The Ceado Hoop: Love It or Hate It? Here's My Take
The Ceado Hoop has been on the market for a while now, receiving very mixed reviews. For me, it’s the best dripper available today. That said, there are a few buts...
Brewing Technique
When I first tried the Hoop, it honestly annoyed me. My coffee clogged immediately, and it took about 10 minutes to brew. The resulting flavor was overly bitter, matching my mood perfectly.
The problem? I brewed with the Hoop as if it were a classic dripper: five pulses of small amounts of water, taking me about two minutes to pour. Big mistake!
The magic of the Hoop lies in pouring water in just two stages. Place the filter in the center, rinse it with hot water, and add 22g of freshly ground coffee. The first pour is gentle and focused on the outer ring, adding 100g of water. After the coffee blooms, give it a quick stir with a WDT tool or even a simple fork. Then quickly pour the remaining 230g of water anywhere around the ring. Don’t rotate the Hoop or fuss with it—let it do its job. Adjust your grind size so that the total extraction time is between 4:00 and 4:30.
Paper Filters
This is one of the "downsides." For the Hoop to work as intended, you’ll need to buy Scott Rao filters from us. The filters Ceado includes with the dripper are very smooth, which can cause clogging when brewing certain light-roasted coffees, even if you follow the instructions above.
Scott Rao's filters are designed in collaboration with Jonathan Gagné and the Next Level company, which also produces another fantastic dripper we stock. These filters have two sides: one smooth and one textured. The textured side should face the coffee. The microscopic ridges on the filter provide more room to distribute the ultra-fine particles (called fines) responsible for clogging and bitter flavors.
Grind Size
The key to any dripper’s performance is the quality of your grind. For the Hoop, you’ll need to grind significantly coarser than usual. Focus on achieving a total brew time of about 4 minutes.
- Extraction time > 4:40: Grind coarser.
- Extraction time < 3:50: Grind finer.
Decanter
The Hoop needs to sit level during brewing, but it doesn’t fit perfectly on every container. That’s why we recommend our tested decanter, which is a perfect match.
Summary
The Hoop falls under the "no-bypass" brewing methods, meaning all the water passes through the coffee bed. This ensures consistent and repeatable extraction with minimal effort.
With its simple operation and just a few key principles to follow, I consider it the best dripper on the market today.
You can find a summary of this article in the accompanying video.