Unless you are an out-and-out coffee snob, you don’t have to mortgage your first-born to pay for super-duper coffee grinders, coffee brewers, etc. But you do need to buy good quality equipment. A blade grinder and a $20 drip brewer won’t cut it, no matter how much you pay for the beans.
The techies at the New York Times’ Wirecutter and Sweethome product evaluation site tested grinders and drip coffee makers and found the Baratza Virtuoso at $230 the equivalent of a $2,700 pro grinder and the drip machine from a mass market manufacturer as good as machines costing hundreds of dollars. As for K-cups, “None of them make good coffee and the plastic pods aren’t easily recyclable.” Their cheap coffee maker pick, “…will produce much better coffee and be way less expensive in the long run. Besides, it’s not hard to run a regular coffee maker.”
How about making coffee via your smartphone? “Adding Wi-Fi and an app just moves the buttons off the machine and onto your phone screen.”
The foto is of my Baratza Encore and my Mesgana and Tefetro coffees. The Encore is the home version of the Virtuoso – works like a charm. The latter is very popular with baristas. I use the Encore for my daily coffee and occasionally to grind an order for one of my wife’s senior friends.