The First Clover in Michigan

    It only brews one cup at a time.
    It requires complete knowledge of the coffee being used.
    It will make you stop everything you’re doing to see it in action.
    
    A little over 2 years ago, I was invited to attend my second barista jam at the Ugly Mug Café in Ypsilanti, MI (hat tip: Zak & Erin) for an official introduction to the Clover. My first experience at The Mug was incredibly eye opening in both an educational sense as well as caffeinating. The event consisted of simple coffee cupping sessions, brew sessions, and latte art demos. There was also a four-hour trek home afterward. It was the drive to and fro that had me hesitating to return for a weekday evening coffee session until I contacted Zak to bow out gracefully. I told him I appreciated the offer to attend, but I was completely swamped with the weeks' roasting and was looking forward to some time to sleep before going back to the beans, Clover coffee or not. He understood my position and consoled me a little by saying that he himself was little skeptical of the Clover concept due its steep price of entry. Since I had no idea of the price, I asked what it cost.
“Eight” he said.

“Eight hundred dollars? That’s not bad at all” I replied.

“No Jack, Eight Thousand” (keep in mind this was the original machine before the operating and hardware upgrades- the current model runs $11,000).
    I was stunned. I immediately ran through the standard series of disbelief questions: How can they justify that?  Who’s going to be able to afford it? What are they smoking? Etc. etc.
After all the stammering I only had one thing to say: “I’ll be there.”
I grabbed two roasted samples from my cupping stash (a quarter pound of House Blend and a half pound of Brazil Beija Flor), gulped down a quick French Press, and met up with our resident home barista Jim for the ride down.  We arrived at The Mug in the early evening, were introduced to David Latourell from Clover, and went directly to the machine.

The basic pitch for the Clover goes like this:
    By combining a French Press and Vacuum Brewer into a retail-oriented single cup brewer, the Clover has the ability to bring about characteristics in coffee not found with any other brewing method. With precise temperature and volumetric water control, the roast, volume, grind consistency and steep time per coffee allow complete extraction of flavor to highlight cup quality. This technique of brewing does not replace any of the proven methods of coffee brewing, but rather creates its own new category known simply as Clover Coffee.

    David showed me how to operate the Clover paired with a Ditting KF804 grinder and I was off to the races. The first cup was a Full City Brazil Beija Flor, a cup profile infused with cocoa and nut tones accented by mild floral notes wrapped in an earthy body.  The second cup, our House Blend, a City Roast trio containing Colombia, Costa Rica, and the aforementioned Brazil known to produce a sweet and toasty body, followed by a big, dry finish. The cups were brewed back to back with a rinse in between, 200º F, 6oz. brews, dosed with roughly 15 grams of coffee (using a small measuring cup, no scale). The steeping time was not committed to memory. 

    The initial verdict? Fair. Each cup was quite close to what I was used to. No new pronouncements of flavors, no fireworks, just decent cups. This, however, does not tell the whole story about how I had to have a Clover. First and foremost, the coffees I used were ones that I knew inside and out. I didn’t just know these coffees. I MADE them. So my excitement did not come from the cups themselves, but the ease they were made with. I didn’t even try to make these cups taste good. All I did was try to outsmart a coffee brewer, and it refused to fail. So upfront, I was impressed. I knew with a little effort that these beans would be phenomenal out of the Clover. 

    I turned to David and said, “Sign me up.” A month later Clover took Best New Product at the SCAA show in North Carolina. Two weeks after that, we had our very own Clover awaiting installation in our cupping lab. Ever since, the machine has never failed to impress me. Quick cuppings are a breeze to run through the machine, and full blown profiling sessions fully exploit every nuance of the coffee being used. In other words, if your coffee isn’t that good, the Clover will show you every defect. If your coffee is good or great, prepare to drink the nectar of the gods, brought to you via Clover.


To visit the Clover 1s homepage, click through our links page (at the bottom of your window) to visit the Coffee Equipment Company site in Seattle, WA. For more information on retailing with Clover, or to visit the Great Northern Roasting Company Cupping Lab, click on our contact page to send an email.