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When Was the Kalita Wave Invented? History, Facts & FAQ (With Recipe)

close up of a barista pouring boiling water into Kalita Wave Dripper to brew coffee

Coffee has gone through many changes, from the quality of beans to the process of brewing. Every decade brings a new way of making coffee or roasting it, adding new standards to flavor and quality. One of the newest concepts to hit the coffee scene, the Kalita Wave, is a new favorite of many coffee drinkers. With its relatively simple concept and unbelievably fresh flavor, the pour-over dripper is a serious competitor in the coffee industry.

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When was the Kalita Wave Invented?

The Kalita Wave was invented in 2010 by a Japanese-based company named Kalita Co. With the release of a series of Kalita Wave drippers, the company aims to create the best pour-over experience possible. With other companies creating new types of pour-over drippers, Kalita Co. raised the bar with their own version of pour-over drippers.

Founded in Tokyo, Japan, Kalita Co. is a company that specializes in coffee-brewing machines and makers. Catching onto the rise of coffee shops in the 1950s, Kalita Co. sold its coffee equipment and eventually expanded to Osaka. Kalita Co. continues to create and revolutionize the coffee industry with its products and innovations, especially with the ingenuity of the Kalita Wave.

pour-over coffee
Image Credit: Julien Labelle, Unsplash

What is the Kalita Wave?

The Kalita Wave is a pour-over dripper, which holds the filter and coffee beans as water drips through. While most drippers have one main hole through which water passes, the Kalita Wave has a smarter approach. The Kalita Wave has a flat bottom and three separate holes, which gives the coffee a more even flavor extraction and prevents channeling in the filter.

Channeling happens when the beans brew unevenly, and water gets stuck, not passing through the filter as it should. With the three-hole design and the flat bottom, the result is a super crisp, clean cup of coffee. Most pour-over coffee is already fresh and clean tasting, but the evenness of the extraction by the Wave makes it that much better.

The Kalita Wave is available in stainless steel, glass, and ceramic. Each type will heat and cool a little differently, so choose the type carefully. Stainless steel seems to be the most popular choice, then glass in second, and ceramic in third. We recommend the stainless steel dripper if you’ve never used a pour-over method before.

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About Pour-Over Coffee

pour over
Image Credit: ryanhidajat, Pixabay

What is Pour-Over Coffee

Pour-over coffee is a type of manual coffee brewing with an interesting history and a recent surge in mainstream coffee culture. Pour-over coffee is exactly as it sounds: a method of pouring water over coffee beans to produce a cup of coffee. Instead of relying on machines, pour-over coffee relies on gravity and time to make a fresh-tasting cup of coffee.

The flavors that pour-over coffee produces are usually bright in acidity and crisp, resulting in a similar taste to coffee from a drip-brew machine. As premium coffee blends take over the coffee market, older concepts like the pour-over are coming back. New ways to brew from old concepts are also coming out, like the Kalita Wave.

History of Pour-Over Coffee

Pour-over coffee may seem like a long-time practice in history, but it’s a bit newer than it may seem. Before coffee filters and brewers were invented, coffee was brewed by boiling beans and water together. The result was a bitter, gritty cup of coffee, the opposite of what we love about coffee today. However, it wasn’t long until the art of coffee-making changed forever.

In the 1900s, a German housewife named Melitta Bentz set out to make coffee a more enjoyable experience. By creating the first paper filter and coffee drip brewer, she revolutionized the way we brew coffee to this day. With Bentz’s invention of filters and pouring water over the filters, boiled coffee quickly became a thing of the past.

woman making a pour-over coffee
Image Credit: kayla phaneuf, Unsplash

More on Pour-Over Coffee

Pour-over coffee is a simple concept in that it involves a filter with coffee beans, a cup to catch the coffee, and hot water. Drip-brew coffee makers use the same concept, but there’s much less control over the water and not as crisp of a flavor. There are many different types of pour-over makers and drippers, though “traditional” pour-over drippers are manual and require no electricity.

Most pour-over systems have a basket with some type of filtration, either reusable or disposable. The strength and flavor depend on the design, as some drippers will allow water to flow through much quicker than others. Regardless of the type of dripper, the idea of slowly pouring water over coffee beans remains the same.


close up of a barista pouring boiling water into Kalita Wave Dripper to brew coffee
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How to Brew Coffee with the Kalita Wave

Now that we know more about the Kalita Wave, it’s time to brew a cup and enjoy the flavors it can extract.
Brewing Time3 minutes
Total Time3 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Japanese
Keyword: how to brew coffee with the kalita wave

Equipment

  • Kalita Wave brewer
  • Kalita Wave filter
  • Carafe or coffee mug
  • Kitchen scale
  • Timer

Materials

  • 2.5-3 tablespoons of fresh-ground coffee
  • Near-boiling water (no hotter than 205F)

Instructions

  • Pour hot water over the filter and brewer to heat it up and get rid of any paper flavor that could ruin the coffee. Do not skip this step - it’s important! Once you finish, dump the water out of the carafe.
  • Add around 2.5–3 tablespoons of coffee to the filter and shake to flatten. Turn on the scale and set to set it to zero, then add the carafe with the brewer and set it to zero again.
  • Bloom the coffee by pouring out around 45-50 grams of water, using the scale to measure how much water you pour in. Blooming helps release gasses from the coffee beans while extracting flavors out as well. Stir gently with a spoon and wait around 30 seconds before the next step.
  • After 45 seconds, pour 50 more grams of water in spiral-like motions, carefully covering the beans without causing pockets of water. Keep adding water every 15 seconds until the scale reads around 350–375mg of water. This should take around 3 minutes at most.
  • Wait for the water to fully drip through the filter and into the carafe. When it’s done, remove the carafe from the scale, pour it into a coffee mug, and enjoy.

Featured Image Credit: Microgen, Shutterstock

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Jaimie Wisniowski

Jaimie is a freelance writer fueled by coffee, whether it’s hot, iced, or made from a local coffee shop. She enjoys writing all things coffee, especially if it means trying the latest coffee shop trends (hello cold foam!). After spending years writing poems, college essays, and short stories, it only a matter of time to turn writing into a career. Writing about coffee simply combined two of her favorite things! When she’s not drinking coffee by the minute and writing at her laptop, Jaimie spends time hiking, exercising, and living an active life. She also loves to snuggle up with a good book and her dog, Margo. If you catch her without a cup of coffee, she’s probably on her way to the coffee maker now.

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