The Guardian puts coffee making contraptions to the test.
Salient results:
- Let the baristas do the espresso
- Cafetières get a 4 / 10 for being gritty
- The pour-over reigns supreme for home coffee with a 9 /10, beating the pod’s 7 / 10 for both taste and sustainability.
Jesse’s response: “Ha!”
Luis response: “Bodums Rock!”
And: “not sure if it is a fact or opinion…”
Older People Are Worse Than Young People at Telling Fact From Opinion
Given the doubts Luis raises, I offer the following set of facts and opinions about coffee.
- As I boldly reveal to all who are interested, I prefer the pour-over. Yet, there are reasons to qualify the facticity of the Guardian 9/10 score compared to the cafetières/Bodum mere 4.
- You can screw up a pour over all too easily. Done it many times myself. You pour, walk away, forego vigilance, and then disaster: a weak brew. I won’t bother with the issue of when pour-overs become knock-overs.
- I have had fabulous cafetière coffee. Just a couple a weeks ago Fred made one for me. Yet, I must say that I have run into the grit issue and weird compression problem all too many times. Then there is the pot clean out issue as I had mentioned to Fred. Not so bad in the city, but when you have to keep small grains out of a septic system in the country, this method is too stressful. The pour-over’s biodegradable paper filter is a happy solution here.
- Though I love the shape of most stove-top, moka pots, best to leave these devices in the hands of the European Space Agency.
- The most important fact with which I concur with the Guardian piece is the need for a fresh grind, though I do electric, and not each time. Too many years of hand grinding, and frankly, I don’t taste any difference. Also, the need for freezing, yes, freezing the beans when you have a fair supply.
In all this, full disclosure compels me to admit, as everyone knows, to being over 65, so my grasp on the putative distinction between any set of facts and opinions is in question. I humbly submit the above for your own, likely similarly addled, assessment.