TDS Pen - APAX Lab
Introducing the APAX LAB Digital TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) Meter.
Ensure precise control and superior taste with your brewing water, this advanced tool provides accurate estimations of total dissolved solids, enabling you to effortlessly assess the water quality.
Why Choose APAX LAB TDS Meter?
- Precision Measurement: Quickly and accurately measure electrical conductivity, providing reliable estimates of total dissolved solids.
- Taste Consistency: Minerals influence flavour perception; monitor their concentration to achieve the perfect flavour profile.
- Quality Assurance: Confirm that your water prepared with APAX LAB products consistently meets your required dilution levels.
Why Great Coffee Starts With Water
Coffee is more than 98% water, yet most home brewers focus almost entirely on the coffee itself.
You can buy exceptional coffee, use a premium grinder and follow a precise recipe, but if the water isn't suited to the coffee, you're still leaving flavor on the table.
Different coffees thrive with different water compositions. A delicate washed Ethiopian may benefit from one mineral profile, while a rich natural coffee or syrupy espresso may perform better with another.
APAX Lab gives you the ability to tailor your water to the coffee in front of you, helping unlock more sweetness, clarity, texture and flavor separation in the cup.
Most water products give you a single recipe. APAX Lab lets you build the recipe that suits the coffee, giving you the flexibility to adjust your water based on origin, processing method, roast profile and personal preference.
The Same Coffee. A Different Experience.
Water won't change the coffee itself, but it can transform the final cup enough to make you question whether you're drinking the same coffee at all.
The same coffee can become sweeter, brighter, more floral or more syrupy simply by changing the mineral composition of the water.
A washed Ethiopian may reveal more florals and citrus notes. A natural coffee may become juicier and more expressive. A competition-level Gesha may show greater clarity and flavor separation.
A syrupy espresso may gain sweetness, texture and a longer aftertaste.
Many coffee enthusiasts spend years upgrading grinders, brewers and espresso machines while overlooking the ingredient that makes up more than 98% of the cup.
Yet improving your water can often have a bigger impact than upgrading your brewer and, in some cases, even more impact than upgrading your grinder.
The best part? It is easier than ever before.
With APAX Lab's Water Recipe Calculator , you simply choose your coffee, brewing style and target profile, and the calculator generates a recipe for you. No advanced understanding of water chemistry required.
For many home brewers, water is one of the most noticeable upgrades they ever make.
Why We Use APAX Lab at Nordic Brew Lab
At Nordic Brew Lab, we use APAX Lab for every pour-over coffee we serve.
For rare and exclusive coffees, we often go a step further by creating tailored water recipes based on the coffee's origin, variety and processing method.
In competition, water becomes even more important.
We typically use the APAX Lab Water Recipe Calculator as a starting point, then fine-tune the recipe through extensive tasting and testing to find the water composition that best suits the coffee.
What makes APAX Lab unique is the ability to adapt the water to the coffee, rather than forcing every coffee into the same recipe.
And while APAX Lab is primarily designed for building brewing water, many competitors and coffee professionals also use it after brewing to fine-tune sweetness, clarity and balance directly in the cup.
Whether you're brewing an everyday washed coffee or a competition-level Gesha, APAX Lab gives you the same tool we use to get closer to the coffee's full potential.
How to Use APAX Lab
1. Start with purified water
Use demineralized, distilled or reverse-osmosis water as your base.
2. Choose your coffee and brewing method
Whether you're brewing a washed Ethiopian, a juicy natural or a syrupy espresso, simply select your coffee and brewing style in the APAX Lab Water Recipe Calculator .
3. Generate your recipe
The calculator instantly provides a recommended recipe and the exact number of drops needed for each concentrate.
4. Brew as usual
Add the minerals to your water, brew your coffee and taste the difference.
5. Explore further
The generated recipes are excellent starting points, but you can always make small adjustments to suit your preferences or reveal different characteristics in the same coffee.
There is no single "correct" recipe. Different coffees thrive with different water compositions, and APAX Lab gives you the flexibility to discover what works best for both the coffee and your personal preferences.
FAQ
Here you'll find the answers to the most frequently asked questions.
Can I add Apax Lab to my coffee after brewing?
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.
Can I blend and combine different mineral 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.
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 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 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.
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.
Tonik works particurarly well to enhance the character of washed coffees. For natural and fermented coffees, TONIK enhances the vibrancy and juicy character, even in small amounts.
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 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.
Works well with all kinds of coffees, as it improves the aftertaste, but also enhances the floral attributes of coffees that have floral notes, like Ethiopian coffees and Geishas.
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.
- KONFLUX smooths out the edges and brings out depth and harmony between the flavors
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 30-60 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.
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.
