Review: Tricolate brewer
No-bypass brewer for high extraction happiness
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The Tricolate: the no skill, great tasting brewer.
On a wet but hot day back in January, I was doom scrolling TikTok on a break from work. What I was searching for I’ll never know, but it seems TikTok did. It knew me very well indeed, and served me up a video for the Tricolate brewer (said, Trick-o-late).
I’ll add it to the ‘things TikTok made me buy’ list.
I’m not sure what got me so excited about this brewer, but my curiosity was piqued.
I’ve now spent a good nine months with this brewer, competed with this brewer, learnt a lot with this brewer, and had great coffee with this brewer.
I’m now ready to share my thoughts with you.
How the magic happens
Before we get into the brewer, we need to talk about coffee brewing.
There are basically two ways you can brew coffee:
Immersion brewing (like a plunger/French Press): where water and coffee hang with each other, making sweet, sweet coffee love.
Percolation (like filter coffee or espresso): where water passes through a coffee bed, either under pressure (espresso or MokaPot) or with the help of gravity (drip coffee like the V60 or Kalita).
NB - the AeroPress, when inverted, combines both immersion and percolation.
In some percolation brews, you can get instances where the water misses the coffee and doesn’t get to be a part of the brewing process. This can happen with brewers like the V60, Chemex or Kalita. Some water goes through the filter paper and down the side of the brewer, instead of going through the coffee. It bypasses the coffee and ends up watering down the brew and not adding to the party in the mouth where everyone is invited.
This can result in coffee that is under-extracted. That is, coffee that tastes sour because not all of the coffee has given all of those tasty bits and bobs to the water.
You can combat under-extraction by having good technique, or altering things like grind size, water temperature, or the amount of agitation during the brew.
But should you really have to learn stuff and put effort in just to get a good tasting coffee? The Tricolate doesn’t think so…
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Enter, no bypass brewing. Enter, the Tricolate.
The Tricolate is a no bypass brewer. Thanks to its cylindrical design, it forces all the brew water to go through all the coffee grinds. There’s no chance that the water isn’t a part of the magic brew.
As a result of all the water making sweet watery love to those dirty but tasty coffee grounds, you get a brew that has very high-extraction. The coffee gets a chance to give all of those tasty bits and bobs to the water.
On top of this, the Tricolate design incorporates a water distribution feature. Instead of having to adjust and be mindful of your pouring technique, you just dump the water in at the top, and the shower screen evenly and consistently distributes the water across the coffee grounds below.
No need to watch endless YouTube videos about pouring techniques. No need to think about the height of your pour. Or the flow rate. Or the wiggle. Or the jiggle.
Just dump and brew (and for many people, brew then dump, amirite?).
The same water distribution, every single time. And you know what that means? Consistency.
So, does this mean tasty coffee?
For the home coffee maker, removing the need to focus on pour technique, results in a brewer that is easier to master than other brewers.
The only variables that you really need to worry about, water temperature and grind size, are easy to repeat once you have locked them down.
Look how easy it is to brew on this bad boy
So, you always get great tasting coffee?
For the most part.
Because the extraction is very high, it can lead, at least initially, to an unbalanced cup. That is a cup that might be too bitter, or too full on, or one where you don’t get the most out of the bean.
It can also highlight some of the less desirable elements of a coffee.
However, all of this can be easily rectified by adjusting the grind size or the water temp.
What are the other benefits of this brewer?
It’s plastic, which makes it very portable.
It’s also quite big, allowing you to brewer more coffee per brew. Super helpful when you have friends over, or just want to smash half a litre of the good stuff.
And I love the colour. I got mine in pink, and it brings a smile everytime I see it.
AeroPress or the Tricolate?
While they sort of look the same, they are very different brewers.
The AeroPress allows for a greater range of brewing techniques, which makes it more versatile. You can almost get an infinite amount of different tasting coffee from the same bag, so you can really go to town.
However, this versatility brings complexity - something that not everyone wants in their daily brewer.
So, who is this for?
If you’re an interested home brewer, exploring the world of speciality coffee, I’d recommend the Tricolate, for it’s ease and consistency. It allows you to brew high quality, repeatable coffee.
If you’re only after a basic as, quick and cheap brewer, and you just want to hoon on coffee that is ground before you get it, I’d recommend the Swiss Gold.
If you’re already into brewing coffee at home and were looking to add a new toy to the pour over collection, I’d lean towards the AeroPress for its versatility before getting something like the Tricolate.
If you already have the toys and want to experiment with high-extraction coffee, I’d defo recommend the Tricolate, despite it “taking the fun out of brewing” as a result of being a dump and run brewer.
My go to Tricolate method
I have tried a few methods over the last nine months. Some where I’ve just straight up used a V60 method and adapted it, and some where I’ve gone deep into the darkest corners of the internet.
The best method I found was one by Scott Rao, one of the OG legends of the coffee world.
Here’s his method:
