Yeah, we went all in this time. Eight cases of Abid Clever Coffee Drippers are headed our way. They should be in next Friday, December 11 (not so coincidentally just in time for your holiday shopping!). To the best of our knowledge, we'll be the only outlet east of St. Louis and north of DC offering Abids for retail.
You've seen the Abid on our brew bar. Customers are loving Abid-brewed coffees and orders for Abids are now about 3x those for press pots, despite our using press pots for 5 years and Abids for only 5 months.
We still look at the Abid and think to ourselves, "What took so long for somebody to invent this thing?" If you're not yet familiar with it, pretty much all the Abid is is a larger Melitta drip cone with a plunger valve on the bottom (Abid calls it their "patented amazing shut-off filter").
But it's that valve that makes the Abid ingenious. Standard pourover cones like Melitta, Beehouse or Hario V60s give you limited control over steep time. As soon as you start pouring water over the grounds, brewed coffee will immediately begin to pour through the filter into your cup. Regulation of flow is only achieved through changing fineness of grind, timing your pouring or plugging up some of the holes.
On the opposite end of the brewing spectrum, a press pot gives you control over steep time, but unless you mod the filters to something finer than out-of-the-box, you're going to get a lot of fines in your cup (which make it sludgy). The Abid gives you the steep time of a press pot without the fines and sludge. The Abid accommodates any common #4 filter. We use Melitta bamboo, but any bleached or unbleached #4 filter or even a Swiss Gold cone will work.
The steeping is possible because Abid's plunger-valve stays closed until you put the brewer on top of your cup. Pour your water over the grounds and let it sit on the countertop until you're ready to drink. Combined with control of all other variables regarding water temperature, grind fineness or amount of coffee used and you've got complete control over how you want your cup brewed.
The only other brewing method that offers as much control is the much-ballyhooed Clover (which you can often find on eBay for the friendly price of $6,000 or more, plumbing not included).
Still not sure what the Abid is about? Come in and try a cup. Or watch this video* complete with a cheesy rendition of Ziggy Stardust.
Abid Clever Coffee Dripper from The Other Black Stuff on Vimeo.
Once they're here we'll be selling them for $16.00.
* Note: our Abid brew methods are a bit different than what's on this video. We'll give you a sheet with the method we follow, but the beauty of the Abid is that you can experiment on your own to customize exactly the way you want your cup to taste.
Comments