Tiger’s Siphonysta Automated Siphon Coffee Brewer Is Fun Yet Flawed

The beauty of coffee stems from the endless ways of personalizing it. But with the number of fancy espresso machines, pour-over sets, French presses, and bottles of cold brew concentrate on the shelves, it can get exhausting to choose your preferred method for your kitchen. One way of thinking about what’s best for your home is to determine if you’re making coffee just for yourself or for a whole family. If you’re a solo dweller who’s looking for a new way to add some excitement to your morning brew routine, there’s an interesting option that’s worth considering: the Siphonysta.
A siphon brewing system is a pretty obsolete way of preparing coffee. The setup looks like a science experiment. A bulb of coffee grounds is heated with water and then gets sucked through a vacuum into another chamber above it. It can sometimes take up to 20 minutes for a cup to fully brew. Nobody in my contacts is waiting 20 minutes for a single cup of coffee—likely the reason it has fizzled in popularity. But if you have a little time to spare for a good cup of coffee, a siphon is seen as a great brewing method because the vacuum technology is known to enhance the aroma of the coffee.
Tiger’s Siphonysta is the first electric siphon machine that reduces that wait time to just about three minutes—instantly catapulting the siphon method into this century. Made in Japan, the Siphonysta may come off as a coffee machine for coffee nerds who like to experiment with making coffee in all sorts of ways. While that is definitely true, I actually consider it to be a great option for any solo coffee maker. If you live alone, perhaps with one other person, and aren’t going to need to make a large amount of coffee each day, then this is a great way to make amazing coffee at home.
I tested the Siphonysta using Verve Coffee Roasters’ Miraflores light roast and ground two scoops (the scoop is included with the Siphonysta) of whole beans in a Fellow Ode Brew Grinder Gen 2 on the 7 ⅔ setting. I also compared the taste of the final cup of coffee from the Siphonysta to that of a French press. For the French press, I changed the grinder setting for the beans to a 9. Coffee grounds for a French press are supposed to be a little bigger, so I felt that was a fair adjustment.
The Siphonysta is a pretty small machine at about 12 x 9 x 14 inches. It can be a little tricky to get used to. The top and bottom chambers each screw into a round base, which you lock into the machine. I’ve had to twist, turn, and finagle each of the chambers quite a bit to lock them into the base. You also then need to place and twist a dome onto the top chamber. If all of these aren’t done precisely, the machine will not work properly. Once you do it for a few days, you start getting the hang of it, although I still feel that this aspect of the machine should be much more streamlined.
The body of the machine, which has a matte black exterior, presents itself as solid and reliable, although the two plastic chambers cause me a little bit of concern with durability, especially considering all of the nuances necessary to maneuver the parts into place. The chambers are made of a plastic that does not seem to be of the highest quality. I feel that if I were to accidentally drop one of them onto the floor, they would crack, instantly making the whole machine nonfunctional.
The Siphonsyta works by adding water to the top chamber and the coffee grounds to the bottom chamber, above the filter, which sits in the bottom chamber. The machine comes with a metal stand that you can place the bottom chamber into to keep it steady while you’re pouring the grinds in. You fill the water to the one-cup line or two-cup line, which is barely more than one cup.
You have three options for how acidic or bitter you want the coffee to be, as well as three options for how light or strong you’d prefer, making a total of nine flavor characteristics settings to choose from. There’s an additional Dual Temp setting, which reduces the water temperature halfway through the brewing process. I prefer to choose the more specific controls.
To compare with the French press best, I kept each on the medium setting, although I tried the other settings out and they do make a very slight difference that you can taste if you’re really paying attention. The only other buttons are Start and Stop—pretty simple on that front. Once the chambers are locked into place and you twist the base that they’re locked into, the buttons light up and you can press Start.
The first time I used the Siphonysta, two of the plugs in the top chamber popped out during the end of the cycle and seemed to cause a lot of trouble when I went back to make another cup. All of the water would leak out through the dispensing spout. I realized there was a larger issue at play, so I got the chamber system replaced. Luckily, the customer service was great and Tiger replaced it immediately. From then on, I had no issues using the machine.
It’s fun to watch the brewing process. When everything gets going, water slowly drips from the top chamber into the bottom. It soon starts dripping faster, heats up, and gets the chamber with the coffee grounds all steamy. Since the inner lining of the machine is a reflective metal, you can watch it all take place. Eventually all of the water drips down. Then the vacuum process—the highlight of any siphon system—begins and you can see the coffee zoom from a pipe in the bottom chamber up to the top dome, then rain down against the dome like a fountain. It’s truly a show.
About three minutes and 15 seconds later, the machine beeps three times, indicating that your coffee is ready. I like that it doesn’t automatically dispense into your cup, but rather, you place the cup underneath the spout and pull the lever when you’re ready. I also like the resistance level on the dispensing lever. The bottom plate serves as a removable drip tray. You can dispense however much you want, but again, this doesn’t make that much coffee in one cycle, so you’ll probably dispense it all. If you don’t, the upper chamber does not keep the remaining coffee hot.
The company says the plastic parts are dishwasher safe, but I honestly don’t have enough trust in the sturdiness of the chambers to put them in there. I just give them a rinse when I’m done.
In terms of the final product, I must say, the Siphonysta produces a fantastic cup of coffee. I like this much better than the coffee from a French press. Comparing the two makes it easy to see how the vacuum technology makes a difference in the taste of the coffee. It’s almost as if it oxidizes it. The individual flavor notes of the coffee stand out more, and there’s just a brighter, bolder taste.
However, the price is pretty steep for what you get. If this came from a startup company, I might understand it better. But Tiger is an established tech brand. The Siphonysta has the potential to be a much sturdier product, but if you’re looking for a fresh and vibrant way to brew your own morning coffee, and are willing to spend, it’s a good option to consider.