Ceado Jumps Into Brewing Through the Hoop Manual Brewer

A Ceado Hoop brewer on display at the recent Specialty Coffee Expo in Portland, Oregon. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

Italian coffee equipment maker Ceado has thrown its hat into the ring — or the hoop, as the case may be — of coffee brewing equipment.

The 71-year-old Venetian company introduced a manual pourover brewing device, called the Hoop, before a North American audience last month at the SCA Expo. (See DCN’s complete 2023 Expo coverage here.)

At the Hoop’s center is a cylindrical brewing chamber surrounded by a circular, hoop-shaped water reservoir.

Water added to the Hoop’s outer ring seeps through 12 holes around the circumference of the inner cylinder for a “soft lateral infusion” that occurs at a consistent rate, without any special pouring technique from the barista, according to the company.

Offering no path for water to flow except through the ground coffee, the Hoop falls into the steadily growing field of “zero bypass” brewers. Other recent entries in the category are the NextLevel and Tricolate brewers, plus the upcoming Colum and Drobi One brewers, among others.

“We want to help consumers approach coffee as a specialty product rather than [as] a commodity,” Ceado Marketing and Business Development Director Riccardo Fabrin recently told Daily Coffee News. “People drink coffee for two reasons: caffeine or flavor. Hoop has the objective of making both caffeine and flavor easier to obtain, therefore making specialty coffee easier to access and experience by more people in more places.”

The Hoop accepts widely available circular 64-millimeter paper filters — the same size used in AeroPress brewers. The central cylinder in the brewer threads down into the center of the base, where it holds the filter tightly in place.

Ceado suggests a general starting point of 300 grams of water to 12 grams of fine-ground coffee, or 250 grams of water with 15 grams of more coarsely ground coffee. The company does not recommend using more than 20 grams of coffee per usage. Beyond that, the brand promotes experimentation.

“Our preferred recommendation is just ground coffee, a kettle and water, to obtain a surprisingly clean cup,” said Fabrin. “A coffee farm or grandma’s kitchen are perfect playgrounds for Hoop.”

While Ceado has typically focused on the commercial espresso and coffee bar segment, the brand first waded into more accessible territory with the introduction of the Ceado Lifestyle catalog, including the multipurpose Life coffee grinders that debuted in 2021.

“With Life Coffee Grinder we started to approach a different target, less expert in the coffee field but with an interest for this world,” said Fabrin. “Both Life and Hoop fit perfectly the ‘your way of coffee’ lifestyle: Plug and play — being free to live and explore the world of coffee following your own rules.”

The first public display of the market-ready Hoop occurred in January of this year at the Italian Exhibition Sigep. Ceado offered demonstrations of the Hoop at its booth last week at the SCA Expo event in Portland, which was the first time the brewer had been displayed in the United States. Already available for sale overseas, the Hoop will soon launch in the US initially through distributor Whole Latte Love for approximately $40.

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