Drip coffee when people are over. Espresso or pour over at home. I have memories of living in my shitty apartment in 2010, lighting the element on my stove with a cigarette to heat up my moka pot at 5am before work.

no such thing as proletarian coffee

I feel like the french press, a modification of guillotine technology, is probably more proletarian than a pour over set up

At work they tried to take away our coffee and milk/oat milk this year, it’s been the only thing among many shitty things that resulted in so much pushback that the organization had to back off. We have a 15min paid coffee break, the drip coffee machines exist in all the numerous offices and it is indeed a very communal thing.

At home we now do aeropress as there are only two people drinking morning coffees and I started to feel uneasy about the wasted coffee as with a drip machine at home you tend to make too much. And you tend to drink too much coffee, which I used to do (two pots a day at my worst). My gi system can’t handle it anymore so there’s no reason to keep counterspace for the machine.

In Scandinavia drip coffee machines is the default at home brewing method. I’m kind of atypical for using a French press but that is what I’m used to from my parents. A French press also has the advantage of not taking up counter space when not in use and since I’m the only person at our house who drinks coffee, I like having a small French press that brews a single cup at a time.

I’ve always used drip coffee makers. When mine have stopped working it’s always been because of the thermocoupler, so if you know how to fix that and you don’t crack the carafe you should be set for many years.

I make cold brew for bulk coffee, I’d really call that the zoomer way of making coffee. I don’t know anybody my age with a regular drip pot or some Kurig bullshit. Then again, all my friends are bisexual so iced coffee is just part of the culture.

I refuse to become a snob about coffee because it means Ive enjoyed every coffee ive ever had.

I like the plugin percolator the best

• clean up is simple, you knock the grounds out of the basket and rinse it out. Rinse the pot and pipe. Not a big mess everywhere scraping/cleaning screens, filters fabrics, tubes, tanks, reservoirs blah blah.
• zero consumable or disposable components.
• you can set it on an outlet timer for all kinds of schedules. Get outlet timers that will start at any time, stop at any time, can be different according to the day of the week, etc etc. And you can put other things on the timer. When coffee is scheduled before the sun comes up, I put a lamp on the same timer.
• set up at night or any time in advance
• small amount of space used, put it away when not in use if needed.
• beautiful classic chrome and black plastic look, no lights
• fixable
• very simple design. some of them dont even have any controls: when its plugged in, its on. That was why I originally bought an outlet timer, to provide a switch. But it means there is nothing to break or go wrong.

Problems:

• not extremely flexible in quantity made… You can’t really make 1 cup in a big perc
• expensive to buy new, and difficult to find used because nobody ever gets rid of them
• hot to the touch (metal parts)
• its nice to have one where the pot itself detaches from the base (not as pictured above) so you can conveniently bring it somewhere to pour then return to the power without in/replugging however it introduces an extra point of failure, theoretically.

If I didn’t have a perc I would be happy with a drip machine. Why be a snob when you can be satisfied?

Actually I did find a drip machine on the street, I made a couple of pots of coffee but then it stopped working. It seemed like there was a loose connection with the control panel so I opened it up. It smelled really bad and there were a bunch of old fly larva casing and gross stuff I’m there. But I’m such that is not representative.

The standard coffee pot brings such a wonderful spirit of community. Having an easy option to make 4, 8, or 12 cups is good for the soul and invites one to imagine using it for a gathering that would call for it.

Keurig is the epitome of alienation and Western decadence. You WILL consume this alone, or you will be greatly inconvenienced. You WILL create endless single-use plastic waste. You WILL soon have a useless, expensive, broken appliance (as time has gone on, it seems to me that older Keurigs invariably break down like the overengineered cheap plastic crap they are).

It is curious to me, when you read literature from the 70s and before, how often people seemed to drink coffee - in Raymond Carver’s stories, for example, the characters seem to have a pot of coffee on at all times and have no problem drinking it together at 11pm. That shit would keep me wired until the following night and ruin the next week of my life lol. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive to caffeine.

Drip machines are great and you can get really cheap at a thrift store, they last forever. I got a cuisinart at an effective 80% markdown that has a clock so it can be programmed to make it just before I get up :)

Thwy also make good coffee, a fancy pourover like a chemex is making the coffee the same way! If your tap water tastes good use that, otherwise use a filter and zapatista beans (make sure you use a burr grinder) and your coffee will be great even if its the cheapest mrcoffee you can get.

The best coffee i have had consistently was made in a moka pot

I’m not picky when it comes to coffee, but I appreciate a good one. There’s something comforting about a cheap diner cup of drip coffee that’s just a little bit too bitter. At a third-wave coffee shop drip is where it’s at anyway. Pour over takes too long and frankly if i can’t make a full pot at a time it’s seems too decadent.

I’ve tried making coffee almost every other way: moka pot, french press, vacuum filter, aeropress, espresso, Keurig and nescafe pods (yes I know). All of them come up short either in quality, time, volume, or even flavours (when using light-medium third wave roasted beans, some methods can miss flavours or come out too sour).

I try to get nice beans, grind them fresh, and make a pot in my cheap automatic drip. It’s the way to do it. Lately I’ve been drinking Zapatista beans from Chiapas. They’re really quite good.

I use a drip pot, aeropress, and occasionally I’ll make cold brew. I don’t think drip makes for a bad cup of coffee, as long as you’re using beans that are freshly ground with a recent roast date (aside: if you see a sell by date on coffee beans, that’s irrelevant). It’s just that it’ll never make for a great cup of coffee.

Most of the fancy controls and features they put on the “nicer” drip pots are marketing fluff that make little difference, except for one: a thermal carafe. The weak point with most drip machines isn’t the drip mechanism itself, it’s the heating element the pot sits on. It’s cooking the coffee in unpredictable ways and that can impact the flavor. A thermal carafe is more akin to a thermos, using insulation to keep it warm.

If you do use just a regular glass carafe with a heating element, I would recommend turning the machine off the moment the dripping is done. That way you minimize flavor impact. If you need it reheated later, just pour a mug and microwave it; microwaving is by far the best method to reheat coffee as it’s not using a heat source that will impact the flavor.

High end drip brewers are good enough to consistently replicate perfect pour overs these days. Baristas are gradually being converted into low-skilled waiters instead of being involved in the brew.

The most consistent and cheap way to make good coffee involves immersion (e.g. French press or Aeropress) because all of the grounds are evenly extracted in the water. Can make gigantic batches if you want, just need a big enough boiler.

Simplest is best, IMO. they’re all gonna be the same generally and the high-end ones don’t really offer anything the low-end ones don’t (maybe materials). If I had my druthers and it was feasible I’d get a used commercial one with a hot water line for tea/oats.