Apax Lab: Unlock Hidden Flavors In Your Coffee
Apax Lab is a three-part mineral system developed to help you extract the full potential of your coffee: clarity, sweetness, and vibrancy. Whether you’re chasing florals, juicy fruit, or syrupy body, your brew water plays a bigger role than you think. Each blend, TONIK, JAMM, and LYLAC is designed to amplify specific attributes in your cup, without adding any off-flavors or aftertaste. Just clean, controlled water chemistry. Trusted by baristas, brewers and competitors globally.
- ✓ Used for every pour-over served at Nordic Brew Lab
- ✓ Approximately 150 brews per bottle
- ✓ Build brew water or fine-tune your coffee post-brew
- ✓ Free Water Recipe Calculator included
You're Not Adding Flavour - You're Unlocking It
Apax Lab drops don’t contain flavourings or additives — just minerals that already exist naturally in water. These minerals interact with acids, sugars, and aromatics in your coffee, helping you taste what’s already there more clearly. By adjusting the water, you shape how flavours are extracted and perceived — without changing the coffee itself.
Dial in your brew water from scratch, or tweak the final cup — the choice is always yours.
Elevate coffee brewing with precision-engineered mineral concentrates from Apax Lab. Designed for world-level competition, yet intuitively simple for everyday use
Add 1–3 drops to adjust clarity, balance, or sweetness — right in the cup. No special water required, just better flavour control when you need it.
Apax Lab helps you unlock your coffee’s true flavour potential — whether you're chasing more sweetness, a longer aftertaste, or brighter acidity in the cup. Each formula lets you fine-tune your brew water to match the coffee you're working with — or adjust a brew retroactively when it doesn’t hit just right. It’s the most intuitive, flexible way to optimise coffee water — and it’s what we use daily behind the bar at Nordic Brew Lab to tailor our water to each brew. Learn more about how water affects your coffee here.
Apax Lab helps you unlock your coffee’s true flavour potential — whether you're chasing more sweetness, a longer aftertaste, or brighter acidity in the cup. Each formula lets you fine-tune your brew water to match the coffee you're working with — or adjust a brew retroactively when it doesn’t hit just right. It’s the most intuitive, flexible way to optimise coffee water — and it’s what we use daily behind the bar at Nordic Brew Lab to tailor our water to each brew. Learn more about how water affects your coffee here.
How to use Apax Lab
The Apax Calculator Does the Work for You
Unlock the Perfect Brew Water
No need to guess or do math. Use our simple calculator to build the ideal Apax Lab recipe based on your water volume, whether you're brewing a single cup or prepping a liter.
Open CalculatorHow Minerals Shape Flavour
Coffee is mostly water, and water is so much more
It’s the minerals in water that shape how your coffee extracts, tastes, and feels. Magnesium sharpens acidity and brings clarity. Calcium gives structure, supporting body and mouthfeel. Sodium rounds out harsh edges and brings balance to the cup. When these minerals are in the right proportions, they work together to unlock your coffee’s full potential, from delicate florals to juicy sweetness. Apax Lab blends are precision-formulated to fine-tune this balance, giving you more control, more consistency, and more flavour - every single time you brew.
Trusted by champions and home-brewers
Julijan
Australian Brewers Cup Champion 2024
''Having worked 15 years in the specialty coffee industry, I’ve finally found a water mineral product that actually makes coffee taste better, is easy to use and is intuitive. Each base recipe is already golden.''
Anders
Home Brewer
''Being able to transform the profile of your coffee post-brew is a game changer! Acidity a little muted? Add a few dashes of Tonik [1]. Lacking body? Drop in the Jamm [2]! These elixirs are to a barista what a spice rack is to a chef.''
- Anders
Which Apax Blend is right for you?
Included in the Box Set
TONIK
What it does:
Amplifies acidity and clarity while adding a bright, juicy structure to the cup.
When to use it:
- Coffee tastes flat or lacks brightness
- Acidity feels muted
- The finish feels short or dull
Best suited coffees:
- Washed Ethiopian coffees
- Kenyan SL28/SL34 varieties
- High-grown Central American coffees
Included in the Box Set
JAMM
What it does:
Adds sweetness, body and creaminess while making the cup feel richer and more satisfying.
When to use it:
- The brew feels thin
- Acidity or bitterness dominates
- The coffee lacks sweetness or texture
Best suited coffees:
- Brazilian or Colombian coffees
- Natural or anaerobic coffees
- Fruit-forward coffees with jammy notes
Included in the Box Set
LYLAC
What it does:
Enhances floral aromatics and creates a silky, tea-like mouthfeel.
When to use it:
- Floral notes are difficult to find
- The finish feels harsh or drying
- You want a more elegant, refined cup
Best suited coffees:
- Gesha and Ethiopian heirloom varieties
- Coffees with jasmine, bergamot or rose notes
- Light-roasted, high-elevation coffees
Winner of SCA Best New Product 2026
KONFLUX
What it does:
Brings the cup together by enhancing body, sweetness and balance, creating a smoother, more complete drinking experience.
When to use it:
- Coffee tastes good but feels thin or flat
- Flavours feel clear but disconnected
- The finish lacks depth or balance
Best suited coffees:
- Washed coffees that need more texture
- Natural or anaerobic coffees that need more balance
- Bold, expressive coffees that need a smoother finish
Not sure which mineral blend to choose?
Get Started with Apax Lab
FAQ
Can I add Apax Lab to my coffee post brew?
Yes you can! We recommend using 2-3 drops maximum, but the softer your brew water is from the beginning, the more room there's to add Apax Lab minerals post-brew.
What is Apax Lab?
Apax Lab is a set of mineral blends designed to improve how your coffee tastes. Each formula helps unlock different aspects of flavor, like clarity, sweetness, or florality ,by adjusting the water you brew with.
* Apax Lab is not flavouring, each blend is a composition of minerals that naturally exist in water.
How can Apax Lab improve the flavour of coffee without adding any flavours?
A cup of filter coffee consists of more than 98,5% water. The mineral-composition of the water that was used to brew the coffee has a vital impact on the final taste of the coffee - Apax Lab is a mix of pre-blended mineral-compositions that help to achieve a balanced brew by affecting the hardness, alkalinity and mineral-composition of your coffee.
Learn more about why brew water is so important here
What's inside LYLAC?
Composition: water, magnesium sulfate, magnesium chloride, potassium chloride, potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride.
LYLAC [3] harnesses the qualities of sulfate and potassium to underscore the delicate and floral characteristics of your coffee, ensuring an elegant, refined, and graceful addition to your brew with a silky mouthfeel.
Taste profile: elegant | floral | silky.
What's inside JAMM?
Composition: water, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate.
JAMM [2] magnifies the role of calcium and bicarbonate. It has been formulated to enhance the richness and depth of your coffee and will accentuate the lingering sweetness and creamy mouthfeel of your brew.
Taste profile: rich | sweet | creamy.
What's inside TONIK?
Composition: water, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate.
TONIK [1] has been formulated to enhance the vibrant acidity of your coffee and will impart a crisp, intense and juicy kick to your brew.
Taste profile: vibrant | bright | juicy.
Works well to enhance the character of washed coffees.
Do I need distilled or RO-water to use Apax Lab?
You don't need to use distilled or RO-water to use Apax Lab, you can add a few drops to your standard brew-water, or directly into your brewed coffee and notice a significant improvement. However, to reach the highest potential of your coffee, we recommend using distilled or RO-water, as it will give you full control of the mineral composition.
Regular tap water, bottled water and spring water already have lots of minerals dissolved in them, which gives less room for the Apax drops to have effect, as you risk increasing the hardness of your brew water if you add too much Apax minerals.
How do I choose between TONIK, JAMM and LYLAC?
Each Apax blend is designed to enhance different characteristics of your coffee:
- TONIK Brings out acidity, brightness and a juicy character
- JAMM Brings out sweetness and mouthfeel
- LYLAC Brings out floral characteristics and a silky finish.
Not sure which one to try? Try the Nano Set
How much should I use?
If you make brew-water form scratch using distilled or RO-water, we recommend using between 50-60 drops/L, or 4g/L of water. The Apax Calculator makes it easy to craft your own brew water.
If you're adding Apax Lab into your brewed coffee, we recommend 2-3 drops per 200ml brew.
Can I mix Apax Blends?
Yes - we recommend using at least 2 different Apax Blends when making your own water, as it the minerals working together creates a more balanced and natural flavour perception, while using only one mineral-blend can make the coffee taste unbalanced and one-dimensional.
How does Nordic Brew Lab use Apax Lab?
At Nordic Brew Lab, we use Apax Lab for all filter-coffee that we serve behind bar, by crafting our own, custom-made brew water using RO-water as a base.
For our ''Rare and Exclusive'' menus, we custom-make the brew water for each individual coffee, using Apax Lab.
Can I use Apax Lab for Espresso?
Yes , but only post-brew. Add 2-3 drops of Apax Lab to your espresso and experience how it transforms the flavour experience.
Don't add Apax Lab to your espresso machine, as the mineral blends contain calcium which eventually leads to scaling, causing your equipment to get damaged.
