The Royal Coffee Maker - coffee making equipment - Brief Article

Whole Earth, Summer, 2002

$368 plus $15 shipping and handling
Royal Accoutrements
172 W. Sherwood Road
Okemos, MI 48864
800/546-8394, 517/347-7983
store.yahoo.com/royalcoffeemaker/index

When I attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon in the early 1980s, Reedies made regular pilgrimages to Huber's, a stuffy downtown leather-and-wood bar populated by lawyers entertaining other lawyers. What drew us back time and again was the spectacular display performed by the waiters when making Spanish coffee--it involved flames and pouring liquids from great heights into tiny cups, as well as a beautiful tray upon which this was all performed. It was utterly enchanting, more than worth the four dollars for the cup of coffee.

All these elements are also a part of the display of the "balancing syphon" coffee maker, minus the exotic tuxedoed waiters. The entertainment value here is poetic--the anticipation of the heated water pouring into the glass beaker, the lid of the bunsen burner snapping shut as the kettle tilts, extinguishing the flame, the brewed coffee being sucked back through the vacuum tube into the copper kettle, it's all in the visuals. Plus, the coffee is good.

Royal Accoutrements is not pretending at modernity. Their balancing syphon is a reproduction of ones used by the monarchy of nineteenth-century Vienna. It is coffee brewing as performance art, designed to draw a crowd.

The balancing syphon we reviewed is made with copper fittings. It can be purchased with a demitasse serving set, and is also available in silver or gold plate.

--SGS