Making Coffee with a Chorreador
by Debbie Mayer

Almost every gift shop and home in Costa Rica has a chorreador de café (literally translates to ¨coffee dripper¨). A chorreador is the traditional method to brew coffee, it provides strong flavor with little waste (no paper filters!).

The taste of coffee brewed from a chorreador is different for a few reasons. First, the filter is not a sterile, onetime use piece of paper. Instead, it is a small cotton bag (resembles a sock), which is not washed, only rinsed between uses. Therefore, the filter from a chorreador imparts an additional coffee flavor. Also, smaller particles of coffee are able to seep through the cotton filter. This also adds a stronger, more robust taste to the coffee.

To make coffee with a chorreador:

1. Boil desired amount of water.
2. Fill chorreador filter with coffee grounds. An average ratio is one tablespoon ground coffee per desired cup of coffee, but increase or decrease the amount of coffee grounds to your preference.
3. Place the filter on the wooden stand, and place a mug underneath the filter.
4. Slowly pour hot water through the chorreador filter. You may occasionally need to stop to wait for the water level to go down.
5. If you want even stronger coffee, you can run the coffee back through the chorreador.

• The filter should never be washed with soap. For cleaning, just rinse it with water. If you need to clean it more thoroughly, put salt in the sock and rub the salt into the filter, then make sure to rinse it all out.
• Make sure the filter is dry before use.
• Want to build your own chorreador? Visit this site for construction instructions.

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