The taste tests

I went downstairs and made myself an incredibly cheap coffee just to fit in. LMAO

I think the reason the coffee is stronger than you expect is because (I've observed) the amount of coffee grounds required to brew a target strength doesn't seem to scale linearly with the amount of water. I use manual pour-over, and I use about 25 grams for a single mug, but for two mugs I only need about 35 grams, not 50 grams. (Since cup != mug in coffee-maker lingo, I bet that my two mugs @ 35 grams is pretty similar to your four cups @ 30 grams)

Based on your vids I dumped my percolator for a drip coffee maker with a thermal carafe. I love it. Set the timer for the morning and coffee is ready when I wake up and hot for the 2 + hours.

andreamsofcake

You two would have such funny banter. What a juxtaposition!

Terry Cabeen

Maybe you can do coffee tasting session of the different machines with James Hoffmann. That would be really cool!

Steffi Hetjens

I liked Moka for a little while, and then it became too much. It is EXCELLENT, however, for making coffee fruit smoothies. :)

I used to have a drip machine like that. I found that the coffee tasted much better if I pre-heated the caraffe using boiling water from a kettle :)

I run my drip maker on a WiFi plug timer and set it up the day before. It’s set up to turn on and run just long enough to make what I need about 10 minutes before my alarm goes off so I can have a cup as I get ready and then some to-go!

I'd like to give a shoutout to the only basket-type single cup coffee maker I've found to be passable: the "Black+Decker CM0755S, 5-Cup". After throwing away the carafe and riser, this little guy is able to output 16oz of perfectly fine coffee into my hydroflask which is then kept hot for hours. Honestly I _do not understand_ why there are so few machines designed for direct to cup brewing with ground coffee.

Kevin Bost

I own no fewer than 12 different ways to brew a cup of coffee. Along with a burr grinder, gram scale, and pour-over kettle. Yes I can taste the difference. But for my first cup in the morning, it's always a cup from a humble drip coffee maker. For the same reason as you stated. The taste to effort ratio is acceptable. The other gadgets are for when I feel like fussing, or showing off.

Lisa Boban

Seriously. I'll send you my mokapot. It's an interesting gadget but I hated the coffee.

Lisa Boban

Cooooffeeee :-P https://youtu.be/0QdURc8aQbs Good beans and grinding are very important too yes, I prefer to buy them at a small coffee roaster I know personally, the best coffee I had :-).

MrHammond

The old Mr. Coffee machine reminds me of the 2-XL, the educational robot toy that uses 8-track tapes as seen recently on Techmoan.

Mark Hesse

I'm not sure if this was already discussed somewhere or not- but just wanted to mention (or reiterate from your first video) that I agree a lot of the bad taste can come from the hot plate almost immediately burning the coffee. For the past several years though, I've been using a drip machine that removed the hot plate entirely, and utilizes a double walled stainless carafe. This is the best design for these machines in my opinion. Even more dead simple than it already was- doesn't burn the coffee, but also keeps it hot for HOURS. It's quite nice. Some may point out that keeping it even at brewing temperature for hours will degrade the coffee- which is true, but it still tastes great and doesn't have the terrible burnt flavor from the hot plate. Anyway just wanted to add my two cents!

There are other kinds of drip makers that heat and operate differently. They’re just at the higher end of the price range. They’d probably would get the same taste out of Folgers though. The supermarket brands are nothing if not consistent.

Ryan Butler