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We’ve heard heaps of residual buzz over the last few weeks about the Bkon craft brewer, a potentially revolutionary new machine that we profiled at SCAA. Folks are understandably stoked about the machine’s vacuum infusion technology–it’s since been covered by a surprisingly wide gamut of outlets, from The Verge, to Engadget, The Daily Mail and more. And now Kilogram, the tea-focused offshoot from our friends and partners at Intelligentsia Coffee, is giving the public the chance to see the technology in action up close and personal. In the coming weeks, Intelligentsia will be holding a series of tastings at their coffee bars in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, featuring fresh spring harvest releases from Kilogram brewed on the Bkon.

Kilogram Tea buyer Doug Palas and Dean and Lou Vastardis, founders of Bkon, will be on hand to talk about this new technology and its potential to radically reshape the face of tea retail. The Bkon uses a patented system that is able to apply and remove a vacuum to a glass brewing chamber, in a process they’ve dubbed “Reverse Atmospheric Infusion” (RAIN™). By applying and removing a vacuum, they are able to effect the travel of gasses and brewing liquid in and out of their organic medium (tea in this case, though coffee and other botanicals are also possible), greatly speeding up the brewing process and allowing for precise control of infusions. Using multiple vacuum cycles, they are able to effectively steep a tea multiple times in rapid succession, creating a cup of tea that exhibits the fullness of extraction of multiple steepings in one cup, all in between 60-90 seconds.

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Here’s a schedule of the upcoming events:

Chicago
May 20 – Intelligentsia Broadway
5pm – 6.30pm

New York
June 5 – Intelligentsia’s newest Manhattan coffee bar, in a special pre-open event.
5pm – 6.30pm

Los Angeles
​TBD – Intelligentsia Venice

Part space age, part science lab, we think the Bkon is one of the most interesting new pieces of brewing technology to debut in 2014, and these events will be an amazing chance to see it in action. Look for more details on @Sprudge as they’re announced. Get amongst it.

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Photos of the BKON brewer by Joanna Han for Sprudge.com. Much more about BKON in this feature here. 

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