Small Beehouse Ceramic Dripper

Beehouse is a Japanese company that is perhaps best known for their ergonomic ceramic teapots. They also make ceramic coffee drippers, in a small and a large size. The drippers are wedge shaped and have two small holes in the bottom. The small takes #1 or #2 filters, while the larger model takes a #2 or #4. I use the large for 750 mL batches, and like the small at around 200-250 mL.

The small beehouse is very adept at making small cups of coffee for one. The comparable Kalita--which has holes roughly the same size as those of the Beehouse, but three of them--drains faster and is at its best, in my experience, when making 12 oz. or so of coffee. The small Beehouse's sweetspot is smaller, and really shines at around 8 oz. Slower flow-rate and all.

I like it best with a medium-coarse grind and a 3:00-3:00 brewtime.

To get that kind of dwell-time when pouring only 8 oz. of water, I actually want to clog the filter a little bit. This is easily accomplished by "mudsliding" the grounds, hitting the edges to make sure that the coffee bed is flat. This slows things down to what I think is the best contact time.

The drippers run $15 and are great for someone looking to make a single cup of coffee. I much prefer the results out of this to anything I've gotten out of the Aeropress, metal-, paper-, or cloth-filtered.