I like espressos (especially mochas) but they take a bit of work to prepare a single cup. With drip brew, I can do very little and get unhealthy amounts of caffeination into my corpse. Also, I pour ungodly amounts of creamer into my coffee. That Mason jar is quite literally half coffee half creamer.
man, I yearn for the coffee maker that lasts long enough to have the button rub off again. It’s been years since I’ve had one last long enough to do that. I started buying service/replacement plans for my coffee makers because they just are not built like they used to be.
My drip coffee maker is a Technivoorm Moccamaster. It’s been my main coffee maker for a solid decade and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. I wouldn’t be surprised if it lived through the next decade. They’re pricey upfront, but I’m convinced that it’s paid for itself with itself with its longevity. Not to mention great coffee.
(Psst, get a French press)
I like the french presses but they are too hard to clean.
Dump the grounds, run hot soapy water in it. Undo the filter a bit to loosen the hold, run hot soapy water over it, re-tighten the filter. Clean.
Actually, as I type it, yeah. It’s annoying
Use a paper basket filter with it and it becomes super easy to clean after. Plus, no grit in your cup. Win-win.
That sounds plausible. Thx.
Basket filters like these work best in my experience:
It should look like this when it’s done:
Or a ChemX! Unless I drop the thing it’ll never break down on me. We also love the Aeropress because it never makes a bad cup.
Love a French press but it can be acidic and doesn’t always agree with everyone’s stomach.
Depends which coffee you use in them, getting a good blend it generally turns out very good.
I do believe that the fact remains, the lack of a paper filter + long dwell time = inherently more acidic brew. Scientifically speaking.
You’re not suppressed to use boiling water in a French press, that’s why you’re getting the acidity. Scientifically speaking.
High acidity/sourness comes from under-extracting, not over-extracting. Too high of a brew temp will bring out bitterness, not sourness.
To fix sourness, either use hotter water, finer grind size, or longer contact time with water.
You can absolutely use a paper filter in a french press. Just grab a pack of basket filters, they fit most FP sizes pretty well. It makes a far better cup.
Really good to know! I’ve never seen one made that way. I wonder if filters for a percolator pot would work as well.
These kind work great:
This is how it should look:
Note, neither picture is mine, I shameless stole them from the internet.Check out the French press section in my coffee brewing guide for more details.
I mean, I’d consider myself a coffee snob (although I don’t have hundreds of dollars worth of gear like others, just weird beans) but I do enjoy myself instant coffee as well. And there’s plenty of local style coffee here in my south east Asian country that’s not espresso style that I enjoy as well.
Personally tea is my everyday thing. Coffee is a special treat; but I do have a fondness for drip coffee. It makes me feel like I’m at a deli!
I also drink tea fairly often. Not as regularly as coffee, but often. Usually black with a dollop of honey.
If it’s a real hot day, I like to throw a bunch of hibiscus leaves in there too. Makes me feel tropical lol
Hibiscus tea is my board game drink for some reason. Every time I play a board game I need to have hibiscus tea. No idea why anymore but I can’t go without it now.
Same, but more so because too much caffeine gives me anxiety, and not enough caffeine gives me headaches. I’m not addicted, I can quit whenever I want!
That’s true. I like that with tea I can be nearly constantly drinking it during the work day!
I love coffee, but Twinings Irish Breakfast tea is delicious. I usually have a cup in the afternoon/evening.
Twinings anything really
You might also enjoy Harney & Sons Scottish Morn (loose tea). That’s a good gateway into loose teas. Can get a metal tea basket for it cheap from Amazon. Then after that you might try a CTC like Darsam CTC.
I use the Clever for loose tea to save on cleanup. I buy Ceylon and Assam from various places to make my own blends but nothing ever seems to quite match up to Twinings, dunno what magic they’re doing.
This is indeed a great workhorse tea!
I have the same coffee machine. But I drink it black. I have one particular brew I get locally and keep it on the counter.
I guess the creamer would cover up the taste of burnt plastic. I’m not hugely snobby over coffee, but I will just opt for nothing instead of plastic machines.
My snobbiest opinion is that adding a bunch of shit means the coffee sucks or the person just can’t admit they don’t like coffee.
Tbf, I don’t care that anyone does these things. You do you. I’d just rather have a glass of water or nothing.
I may have a nice espresso machine (gcep) but I don’t let that stop me from making abominations too.
My ratio is nearly 90% half & half and about 22 grams of sugar.
My sister and mom used to drink what I called the “half half-and-half”
now I have my mom back to 450 ml coffee & 100 ml half-and-half
I’ve used pretty much every method of coffee making for extended periods except for a siphon and I have also settled on auto drip.
I switched from “cream; no sugar” for the past ~30 years to “black” at some point in the past 6 months.
How are you liking the Moccamaster? I seriously considered getting one, but ended up buying the Zojirushi instead.
It’s good but I’m not sure it was worth it - I haven’t had another drip maker in decades; it would be fun to do a side by side comparison.
I’ve only had mine for a month after my old Oxo 9-cup machine had an electronic failure. At a certain point, coffee is coffee. I don’t think the product from the Mocca is objectively much better than the Oxo’s. But the Mocca seems to be designed without any corner-cutting, using high-quality materials and reliable, simple mechanisms more than cheaper alternatives.
At a certain point, coffee is coffee
This is basically where I’ve landed after trying all the things. I’ve determined I care about coffee more than most but far less than many.
If I’ve got good beans the rest is really nuance that I’d need to compare side by side.
I agree completely. Beans and even just proper technique (actually dialing in the water/bean ratio, using the right filters, rinsing the filter, etc.) are probably way more important than which drip machine you’re using.
I’ve fallen even further 😅
My machine’s manual recommends using “oxygen whitened filters” and I used to stress this. Well the last time I went to buy filters the one place in town that used to sell them stopped. I decided I probably couldn’t tell the difference and bought the “natural” ones from the same company and I definitely don’t notice a difference.
I’ve got my ratio locked in; 60:1 and I weigh the water and beans every time. But other than that and a thorough cleaning and descaling on the manufacturer’s recommended schedule, that’s about the extent of my fussiness anymore.
Yeah, truth. These are too expensive to buy for comparison, and then of course what would one do with the one that wasn’t the favorite if one could?
You need a meetup, with a third party to administer the double blind… wait… A third and fourth party
Nvnd. Meetup and share coffee
i miss some of my old bands. the tighter ones, we’d meet up between band practice and have cooking competitions. some of the best friends i’ve ever had
what i’m saying is coffee competitions with the homies
I’m in the same boat with my Moccamaster. I’ve been using it for 10 years next month and that’s maybe kind of the point. The thing has been extremely reliable and it turns out that replacement parts are readily available for seemingly every component. I accidentally broke the cover to the brewing chamber and was delighted with how easy it was to source an original replacement.
I think my kids will inherit this thing.
Finland?
i hate coffee i prefer matcha or chai but i have recently quit caffine
Never bothered with espresso, it’s not my thing. I keep it simple. French press, Hario v60, or Clever dripper. Gets it done.
That and I have multiple kettles. An electric kettle for my daily, but also a small stovetop gooseneck and another standard kettle for when I’m traveling or in the worst case if I don’t have power and need to heat with fire.
While I like the idea of having a French press because it makes my kettle more handy, I don’t like the idea of switching to a coarser grind. I like a mild coffee brewed from a little bit of fine grounds and the drip maker does that well. Plus you use a lot less beans over time.
I’m not sure what you mean about using less beans over time. I weigh my grind on a food scale and use the same amount regardless of brewing method and grind size.
I just find drip machines to be kind of gross and hard to fully clean. Plus, there’s the plastics. My main brewing methods (French press and Hario) are stainless steel.
You can make stronger coffee using less bean by grinding finer, I thought that basically how espresso works. In any case it creates more surface area for the water to interact with the bean during brewing. You are probably right and I should just pour over or something, but I am indeed a lazy bastard.
Same. I tried espresso at specialty cafés a few times and it’s too intense for me. I much more prefer pour over, but my hone setup is an aeropress though.
If my non coffee weirdo friends offer me coffee usually it will be a café latte or anything I can add milk myself to hide the burnt coffee flavor 😬
Although I have to say in my country there’s plenty of non mega corp coffee chain (like Starbucks) that are using quality blends and cheaper than mega corps. And they’re local/regional companies.
Only time I’ve enjoyed espresso was in an Americano. But they’re not worth the trouble IMO, since you’re essentially just using espresso to make a regular cup coffee.
I still occasionally get burnt coffee now, but it’s partly due to the process, as I’ve been roasting my own beans for several months now. It takes some batches to figure out roughly how much time and how fast I have to keep it moving (stovetop roast in a stainless steel popcorn popper), and the process can vary a bit depending on the bean variety, so it feels much more art than science. I’ve had some really good batches, some mid, and some bad ones. All drinkable though.
Ethiopian beans seem to handle just about any roasting method with aplomb and generally turn out great (fantastic for me, as Ethiopian Sidamo Guji is my favorite bean region). Mexican Terruño is easy as well, and is happy up to a medium to medium-dark while still keeping its profile. These are go-to beans for me since they’re tasty and easy to roast.
I’ve had mixed results with Kenyan beans, some regions are rather finicky, and even within the same batch I’ve had some turn out great and others mediocre. They seem more prone to smoking and burning due to high amounts of chaff. And Peaberry can be great, but is hard to roast because it’s difficult to get first crack right since the beans are very small and have low moisture content. They may not crack at all.
Espresso is hard to do at an office but a French press and hand grinder are very easy to keep in a drawer at your desk. And if you’re desperate you can use the drop brewer to get your hot water.
+1 for French press, but enhance the experience with an insulated carafe so it stays warm. Makes an excellent cup of coffee without a ton more work.
What about an aeropress? Full disclosure, I haven’t seen one in person and therefore never used one.
easy for an office. i can’t compare to a french press since full disclosure, same reason
Aeropress would probably be better than a French press in an office setting. More compact and significantly easier to clean
I just use instant at my office though. I rarely use it, but I prefer it to Keurig or the drip machine in our office.
But I mainly just drive in with a cup of coffee from home.
I’ve never tried a single serve Keurig. What makes it undesirable, besides the wastefullness?
it’s single serving, preground drip brew coffee that tastes of plastic.
i got a basket so i could adjust a keurig. grind my own beans. reuse the filter. still tasted like shit. ended up being full of cockroaches. so it may have just been my machine
Thank you, I will avoid Keurigs.
Probably good, not my thing since it requires filters. Very compact tho so yeah.
I’m broke and that machine was a rescue. My brother showed me once how to use a French press but my impression of it was that it took more effort than “4 tbsp of grounds into a filter. 24oz of water, push button.”
4tbsp of grounds into bucket. Add 24 oz boiling water. Wait 4 min. Press and pour.
But then you start asking questions like, “surely boiling water is too hot, what is the proper temperature?” and “what about grind size?”
So you go down the rabbit hole. And learn about “blooming”, etc.
But soon enough you no longer need the precision scale, you can just eyeball things like grind size and amounts. You may even learn what the kettle sounds like when it hits the proper temp. You come out the other side.
IMO Boiling water is typically just fine for most coffee, unless it’s a dark roast. By the time it’s in the press and accounting for cooling it’ll be mid 90s.
No worries with blooming on a French press!
I’ve been using French press for 20 years and tried a bunch of things; the only complication that stuck is the Hoffman Method (and of course a decent grinder). It’s the graph with a bubble in the middle - don’t know enough, knows enough to be way too intense, knows enough that the intensity doesn’t matter.
with a pourover, you’d be doing even less work with less cleanup
Maybe OP does this at work and just wants to waste time. I know I do.
Nah that’s my house. What’s a pourover?
You pour the water (from a kettle or whatever) yourself instead of the machine doing all of the work.
“all the work” you mean your machine pours water into itself?
Yes
you can go all the way from cheap to absurd in price, but pretty much the cup you’re drinking from becomes the pot, and the pourover is the drip brewer. place filter, add coffee, pour hot water, done. throw away the grounds and filter and rinse the pourover, cleanup is done.
i bought one of the cheapo ones when my second keurig machine in 2 years took a shit, and never looked back. the only con that i’ve found is that it won’t suffice for multiple coffee drinkers at once. if you’re traveling you can throw the pourover, bag of coffee, and filters in your luggage and not have to deal with a hotel’s shit tier coffee. or if you’re staying at some weirdo house where no one drinks coffee. just use one of their cups to microwave some water
the only con that i’ve found is that it won’t suffice for multiple coffee drinkers at once.
That’s when it’s Chemex Time!™ Or you have to lateral to french press.
Yes, but skip the filter if you want to do less work and get more coffee in your coffee
Put the grounds in the mug. Pour water. A bit later, stir with a spoon so you have less floaties. Enjoy a mug of tar. Chewing on the grounds later is optional.
We call it “thief’s coffee” in Estonia, because you don’t have much time to spend on making coffee when you’re robbing someone’s house, but you still need the caffeine fix lmao
Pourover is more work in my opinion, since you usually don’t pour all the water at once, do you
What actually is quite easy is an immersion switch dripper since there, you can just pour it all at once
sounds like a load of hype ass bullshit to me
Been working in coffee for several years now. It started as a hobby which means I have about 6 different ways of making coffee at home. All that to say I can find very little wrong with these machines as long as your beans are decent quality and you’re grinding fresh for each pot.
Yes they rarely have any form of temp control and the hot plate leaves coffee tasting stale after a few hours of keeping it warm, but they’re consistent, albeit consistently mediocre.
And they come with the added bonus of being able to schedule the brew time which can be helpful for those rushed mornings.
up front: everyone should do what works best for them. no judgement.
with that out of the way, yes, machines make coffee, and they’re easy. the biggest thing that keeps me from using one is the tubing-- if you don’t religiously run cleaning cycles (which is more $ for the cleaner chemicals), then you end up with internal tubing full of bacterial colonies, which, no thanks. that’s to say nothing of the reservoir. when did you last clean the reservoir of your coffee machine?
pourover = rinse out, air dry or towel dry, no moisture for shit to grow in
also, you talk about “grinding fresh for each pot” which i totally agree, but then you say “schedule the brew time” which means letting the “fresh ground” coffee sit in a coffee machine basket overnight, open to the world, which, as you know from working in coffee, negates the “fresh ground” bit. the coffee is fine, i pre-grind my own coffee. but i definitely taste a difference in coffee i grind immediately before brewing, and that which i grind the night before
internal tubing full of
cockroaches
i fucking hated that specific machine. i wish i never found out why.
Fair enough. And yes the cleanliness of those machines can be problematic and require more care, but not enough to be an inconvenience to most people. But I agree with you on that in general as well as the cost aspect.
I am aware that those two phrases negate each other to some extent, however grinding the night before is still infinitely better than store-bought, pre-ground coffee. Just pointing out the small steps someone can make to improve their current setup. No need to overhaul the entire system you have for yourself if a couple small changes can get you to a better end product.
My own experience in coffee has always just been “use what you have until you understand the reason for updrading or changing your equipment.” Make baby steps along the way instead of changing everything at once is always my argument.
A friend once tried to convince me to purchase a Rocket Appartmento to upgrade my morning experience. Having to wait 30 m for the boiler was a no go. My ol’ reliable does just fine for the first hit.
I have that exact machine. Toss it on a smart switch so you can set a power-on timer and its a game changer. Also, just drink a whole pot of drip coffee while you wait for it to heat. That’s what I do…
Since we’re doing abominations:
Look at you with your recognizable brand name! I prefer to spend my money on the beans, so I order my beans from Groundwork. Here’s my cheapo, super simple machine.
https://coffeemakers.us.com/product/dayum-white-12-cup-drip-coffee-maker/
No black plastic, no timers, just on/off. Brown paper filters. I made it even simpler by ripping out the little spring, so it can’t stop and it can’t jam. You’re getting better coffee when you wait for the full brew anyway. Dayum, it makes good coffee.
And for the full abomination, a big slosh of Atkins Vanilla Shake as my creamer.
Opens link👀
Dayum
I love shitty coffee, I love fancy coffee, I love coffee.
When I was in university, and it was finals time and they opened the study areas 24/7, they would wheel out big coffee dispensers, the kind I associate with hospitals or bad hotels. Just a big insulated metal cylinder filled with almost rancid, mealy, astringent black liquid, with rickety little spouts.
The default coffee here is Turkish-style (we call it Turkish or Arabic coffee), but this was a weird halfway between batch brew drip coffee and Turkish style coffee. And being a few hours old it was basically the absolute worst of both worlds.
I think they don’t allow any food or coffee anymore there now which sucks, maybe one too many spills. Never an issue when I was there.
My friends knew I would only get coffee from particular places, and they would be shocked to see me drink what I called hospital coffee. But for me this was the coffee called for by the situation I was in, hopelessly cramming control systems at three in the morning. The bad coffee is integral (don’t clap) to the experience. I’m participating in the ritual that is finals here, so this is part of that ritual. The fact that the coffee tastes like bitumen is just part of me taking the moment in. I know it’s shit. I want it to be shit. Let me enjoy the diversity the world offers.
no you’re onto something. i call them taste memories. when a flavor is ingrained with an experience
I’ve got one like that, but in the military. We got little packets of instant coffee in our rations, I’d just pour that in my mouth and drink some water. I think that’s still technically coffee. Tasted like shit but woke you up, first from the taste and then from the caffeine. Mission accomplished, that’s a good coffee in my book.
Getting down those concentrated bitter coffee crystals with semi cool water (that might be a bit mildewey or plasticky depending on the age of the camelbak you’re drinking from) on a long shitty ruck just feels proper.
yeah, i’m not a coffee snob, i’m a food snob. i appreciate the delicacy in the coffee but if it’s brown, drink it down. if it’s black, drink it back. if it’s white, tastes alright. i can rhyme these all day.
*I can rhyme these for all time
i never said i could rhyme them good
just that i got rhyming time on my hands
if it’s blue drink your stew yeah that works well enough
You love the java jive and i do too
Waiter, waiter, percolator
This is my take too, any coffee is good. I just wanna talk about this drink, I don’t care how people like to actually drink it. I’ve got my preferences, and accept that others may have different preferences. It’s what makes this hobby so much fun. Life would be boring if we all had the same likes and dislikes.
reeeeeeeeeeeee
Milk with some brown flavoring?
I’m not from the US, but creamer isn’t typically milk, right? It’s some kind of protein-heavy vegetable fat?
Powdered creamer is usually corn syrup solids, others vary. I personally just add a splash of milk to my coffee and sweeten slightly with Splenda (I’m T2 diabetic, no sugar).
Yes
