This video is brought to you by Squarespace. Congrats, if you clicked on this video you're either deep down the espresso rabbit hole or, you're my mom. And I say this because WAFO baskets, even though they've seen some mainstream-ish attention, they're still like a niche within a niche, wrapped in an enigma, that's 200 a piece.
Originally I only bought one the Four Step/Blend basket because it was one of the more uniquely designed offerings and with that basket I had some varied results like some good some bad but I thought I should snag one of the more standard looking options for lack of a better term to get a fuller picture of the WAFO line but unexpectedly Dave at WAFO sent me all the other baskets so my idea of testing out two, went all the way up to five. And as you'd expect it took me some time to put all this together, and I spent about two weeks brewing on these five baskets almost exclusively. I've taken a lot of notes, I've taken a lot of voice memos, and I've got a lot of thoughts to share.
So this video is going to cover a lot of ground and is of course my personal experience with these baskets, and make things easier to find the things that are relevant to you and your interests about the WAFO baskets I've broken the video down into sections so you can skip ahead to where you want to be but with all that out of the way let's dive into it Now currently there are five models of WAFO baskets and they are broken down into two categories: blend and single origin. On the single origin side you've got the SOE Classic and SOE Spirit. Which more or less are relatively similar to what a standard basket looks like, but the holes are covering the entire face, and in different shapes and sizes.
This design lends itself to a higher flow rate, due to an even flow of water through the entire puck, more surface area and holes for the liquid to flow through. The blend baskets on the other hand are what originally drew me into WAFO, because of their unique design and layout, but they're also where things get a little unusual. Looking at their faces you can see there are either concentric circles or a checkered pattern, and some areas are open and others are blocked.
This seems counterintuitive to what we understand about the benefits of an even extraction, but according to WAFO that's the whole point. Their theory is an uneven extraction in the irregular layout will create a "fusion" leading to a more as they put it "harmonic" flavor. Which I think means that because the water is traveling through the basket and then meeting at a point where there's basically blocked portions and then they're coming together at the exit they're fusing together?
That's just my basic guess my understanding of maybe how this works but there's no real explanation and really in the end what really matters is what does it taste like. As I mentioned earlier I've been brewing almost exclusively with these WAFO baskets over the course of two weeks and that's been really the only stable actual variable other than the espresso machine that I've been using, so I've been using different grinders, different coffees, different doses, temperatures, and pressures. When I first started out, I went directly to their recommended workflow.
Using 16 grams of coffee finely ground near Turkish. A 30 pound Tamp. A brew temp of 208.
4 degrees Fahrenheit, that's 98 degrees Celsius. A limited pre-infusion, using half to two bars for just a few seconds, and a five to six bar peak extraction. Now I tried this for a handful of yields, as the directions also give a very wide range from 1:3 to 1:20.
when it comes to shot time WAFO doesn't really give you any directions or hints, it basically says on their website just stop the shop when you have enough coffee. In the end as I work through my notes and voice memos I did see a pattern and taste differences between the SOE and Blend baskets as well as a relatively common unpleasant feature. In general the SOE Origin and the Spirit were at least to me the better of the two styles, but the provided workflow produced cups that had a distinct lack of nuanced clarity and brightness, both of which is something I look for in my single origin espresso.
The Blend basket seems to perform as designed in a way that does seem to blend the flavors, but so much so that the coffee's characteristics have all but disappeared. Making a very low acid shot with pale crema, that in milk Blends so well, you hardly know it's there. And that unpleasant feature I mentioned earlier occurred with most if not the majority of shots brewed to WAFO's workflow, and carried with it this distinct level of bitterness and astringency that I recognized as over extraction.
Now if you've watched the channel for a while you've probably seen that I'm a big fan of breaking espresso rules and just questioning norms, but there are some things that are constants that you can't really change, and one of those is just basic extraction theory. For one the hotter the water, the faster and the more you'll extract. Also, the less coffee you're brewing, the easier is to extract that coffee.
So in the case of the WAFO workflow, it seemed obvious that 16 grams of very finely ground coffee, brewed at nearly boiling, and flowing relatively fast, is going to extract quickly and have an extremely small and hard to catch sweet spot. Personally, the most enjoyable shots I produced on the WAFO baskets was on the SOE options, grinding at normal espresso settings, brewing at 198 degrees, and a more standard 27 to 30 second. 1:2 ratio.
This seemed to eliminate, or at the very least, reduce the bitterness, and gave way to a very complex shot but still lacked some of the character in the cup that I've had with more traditional baskets on the same coffee and a similar recipe. Speaking of traditional baskets when I compared the SOE Spirit side-by-side against a Pullman basket with a paper filter, the shot times and extraction percentages were very similar. But the Pullman produced more clarity and balance, while the WAFO, although similar in flavor, was again slightly bitter in the finish.
As I wrapped up my final week of testing and I sat down to start compiling this data and information and all the thoughts I had about these baskets, I tried to think of the best way to present this information in my final thoughts section, and I think that the best way to do it is to start with the subjective nature of coffee and value. Just because I didn't enjoy the majority of the shots I made with the WAFO baskets, doesn't make them any less viable for someone else. And much like taste value is a very personal thing, and many folks will push back on the thought or the idea of a $200 espresso basket.
But considering their CNC machined with extreme accuracy and not just stamped out of a steel sheet does add value to its build and material. But the value in this product beyond that is based on its usability, and all of that is up to you. But I do think WAFO would benefit greatly from more clear description of their product, its uses and their recommendations.
Many of the options on their product page are just copy and paste, and vague statements like under the tasting profile tab it just says "it depends on your passion". And when you're looking to drop $200 on less than 50 grams of steel it takes a whole lot of passion to press that place order button not knowing what to expect. Through all of this I've had a handful of conversations with Dave at WAFO, doing some back and forth troubleshooting, and even down to explaining my process and equipment in great detail.
And I think we both understand that these baskets much like anything else, aren't for everyone. That said I'm not in the business of telling people how to spend their money and there are plenty of other voices in the coffee space saying these are great and even the "future of espresso". So if you've got the budget the interest and the time pick one up and find out for yourself, because if there's one thing I agree with WAFO on it's pursuing your passion.
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Thanks for watching, and if you enjoyed the video don't forget to like share and subscribe, hit that little bell button for notifications of new videos posted every Friday, check out my Instagram @sprometheus for content throughout the week, my blog at sprometheus. com, and as always stay caffeinated Pony boy.
