YAMA 25-CUP Cold Brew Coffee Maker Tower

I love this brewer. It looks amazing and the Cold Brew it produces is out of this world!

The media could not be loaded. This setup produces some of the best, most flavorful cold brew coffee I've ever tasted. It will bring out bright, complex flavors you never knew your beans contained. If you love high quality coffee, step up to Yama Glass. My wife and I like to drink a lot of iced coffee in the summer, and this setup lets us brew once every 1-2 weeks and keep it cold in the refrigerator. If you drink less coffee and/or don't mind brewing more frequently, there is a 6-8 cup setup which with proper ratios should make coffee just as good. (Full disclosure: I have not tried the 6-8 cup Yama Glass setup; please research that setup for yourself before purchasing.)What does it do? How is it different from other cold brew methods?1. It makes coffee concentrate, not coffee, requiring dilution.2. Slow drip cold brewing produces very different, wonderful, complex flavors than any other brew method you've tasted.3. Similar slow drip setups may produce similar flavors, but setups like the Toddy or similar with long steep times will taste TOTALLY different: chocolaty, zero acidity, very pleasant... but most beans result in the same tasting coffee, so don't waste expensive beans on the Toddy method.4. Espresso (hot pressure brew) has a wonderful flavor profile but also very different from slow drip cold brew. Espresso is also sensitive to the quality of beans/roast, so you should splurge on quality beans.I actually enjoy all 3 above mentioned methods and drink all 3 types as the mood strikes me. The Toddy is a great way to get really great tasting coffee from budget beans; as long as they're not terrible, the Toddy will give you delicious coffee. I'm not as big a fan of pourovers, even though you can get great results with quality beans and attention to detail... I'm just lazy about manually brewing a cup at a time (hence my 25 cup setup for batch processing). Quality super automatic espresso machines can do cup at a time with NO fussing and minimal work. :)While I believe you can get the same great flavor as Yama Glass from other slow drip equipment, I believe NOTHING ELSE looks and feels this high quality. The Yama Glass is both a piece of art and a conversation piece in the kitchen. If all you care about is a great cup of coffee and you could care less about how your equipment looks, there are way cheaper ways to achieve very similar results, assuming you can control the slow drip portion. But if quality and esthetics matter to you, this is totally worth the investment.Tip: after brewing, dilute with 1-2 parts ice, water or milk to taste. If you add ice only, it will be very strong until the ice melts. I dilute with Barista blend soy beverage AND add ice and put it in a Yeti tumbler to keep cold for 18-24 hours.I wanted to mention I received great after-sales support from Espresso Parts. There was some cosmetic blemishing in the lettering on the bottom beaker, and they shipped me a replacement right away. This makes me even more certain I made the right call on purchasing the Yama Glass setup!I may post an update later on tips for avoiding snags in the brewing process after further experimentation.

Its an apparatus for a knowledgable user. It could be improved to be more reliable though.I use it to get a strong decoction which should have to be diluted before consumption.Have had some great coffees from it.

I've been a Toddy brew coffee drinker for a long time with cheap, but rich tasting, Community New Orleans Blend (coffee with chicory). When my Toddy tub cracked after extended use, I decided to look at other alternatives that weren't plastic and longer lasting -- this is how I stumbled upon this Yama brewer. Of course, the fact that I have a PhD in chemistry and this reminds me of glassware from lab days gone by helped sell me on it, but the great reviews on the taste of the coffee it made really was what convinced me.It comes with minimal instructions. Presumably because everyone eventually tweaks things to get to their desired end result. That can make the initial ramp time somewhat hit-or-miss and potentially turn people off to this brewer before they get to the point where they are producing great coffee.Some tips I'll share:1 - Use an additional paper filter at the bottom of the column of coffee (on top of the ceramic filter) to further slow the path of water out of the column of coffee.2 - I use 1 pound of Community New Orleans Blend and 1500mL of water and around 1500mL of ice in the top reservoir.3 - I then use around 1.5 cups of water to slowly pre-wet the column of coffee. To do this I wet my finger tip and plug the hole at the bottom and then slowly add 1/4 cup of water at a time to the column of coffee grounds and let the coffee soak it up and repeat until your column of coffee has wicked moisture throughout. The process should take less than 5 minutes and ever since I've added this step, I've not once ever had a bad pot of coffee from this brewer. Depending on your choice of coffee, grind, oil content, etc. this may be unnecessary, but it definitely never hurts and absolutely ensures a good pot of coffee. Skipping this step can often lead to 1/2 or more of your coffee grounds never touching the water that drips through the column (again depending on the type/grind/oil content.4 - I let the water drip at 1 drop per second and when it's done mix it thoroughly.The resulting coffee is pretty concentrated. I typically dilute it 1:1 with water, but this is purely personal preference on how strong or diluted you like your coffee.The resulting coffee is super smooth, very rich, absolutely no acidic taste or bitterness. This brewer was a great find and an awesome addition to our home.