Mar 05 2009
Thursday 13: 13 Cheap Coffee Gadgets
If there’s anything I love almost as much as I love coffee, it’s cheap gadgets - you know, the kind you can pick up at the dollar store or in the bins at your favorite grocery. So naturally, when you combine the two, it’s a no-brainer that I double-love cheap coffee gadgets. Here’s a list of 13 cheap (defined as under $20) coffee gadgets that I have either owned, own now, or would love to own - along with my witty commentary, of course. (Sidenote: Yes, some of these gadgets link through to places where you can buy them if you’re so moved. Yes, if you decide to buy one of them because you just gotta gotta gotta try it out, I get an itsy bitsy kickback. But really, I used the links because it’s a cheap, quick, easy way to find the pictures to go with the words. Mmkay? Let the Thursday 13 begin!)
  |
Permanent Gold Coffee Filter All right - it adds an extra step to the coffee making process - gotta rinse out the filter after you’re done brewing. But a) you never have to buy paper filters again and b) you’re not throwing away coffee filters and using up our resources to filter your coffee. See? Ecologically sounder - kinda. After all, it does take resources to make the things. In the balance, maybe I just think it’s kinda cool to be filtering my coffee through a precious metal. |
 |
4-cup Toastmaster Coffee MakerThis is the perfect college dorm room coffee pot. It’s cheap, it makes decent coffee and it makes just enough coffee to power a couple of hours of study time. Keep in mind that those “4 cups” actually work out to about 2 full standard size mugs of coffee, so it’s also nifty if you’re making a cuppa joe for you and your late-night study date -no leftover coffee to pour down the drain. Oh - it also includes a permanent filter so you never run out of coffee filters and have to use a paper towel from the loo. |
 |
Porcelain Coffee Filter Holder Confession Time - this one actually goes over the “cheap” threshold by $1.75, but I had to include it. You CAN buy one of these at your local supermarket in plastic for a whole lot less, and the function is about the same. You just line it with a #4 cone coffee filter, put in your coffee, sit it on the rim of your coffee mug and pour the boiling water. My first one of these was a Melitta, and I so fell in love with the coffee it made that I stopped using the electric drip coffee maker altogether when I was only making one cup. These days, I would go for the porcelain one for one reason only - porcelain doesn’t absorb the coffee acids so you always get a fresher taste. Okay, maybe two reasons. It’s just a whole lot classier. |
 |
Konitz Espresso Dopio Cups and Saucers So a couple of days ago, I talked a little bit about how the shape of your coffee cup affects the way that your coffee tastes. This is one place where I honestly do get a little bit coffee-geekish because I kinda figured it out on my own years ago. Coffee just plain tasted better in Nana’s thick, white porcelain coffee cups than it did in the delicate little tea cups she saved for company. Konitz took it to a whole ‘nother level when they designed an entire line of coffee cups designed specifically to serve different styles of coffee. These are my favorites out of the bunch - big enough for a double espresso or an espresso with a shot, and cunningly designed with a little mounted base that keeps the coffee sediment in the bottom of your cup instead of letting it mix back in with the coffee you’re drinking. And they’re only $14.95 for a set of four cups and saucers. |
 |
Coffee Grinder If there is any single coffee gadget that I will not ever be without ever again, it’s a coffee grinder, even one as simple and cheap as this. There is no single other thing you can do to improve the quality of your coffee like grinding whole coffee beans fresh just just before you use them. The reason is simple - when you grind the bean up, you expose a whole lot more surface area to the air, which means a whole lot more surface area that lets out those aromatic oils into the air. That’s why it smells so good when you grind coffee - you’re releasing essential coffee oils into the air. Now granted, you’re kinda limited with a cheap bladed coffee grinder, but it’s a huge step up from cans of pre-ground coffee. If you’re willing to spend the money, you can buy a burr grinder that can be set to grind your coffee to precisely the right grind for the way you plan to prepare it (did you know that there’s an “optimum grind” for just about any kind of coffee? Now you do!) |
 |
Bodum Travel Coffee Press I love coffee made with a Bodum French press, but it’s not always practical to tote the thing along with me when I travel. Enter this nifty gadget - the Bodum Travel press. It’s a thermal travel mug with a built in coffee-press in the lid. Once you’ve pressed your coffee, you just drink directly out of the press/mug. It’s not -quite- as good as the home version, because with the home version, you pour out the coffee when it’s hit optimal brew time. With the Travel press, the grounds are still sitting in the bottom of the mug where they can’t help but add a bit more flavor to your coffee than you intended. Also - this particular baby is out of stock at both buy.com and Amazon.com. If you really really gotta have it cuz of the cool Bad coffee slogan, though, it’s available directly from Bodum USA |
 |
Black & Decker Brew and Go Coffee Maker Speaking of travel mugs - I collect the little suckers like some people collect postcards. I’ve got an entire pantry shelf full of travel coffee mugs from everywhere. I picked up this nifty gadget back when I was driving my daughter to school on the other side of the city every morning. There was NO WAY I was spending an hour in morning traffic without my coffee, and much as I love my Dunkins, grabbing a fresh cup every morning got really pricey when you figure that every cup also meant a breakfast sandwich for the Princess - and usually for me, too. Enter the Black & Decker, which cost $14.95 - about what I was spending every two days for coffee. It brews 15 ounces of coffee directly into the travel mug, which was a perfect fit for the cup holders. Princess started the coffee when I jumped in the shower and it was ready to grab on my way out the door - saved me an absolute fortune! |
 |
Terry’s Espresso Tamper from RSVP Any barista will tell you that tamping the coffee for espresso is one of the important steps to get the brewing time right. To do that, you need a good quality tamper - and I love this one. It’s not as fancy as some of the ones I’ve seen, but the heavy-duty alloy - it’s heavy enough that you don’t want to drop it on your toe - I know, I have - is durable and smooth as silk. It’s got both a 50mm and a 55mm tamping surface, which makes it ideal for using to tamp the coffee in my stovetop moka coffee pot AND in the group head for the espresso maker. And to top it off, this pretty little baby costs only - are you ready? - $6.95. It doesn’t get much better than that. |
 |
Stovetop Espresso Maker This is how my grandmother used to make her morning coffee. I was thrilled to find one at a yard sale a few years back for just a buck. I took it home, washed it, polished it up and used my stovetop espresso maker for years before I put the pot on with no water in it one day and burned out the rubber gasket. That’ll teach me to make coffee when I’m walking in my sleep! These are so easy to use and make incredibly good coffee. If you’ve never tried one and you really love coffee, you owe it to yourself. |
 |
Vacuum Sealed Coffee Canister Absolutely one of the best coffee savers I’ve ever bought. I roast my own coffee so that I can enjoy the freshest possible coffee taste - but I usually roast up enough for a few days at a time. That means that I have to do something to keep my beans fresh until I’m ready to use them. I use a ceramic carafe with an airtight rubber gasket and a push-down tab just like this one - except that I scored mine for free with four boxes of Gevalia coffee. Keeps the beans fresh by blocking out light and air that steal those essential coffee oils. Definitely worth the low $15 price. |
 |
Battery operated milk frother This mini milk frother is ideal if you love cappuccino, whipped hot chocolate or other drinks that use whipped milk. It whips up a nice, velvety foam in seconds and works on two AA batteries, so you can tote it with you anywhere. Keep one in your desk at the office along with a few packets of Starbucks Via and you can get your afternoon Starbucks fix without leaving the office. |
Possibly-related Articles: (auto-generated)
I got a visit from your blog today, I didn’t know you linked me, you should have told me so I could link back to you! =) thanks
Great TT. The milk frother looks really cool.
I love this list!! I have a 16oz stainless french press that I got from starbucks for $5, as they were discontinuing it (reg price $24) and although I have a lil plastic cup drip, I’d love to have the porcelain one! What a great TT!
(*audrey… I think the captcha is goofy. I mess it up all the time and it still posts. I think they give we humans a margin for error! LOL)