We’re long overdule for an open-type thread around here, so let me provide the excuse by asking one of the world’s great questions: what’s the best way to make coffee?
I’m an eclectic coffee drinker; I like espresso but also enjoy a really good cup of American coffee, and I prefer coffee black but am willing to adulterate it with milk if I suspect the quality is not going to be that high. (Sugar under no circumstances.) For the past few years I’ve relied on the lowest-effort method I know of that is guaranteed to produce a good cup: freshly-ground dark roast beans, placed in a simple cone filter and hot water poured right in. Practically instant coffee, but a result that can be as good as the beans allow.
But I’d like to start mixing more espresso into my home coffee experience, so I’m in the market for a new espresso machine. If I were a physicist of means, I might go for a work of art like the Elektra Micro Casa Lever on right. Or would I? This is a spring-action lever machine, which is to be contrasted with the manual levers, not to mention the automatics and super-automatics, and then there’s the matter of boilers, switches, heat exchangers … a complete mess. The pumps are certainly elegant, but I’d also like something that is functional and doesn’t require constant pampering. So I am in the unusual position of being frozen with indecision about what kind of espresso machine to get. Any opinions out there?
The ground rules here are:
- There’s no such thing as right or wrong; different people have different tastes, for which different approaches are appropriate.
- Answers with specific comparisons of advantages and disadvantages are more useful than simple insistence on truth.
I do understand that this is the internet and rules are unlikely to be followed, but I feel I should try.
Obviously not all advice on such a topic is too be trusted. The Engineer’s Guide to Drinks thread featured a sobering (as it were) number of people who think a “martini” should just be chilled gin rather than a proper cocktail, and were proud to admit it in public! So caveat lector. And if you want to talk about something other than coffee, be our guest.
I have to admit, my tastes swing from the froofy to the plain depending on where *everything* else is at the moment.
My current favorite way is to get an old-style aluminum/cast-iron stovestop expresso maker and load it with expresso-ground coffee (give you something halfway between expresso-strength and black-coffee strength). Gives you two small cups that are great with about 4tsp of sugar in them, or are perfect for loading iwth milk for a latte.
-ekim
http://www.ungerink.com
A good cosmic variance post always perks me up; but since I don’t drink coffee, this one filled me with bitterness. Really put me in a black mood. Felt like I’d bean mugged. Totally creamed. So I thought it necessary to espress this, before I get back to the grind, even if it’s made me a little latte.
Here is a somewhat earlier “blog” post from the Royal Society…
Nobody said anything about that coffee-maker! I guess everybody has used one like it.
I was told many years ago that the first thing I should do when visiting a new restaurant was to try a cup of coffee- and then order or not order accordingly.
I vote Moka Pot too – cheap, little fuss, you can make several cups at a time, and there are only three bits to clean (in addition to any reusable cups). We’ve had one for years, and used it on many different cooking surfaces without any troubles.
#27 – I take that approach to sushi places. I try the salmon and tamago nigiri, and then go from there.
I learned somewhere that unfiltered coffee leaches calcium from your bones. Can’t really verify that, but sounds possible. That is why people started adding milk, to add back in the calcium. Most people over a 100 years old drink coffee. The YOU doctors ( Roizen and OZ ) say 16 ounces of coffee a day is ok health wise. If you drink more that 2 (6 ounces ) cups a day, and you stop you can get mild withdrawal, like a headache, which you could treat with Excedrin, which has caffeine. If you drink a ton and stop suddenly, you can feel like you have the flu. So I advise you to keep drinking it, and enjoy it. I have in the past had coffee most mornings at a nice independent coffee shop. Then I bought a medium priced espresso machine.(to save money) The coffee was great, but I found out I had not just been buying the coffee. I had also been buying the experience. The whole place smelling like coffee (they had a roaster in the shop ), the cheerful people, the anticipation etc. The machine was messy and it took to much time to clean it up. It also took up a lot of space on my counter. I gave it to my son. ( so much for saving money) Now I just drink a pod coffee, but have the echo pods so I can put in any good coffee I want. I should filter it but don’t. Caffeine makes you sweat more, increaes acne , agitation and mania and other negative things, but I think it is worth it! I’m not implying anything and don’t mean to ruin a good cup of coffee, but I’m a chemical dependency nurse and can’t resist teaching.
Samuel: you’re absolutely right. A good cup of coffee is an optimum business card for a bar or a restaurant.
Illy: http://www.illy.com/wps/wcm/connect/US/illy/. Without need of buying coffee in grains – thing that i do, anyway – Illy it’s an excellent coffee maker. He does even expresso machines, by the way.
As long as you’ve got good beans and grind them yourself, how you brew the coffee isn’t really going to affect the taste all that much, it’s more about how strong you want it.
I’ll either just use a plunger which turns 3 heaped spoons into two good cups, or fire up the stove-top percolator which turns 3 spoons into an espresso-strength half cup.
The best coffee I ever had was in Thailand, hand-ground percolated ice coffee that took 3/4 hour to make. Though the 2 joints the barista would roll and smoke with you while you waited may have had something to do with the taste 🙂
1) Best beans – a matter of personal taste
2) Roast your own? I’m not that talented, so I get coffee that was roasted the same day they shipped – overnight, vacuum-sealed. Basically, roasted yesterday or the day before. Even those I know who do roast their own, don’t necessarily roast every day, so mine is as fresh as most.
3) Use a French Press.
@Susan
It’s not entirely clear that milk is a good source of calcium anyway – the studies I have seen show milk consumption as a risk factor for (among other things)osteoporosis.
I have used a variety of Primula and Bialetti stainless steel espresso pots for the last 30+ years (and i currently own all four sizes).
I use a personal mix of Boyd or Hammer coffee beans (organic espresso/italian/french roasts) ground to slightly coarser than fine.
I use cold filtered clear water, and heat the pot over a medium gas flame. The steam pressure pushes up through the coffee giving me a pristine cup (usually 16 ounces) of espresso-like coffee
I add a small scoop of chocolate ice cream (Hagen Dazz Amazon Valley Chocolate) and some organic chocolate soy milk.
I start my day.
In order of importance for a good cup of coffee (highest to lowest):
1) Amount of coffee. Sounds obvious, but hey.
2) Grinder. You need a consistent grind. You need a consistent grind. You need all your coffee ground the same way. You need a consistent grind. Sometimes it needs to be coarse (French Press), sometimes fine (cone filter), sometimes miniscule (espresso). But always…you neeed a consistent grind.
3) Water temperature. This is totally a personal thing (there’s advocates from 165 – 205 F), but never put in boiling water. No one likes that. The easiest way to find your favorite repeatable temperature is to boil a set amount of water, bring it to a boil, and time how long you take it off the boil.
4) Type of bean. I’m talking country of origin, basic facts like acid content, etc.
5) Roast. Don’t get too carried away with this; it’s important, but all of the above will make you a better cup of coffee more consistently than this.
As for devices, again, it’s a matter of taste. Sean’s pour-over method is a good one, and a cheap one. The most important thing a brewing device does is control how long the bean is in the water; roughly, more time=more acidity (not necessarily more strength).
The Aeropress is popular because it extracts all the flavor and hardly any of the acidity, (since it brews so quickly). The cone filters operate better when the water level is consistently high, that the water escapes more quickly at the bottom. Of course, you can’t keep the water up to the brim of your filter forever, unless you keep it full and transfer the coffee to the sink or another cup once you’ve filled yours. When I use the pour-over method, this is typically what I do.
But the best-kept secret in all of coffee land is: vacuum pot coffee! These things are really cool to watch, very fun (though a little labor-intensive/time-consuming) to use, and make outrageously good coffee. If Isaac Newton drank coffee he’d make it in one of these puppies.
Hello,
Last year I purchased an expresso machine.
The unit I chose is sold by Starbucks.
Their coffee is exceptional, and I reasoned they would sell a reliable expresso machine.
Good machine for the price- $399. $599 last year!
I use it daily.
Watch the videos on the site for information and recipes.
In addition to Starbucks coffee, try Peets brand.
They taught Starbucks the meaning of premium coffees.
Below are links:
http://www.starbucks.com/flash/sirena/default.htm
http://www.peets.com/
Regards,
lkuklinski
i acquire an espresso roast from the local roaster; mood indigo, by name. grind it for about three days in advance to a fine grind. i use large french press and scoop 1/2 cup of grounds into the bottom with 6 t. demerarra sugar. pour in hot water and set on top of the wood stove to keep warm. drink. yum..
@Pablo – you beat me to the punch. I’ve had the aeropress for almost two years now (and still on my first batch of filters!) and it makes great coffee. Every once in a while I’ll drink it like espresso but I take a little milk in my american coffee most days.
Besides a great tasting single serve of coffeee, that filter will save your heart when compared to a traditional french press.
Perhaps your recent visit to my home of Melbourne reminded you of how good coffee can be.
+1 for Joshua’s advice to get a Rancilio Silvia +Rancilio rocky grinder. If you want to be a bit more geeky, get a PID temperature controlled Silvia.
I agree with gazzar/joshua: the Rancilio Silvia would be an excellent investment — you can’t go wrong there, provided you know how to use it. Great machine. But if you’re going to get an espresso maker, you’ve gotta learn how to use it! No sense in spending all that money to drink over-extracted espresso all the time.
I’m also a fan of the moka pot. At various times in my life I’ve had a single-serving one, a 2-serving one, and a 6-serving one (all bialetti), and I’ve found that I get a better espresso from a smaller rather than bigger one. Not sure why.
I also have a beautiful side-by-side vacuum pot (from these guys: http://royalcoffeemaker.com ) that is gorgeous and a fun party trick, but it is more akin to pour-over or french press than espresso.
Coffee *does* taste different when you make it in different ways…. you may find that what you are used to enjoying as pour-over isn’t your favorite in an espresso maker or a moka.
Finally, in case you feel like you need to improve your pour-over w/ chemex coffee skilz, Intelligentsia offers this advice: http://www.vimeo.com/6161817 … and then of course there’s also this: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/09/how-to-brew-a-good-c.html 😉
Fill, Have not heard that about milk. But there are lots of studies that take awhile to get to the mainstream. If someone is at risk for osteoporsis, they have probably been advised to take a supplemental calcium. It’s just a bit of coffee history.
Sure, you are biology, but don’t you want coffee that seems like chemistry, not physics? After all, this is food, not a force field. So….
GET CHEMEX!
The beautiful device that looks like a light cone of the past and future.
Except it has a nice wooden throat to grasp (insulation!) and leather laces to hold it tight (affectation!)
Nifty filters that look like they came from a chemistry lab, personal application of the not-quite-boiling water, observation of the stream that becomes a drip, Sean…this is you!
And… excellent coffee, if you will please pay for, store properly (the Carnot refrigerator not the Kelvinator) and grind the beans the minute before placing them in the “future” cone.
But, be careful not to whack the rim against a faucet. Dink!
Ach! I am SO CLUMSY!
Now you have another wooden ring with leather laces. Too big for a ring, too small for a necklace. Store it with the other souvenirs of clumsiness past.
And just go get another…
CHEMEX
I am 100% behind poster #3 pablo and a few others that posted – Aeropress makes the best coffee. I got rid of my pump espresso maker and my French press after I got my Aeropress. I keep a drip maker for bulk when entertaining more than a few guests, but when people that I care about visit, they get the Americano cup. Recently roasted (allow 24 hours for off gassing) beans, French, Italian or Espresso roasted make a very strong cup with no bitterness. Well, no bitterness to me. All things are relative. I do love a good shot pulled from quality beans and a quality machine, but for everyday? It’s an Aeropress. And a collateral benefit is its portability – a friend deployed to Afghanistan took his and swore it kept him sane.
I am not thrilled with vacuum pots, other than entertainment value – my parents had one when I was very young and the only good thing I can say about it is that is was not the percolator they also used! But taste is in the tongue of the beholder.
Alternate to Doug’s Bedouin coffee is Colorado ranch style:
Big enamel pot full of water.
Large can of ground coffee.
Horseshoe.
Boil until horseshoe comes to the top.
Drink – or use for sheepdip – or to dehorn cattle – whatever your need of the moment.
😀
There was (is?) a coffee house in Monterey CA that served a Turkish coffee with a stick of cinnamon – standing up in the mud.
I consider myself a picky espresso connoisseur (i.e., a snob). I’ve been quite happy with a simple Starbucks Barrista pump-driven machine; they are actually made by Saeco in Italy, and I think that they are a good value.
But I have to agree with what many others have already said: good, freshly ground coffee is more important than the machine.
Fresh coffee (properly ground) + fresh water + clean machine = good coffee.
If you want good Italian style espresso, the most important things are the grind, the machine, and beans that work well with your machine, with equal weight. The machine, unfortunately, must be very expensive, or don’t bother. Sounds silly, but it needs to have the ability to get up to extremely high pressure, and only expensive machines can do that and not break (in my experience). And bad espresso is not worth drinking, might as well go Bialetti or french press. Gaggia Classic should be the low end of your search. Don’t forget that a good grinder is not cheap either. And of course, buy a timer and have it turn on your machine a couple hours before you are going to use it. In Italy there it is often said that any bar (that’s coffee shop in Italy) worth going to has its machine on all through the night, but I could not in good green conscience advise that! Good luck!
I forgot to inject a tiny bit of science into my rely above. Sean, if you do go down the espresso machine path, I recommend reading Ernesto Illy’s SciAm article. My own espressos really improved after reading it.
Illy, E. The complexity of coffee. Scientific American, 286, 86, 2002
which is cited by this other physics-related article:
King, W. The physics of a stove-top espresso machine, American Journal of Physics, 76, 558, 2008
I have happily switched from coffee to my grocery store’s brand of caffeine pills. The benefits are that they are fast, effective, you know the exact dose you are getting, and extremely cheap. The equivalent of 30 cups of coffee is only $1.50. The possible downsides are ulcers, and studies have shown that the optimal way to drink caffeine is to ingest it slowly all throughout the day. Both of these downsides can be remedied by purchasing slow release tablets. Additionally you may drink coffee because you like the flavor but as a die hard research scientist or theoretician you will appreciate the extra time you have to focus on work.