to me. It may be new to you. You may not even put it on your radar for various reasons. I'll get into, but I've been using it for about a month and a half. I've been appreciating this brewer quite a bit. It's taught me a lot of things. I've been talking about subtlety and how it matters, how it doesn't matter, and how we can get down with understanding ourselves a little bit more as we go down this path to our coffee journey.

[00:01:07] So in this case, we're talking about slow brewers. It's very slow. It's never really slow on the entry. Most brewers, you can dump essentially all the coffee in there that you want, if you wanted to do it that way. But it's really more so about the exit. Most brewers that we usually deal with in this day and age, they have a decent size opening at the bottom. Some have really big holes. Some have medium-sized holes. Some of them have multiple holes. Some of them have a big opening to where the water can land into your cup.

[00:01:56] Because brewing is really simple. Coffee up top, water up top, coffee in the middle, coffee up top, water up top. Put the water in. It does its thing, goes through the bed of coffee. Now we're left with coffee. Now we're left with what we love as coffee. So something like that. Coffee grounds, water, and then what comes out is coffee. It's really that simple. But we're very fortunate in this world to where we can experience and do different things as we try to understand this whole coffee thing. What I mean by that is that there's so many different variables. They do have an effect to an extent. But at the end of the day, the coffee still tastes the way it tastes.

[00:02:45] So I guess what I'm really saying here is that we really dive into deeply into coffee, what it is, how it's awesome, now we get to talk about different layers and understanding of what we like about coffee, what we don't like about coffee. It's been like this for some time now to where there's a lot of fast filters, fast brewers, and they're all great. They have their own place in the whole scheme of things. But I believe that this type of brewer has its place too.

[00:03:20] Really, the first time I was introduced to something like this was in the Bonavita Drip Brewer. They don't make it anymore. It's a very heavy brewer. I actually have one and it's in the back. Let me go get it real quick to help demonstrate. The thing about this particular brewer is that it has another very small hole. It is not as pronounced a small hole as this one right here. This Oxo dripper, it's slightly bigger, but it's pretty cool because I've used it in immersion and drip. I like the fact that it just has that one hole. It's very small, so it controls the flow of the water coming out. So that means that the contact time of the coffee to the bed is going to be a lot longer compared to other drippers that have a bigger exit.

[00:04:30] A lot of times too, I can look it up. I'm sure there are some trapezoidal type of filters that are faster filters. But again, you're still limited by this actual constraints of this brewer. First I was just a V60 person, which I still am. But I guess what I'm getting at is that I realized a couple lessons that I do want to talk about here the whole realm of slowing down and enjoying your coffee and building with the constraints that you have when you're actually making your cup of coffee. Because nothing's going to be perfect. There's going to be upsides, there's going to be downsides to anything that we do actually when it comes to coffee brewing. We have to kind of mitigate those or try to take the goods and the bads.

[00:05:10] At the end of the day, that's all we're really trying to do to try to make the best cup of coffee that we can with the parameters and constraints that we're dealing with. And it's a lot. I guess what I'm saying is that shy away from the constraints. Sometimes those constraints can bring the best out of the coffee and help you out to understand yourself. Yes, I said yourself, you're understanding yourself in coffee. So talk about a couple of the points as I've learned so far with this brewer.

[00:05:36] One, slower doesn't mean worse. It means less forgiving. That's very true. With this brewer in particular, I wouldn't recommend you to go as fine as possible. I think this brewer is the perfect brewer for anybody who's really trying to maximize the coarseness and flavors that you get out of coffee at a coarser grind. What I mean by that is that if you put finer coffee in here, it's going to choke it. It's going to be a lot longer contact time. Then it's easier for it to actually extract the coffee. However, you may extract it too much. That's a different way of looking at it, especially when you're trying to understand or analyze coffee for what it is. I say that more so for a medium and dark roast. For a lighter roast, you can probably still stay as coarse as possible and still bring out the best of the coffee. But you can go a little bit if you wanted to for a lighter roast, just because it's more forgiving and extraction levels and you won't really taste or experience the bitterness that you get from a medium and a dark roast when you push the coffee. But again, we're talking about coarseness. Coarseness is a very important thing because to me, it allows you to really actually taste your coffee.

[00:06:53] So brews demand you to pay attention. I believe that too. You have to watch how fast it comes out of the bag. You have to look at the chemistry, the way things are. You have to probably put time on it, but time here doesn't matter as much as people like to think it does. You just have to just see what the coffee is doing at that time. Then of course you're going to taste it and then you're going to adjust your grind size from there. You're going to go slightly coarser or slightly finer. You know, there's not too many variables that you have really when it comes to this whole especially in this type of way. Because again, you're limited by how fast it comes out. That's kind of like the thing that you have to be mindful of and just slow down and just realize that your brew is going to take a little bit longer than other brews. That doesn't necessarily means that it's going to be bad. It's just going to be different. I think you're going to be nicely rewarded if you just play the patient's game.

[00:07:56] I do believe they are great for teaching you about extractions. You know, you can easily kind of see through mainly the grind. You can play around with the temperature and water chemistry, but mainly through the grind, how that affects the extraction level of the coffee, what you're actually tasting. All brewers do that to an extent, to tell you truth. But this one since it's so slow, it's very curated. You have to like experience it for what it is. Then when you do that, you're like, oh. So if I just change this one variable, I'm going to get a different profile of a taste of the coffee. You know, makes you kind of think a little bit. That makes any sense.

[00:08:41] Number four. Slow brews can highlight balance and body. I will say that if you get it right, because again, there's still a dance here. You have to get it right. If you get it right, it's going to be balanced. The body's going to be spectacular. It's going to be exactly where you want it to be. It's going to be tasty. It's going to be all the elements, things that you like about coffee, or probably haven't really experienced in coffee because no better way to enjoy your coffee when doing the work. All you're doing is just changing one to two variables. It's less about you. It's more about what this particular brewer can do for you with the constraints that it has that you have to follow, no matter what.

[00:09:41] Look at that. That's a very small hole. It really is. I think that's the key to this brewer, making your cup of coffee balance. A lot of times we get so carried away about two minutes, two and a half minutes, fast brews and all that stuff. And they have a place. They really do have a place in this whole of coffee brewing. But small hole me is legendary. It teaches you about patience. It teaches you that less about you, which is kind of cool. Because a lot of times we think it's about us. We think it's about the way we pour, the way we want the coffee to be manipulated. But we can manipulate to an extent, but at the end of the day, we're constrained. Think about that in the whole realms of life. We can do as much as we want to do. So we have to kind of go about it differently. I didn't want this to be a whole coming of age type of thing with coffee. Sometimes it does do that, it is what it is. like I said, when you get it right, know it. You just sit there, enjoy your coffee and just experience it for what it is. Then sit there and not really worry about anything else. It was less about you.

[00:10:34] I think this brewer for me me is that it's less about me. Yes, I'm in control. I'm the one who's actually making a coffee. I'm the one who's taking my time in order to prepare it the best way that I can with the knowledge that I do have, with the experience that I have gained over time. Sandwich you. You're going to go through that too. But at the end of the day, it's the constraints that makes this whole device magical. This one hall right here is the key to everything in this cup of Joe, cup of coffee, cup of brewer, whatever that you may think that this is.

[00:11:06] So that's what I got for you. Let me know what you think. Do you have a brewer like this? Do you have another brewer that is probably not the same shape, but has the same type right here to help you out in order for you to slow down your brew? Not so much artificially, but with the constraints that it actually has physically. So this is Okey at Everyday Beans signing off. I'll talk to you later. Bye.