Minimalist Coffee

[Jerry1]

Wondering if anyone has, or can advise, on a minimalist coffee set up.

Background is that I’ve never really drank coffee. Sometimes at work when it was cold, I would grab a cup for something to warm up with. Frankly, I preferred a Coke. However, the other day, I went to breakfast with a friend and when I got there, there was already a carafe of coffee at the table, so I poured some. I was surprised how mellow it was and that I enjoyed it. So, I’m thinking about getting a coffee set up. Not willing to blow that dough but am looking for a system that will produce really good coffee. No way do I want something like a Keurig. I’m sure the best coffee will come from a fresh grind and a simple brew system.

Any suggestions? Looking at Amazon, there are plenty of hand burr grinders for under $50 and plenty of drip systems for $20. Still not cheap, but again, looking for great coffee and a minimalist system. A manual hand grinder and the AeroPress system looks like a good place to start.

Note, I’d only be looking at one, maybe two cups of coffee every now and then. Of course if I really got into it, I might need something different, but minimalist is where I want to start. Kind of a new hobby for the winter.

Thanks.

 

[Gremlin]

I love my morning coffee and have utilized many methods, including some expensive espresso machines (my husband loves his toys). But the Aeropress makes a fantastic cup of coffee and is so simple. It’s been my go to for the last 3 years. Enjoy!!

 

[Trailwalker]

You are on the right track. Fresh roasted coffee (no more than 2-3 weeks from the roasting date), fresh ground (burr grinders are best), and water just off boil 190-200 degrees. A plastic cone filter into a cup or carafe is minimalist at its best. A Chemex for style.

I've heard good things about AeroPress but haven't tried one.

Owned and operated a coffeeshop and roastery for a number of years. I still roast my own to control the roasting date. It's not rocket science.

 

[Jerry1]

A Chemex for style.

I've heard good things about AeroPress but haven't tried one.

I didn’t mention in my OP, but I’ve been looking at the Chemex style brewer too.

 

[ERD50]

... However, the other day, I went to breakfast with a friend and when I got there, there was already a carafe of coffee at the table, so I poured some. I was surprised how mellow it was and that I enjoyed it. ....

You might want to ask the restaurant how they make their coffee.

A while back, I had coffee at a restaurant, and the person with me isn't a big coffee drinker, and he really liked the coffee. I also thought it was good, but definitely on the very mellow/smooth side.

We asked, and the waitress checked and came back and said she didn't know the details, but said they use some sort of concentrate in a bag!

So look up making concentrate for *hot* coffee - most of the recipes are for iced coffee, but the process is the same, just more concentrated for hot so that concentrate plus boiling water makes a *hot* cup of coffee. Add water to ground coffee, let sit 12 hours at room temp (some say put in fridge), strain and keep in fridge for up to a week. Just add ~ 4:1 hot water to make a cup.

Some just use pre-ground and a French press for a convenient strainer, which would be a very low cost way to start.

I might even revisit this, as DW pretty much stopped drinking coffee - it started bothering her.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

I didn’t mention in my OP, but I’ve been looking at the Chemex style brewer too.

I know many people like them, but I found the pour-over type to be rather tedious.

You have to measure out the coffee, measure out the water, and then get that pour timed just right, and you get a single cup of coffee. Want a second cup? Start all over again.

My Aeropress has sat unused for years now. I just never got into it. But others like them.

-ERD50

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

I am a big fan of a Moka pot, which is pretty dang minimilast.

 

[Miarocks]

We love our Keurig, and also use an automatic drip brewer. Hamilton Beach, about $15 at Walmart. We’ve had expensive Braun machines and also Bunn commercial types (biggest advantage there is hot water temp)... but honestly, the H Beach gives the biggest bang for the buck. DH will make a big pot in the drip system (he drinks mostly decaf, and consumes a LOT of coffee in place of alcohol). We both enjoy the versatility of the Keurig... coffee, tea, cocoa, cider. I can make a quick cup of tea and put it over ice. Sam’s has a great selection of coffee and k-cups. We like Kirkland (Costco) Pacific Bold k-cups, too, as well as Amazon Happy Belly brand (quite good!), Peet’s (we get at Sam’s), and the best we’ve tried, Starbucks Sumatra (yum!). We are somewhat coffee snobbish, but you also need to balance that with cost and convenience. I’m not about to burr-grind fresh-roasted beans and do a pour-over, no thank you. My sis has to endure this when visiting her son and his wife, and she says it’s torture. SMH. The Costco and Amazon k-cups I mentioned are about 30¢/cup. Not bad in my book. The key for me is HWC (heavy whipping cream) in every cup, so that makes anything taste better. I have to believe the water quality is important, too. We have an RO system. All good.

 

[Chuckanut]

My normal daily coffee setup looks like this:

Burr Grinder - Must be a burr grinder, the difference in quality between a twirling blade and a burr grinder is startling.

Mr. Coffee Jr. - makes about four 5 once cups. I have about 1/2 of a pot, twice a day.

The above works great for me. And the secret is the burr grinder, IMO.

I have tried Kuerig and I don't care for the mediocre cup of coffee it produces. I think Nespresso is better, but still not as good as fresh brewed. And, the Nespresso I have drank has been while in Europe, so the overall quality of the coffee there might be better than here. I don't know that for certain. An uncle who lived in Venezuela in the 1970's once told me that America gets what was left over and swept off the floors after the Germans, Italians, French, etc. bought their beans. But, I think those days are over for the most part.

 

[OldShooter]

Burr grinder: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AR7SY Amazingly, this is a consumer item where the money has been invested in the important parts. No chrome doo-dads, dancing bears, multicolor labels, etc. Very simple and solid design.

Measure only until you have found the grinder time setting that gets you what you want. From there, no measuring.

Chemex pot. Lots of internet instructions available on how to make Chemex coffee, including some quite over the top.

For water I have a 360ml clear glass tea pitcher and this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FAVXW4 water heater. It's on a timer and is on only during the coffee hours. An easy alternatibe is to start with cold water and microwave to your desired temperature. One full pitcher of water and about 1/3 pitcher more to get a full mug of coffee, not really measuring.

Chemex branded filters run about seven cents. There are aftermarket reusable filters made with screen instead of paper, but I have never tried one. No cheaper aftermarket filters that I have found.

I have found that my taste is not discriminating enough to require expensive and exotic beans, though they are out there. (Like https://driftaway.coffee/, which seems to be a pretty good outfit.) I'm buying Trader Joe Columbia Supremo Medium Roast. From memory, twelve bucks for 28 oz. of beans. https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/best-trader-joes-coffee

 

[Chuckanut]

Burr grinder: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AR7SY Amazingly, this is a consumer item where the money has been invested in the important parts. No chrome doo-dads, dancing bears, multicolor labels, etc. Very simple and solid design.

I also found that I need to grind less coffee with the burr grinder to get the strength I want. Over time that helps offset the higher price. My grinder is over 10 years old and by now I suspect it has paid for itself.

 

[kevink]

OK I'll weigh in here. I was a professional coffee buyer and roaster for 28 years and wrote a book on coffee ("Coffee Basics") way back in 1997. As you can imagine I own quite a number of brewers but I, too, am a minimalist at heart.

The first thing I recommend is to peruse and bookmark the website Sweet Marias (.com). They cater to home roasters but also have a carefully-curated home brewing equipment selection. Beyond that, the site is overall the single best source of coffee info on the web and is a portal to countless YouTube videos. You might even catch the home-roasting bug, which I highly recommend. For years I've been enjoying the best coffee of my life (including back when I was buying millions of pounds a year) for less than $8 a pound all-in.

Getting back to the brewer question: I recommend either the Clever dripper or the Aeropress. The Clever is a full-immersion brewer that combines the excellent extraction of a French Press (aka plunger pot) with the grit-free clarity of drip, while avoiding the many problems of singe-cup pour-over drippers (forget about them!). Maximum yield from the Clever is 14 fl. oz - i.e. a very large mug+. Easy, simple, cheap.

The Aeropress is my personal favorite but is quite a bit more geeky - though it's also far more versatile. It brews a concentrated "extract" that is almost espresso-strength, which you can then either dilute to drip coffee strength or use as-is in a caffe latte, cappuccino, etc. You can brew up to four "shots" (though 3 is more realistic with super-fresh coffee) at a time. Once you've brought a kettle of water to a boil you can brew a batch in the Aeropress in under a minute. Super easy cleanup and maintenance and they even make a travel one now that nests inside a mug. A fantastic invention and it is what every professional coffee buyer I know travels with (often with a Porlex mini grinder nested in it).

If you'd rather have push-button convenience consider a Bonavita drip brewer. The smaller (~24 oz.) size works well for a single person.

And while a good burr grinder is nice to have (Capresso Infinity is the least expensive one I recommend - Baratza otherwise) a plain old $20 blade grinder is just fine to get started with.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions. Good luck!

 

[Trailwalker]

The first thing I recommend is to peruse and bookmark the website Sweet Marias (.com). They cater to home roasters but also have a carefully-curated home brewing equipment selection. Beyond that, the site is overall the single best source of coffee info on the web and is a portal to countless YouTube videos. You might even catch the home-roasting bug, which I highly recommend. For years I've been enjoying the best coffee of my life (including back when I was buying millions of pounds a year) for less than $8 a pound all-in.

I second the the Sweet Marias recommendation. It's how I got started.

 

[audreyh1]

Coffee with minimal fuss: we use Nespresso or Keurig these days. Excellent coffee minimal fuss.

However we do have a top of the line ceramic burr grinder and often use reusable Keurig filters. This was mainly due to the difficulty in finding good quality decaf k-cups. We have been very pleased with the coffee quality from grinding our own beans. We already had the fancy grinder.

 

[Ian S]

I use an inexpensive drip coffee maker that was highly rated by Consumer Reports. I prefer the conical filter types of drip systems. I switched to a burr grinder a couple of years ago and love it. I got a good deal on an OXO grinder: it has a stainless steel grounds collector that helps minimize the messy effects of static electricity. Because I make the same quantity of coffee every morning, I've set the timer to 15 seconds and I get a consistent amount of ground coffee every time. Just one press of a button does it! It is quite noisy but most burr grinders are.

 

[Lsbcal]

I find that for me the best coffee is strong coffee. So I use 3 scoops per cup measure. It happens that I use Starbucks which is ground for me and I keep it in a sealed state except for some I pore into a small container. I have not found that grinding each time is all that much better (again, for my tastes). Anyway keep it simple.

I too use a drip coffee maker with a metal cone filter :

Note the wise owl coffee mug which makes the coffee taste extra good in the AM.

 

[DayDreaming]

I have a pretty minimalist coffee brewer - a tea/coffee mesh brewing basket:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I68NCS

Put the basket directly into your mug, add ground coffee, hot water, and let steep. I used to use an Aeropress, but I think this does just as well and is about as simple as can be. Of course it's only good for brewing 1 cup, but that's what I need and this is the best single cup brewing method I've found.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Our Idea of minimalist coffee is a Keurig 2.0 with a re-fillable pod. Been using it for ages, works good last a long time.

Extravagant coffee is a Nespresso Vertuoline with a refillable pod and Lavazza medium roast super crema.

Pick your poison. the Keurig gets used a lot more.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

My wife and I used to use a drip with attachments that allowed us to make espresso or cappuccino. We found that we hardly used the features to make espresso or cappuccino and the coffee maker took up a lot of counter space.

We ditched it and replaced it with a simple French press and we're really happy with it. Makes much better coffee (we use Eight O'Clock coffee) and takes up little space.

 

[Beldar]

We use a Hamilton Beach dual brew drip maker. Sometimes it's nice to brew a single cup or one of those uppity K-cup thingies.

I still use a blade grinder I purchased in 1982.

One thing we have never ( yes never) been able to do is replicate the coffee we drank in Brazil; very strong/rich but not bitter like espresso. I even bought beans while down there and yet have not been able to re-create it.

Good luck to the OP, a lot of possibilities here.

_B

 

[zinger1457]

The Aeropress is about as minimalist as you can get, cost ~$30, and makes a great cup of coffee, and cleans up easily. I often take it with me when traveling, takes up very little room.

 

[audreyh1]

The Aeropress may take little space, although you also need a kettle, or maybe you heat water in the microwave. But I consider it more of a hassle than what we use now, and I’ve used the Aeropress plenty in the past, ultimately got rid of it.

 

[braumeister]

The Aeropress may take little space, although you also need a kettle, or maybe you heat water in the microwave. But I consider it more of a hassle than what we use now, and I’ve used the Aeropress plenty in the past, ultimately got rid of it.

The advantage of the Aeropress is that it can easily be included in my suitcase. Almost all hotel rooms I stay in have a microwave, so heating water is easy (I also carry a Thermapen to check the temperature). I use it to make an Americano, but DW loves her latte and that's easy to make as well with the Aeropress. Actually, that's the main reason I carry one on trips -- so much easier than finding a nearby Starbucks for her lattes.

 

[MichaelB]

If you’re willing to buy a burr grinder you have some good options. A French press, an AeroPress, A Kalita Wave pour-over all work in similar fashion, give you a fair amount of control over the brewing process, and are relatively inexpensive.

 

[RobbieB]

I have a different take on "minimalist" coffee. I've been through lots. Keurigs, drips, pour overs, french press and mocha pots. Hand grinders, burr grinders and blade grinders.

My fav is the "super automatic" a Jura Ena Micro 1 which is now obsolete and replaced with Jura A1. Mine is still making superb coffee 7 years after I bought it. Grinds the beans, shoots the water, fills the cup. In less than a minute after pressing on. Dump whole beans in the hopper fill the tank and push the button.

No measures, no dust, one box on the counter and superb coffee every time. Cleans itself too (with pellets) and lets you know when to change the filter. Yeah, expensive, but really good and easy -