The London Lounge

I've spent two decades looking for the most enjoyable caffeinated way to begin my mornings and cap off my evening meals. After bouncing back and forth between Saeco and Jura, I reached for an old friend this week and find myself wondering why I ever put him away. There's something simple and satisfying (and delicious) about the Bialetti.
How do you take your coffee?

Troutonthefly

Having started drinking coffee only 2.5 years ago, I'm still finding my way around the coffee world. Having realised that filter coffee is nothing for me and milk also doesn't do it for me, I now use exactly the same tool as you. It is simple and delivers its own taste.

I used to have an Isomac for many years. I purchased it for my then-wife as she loved coffee and I loved the smell of freshly ground coffee as well. And I love the ritual of heating it up, grinding the coffee, running it through, etc. It was only the smell of boiled coffee that I didn't like.

But that has changed now and some day I will go back to a full espresso machine. For now, though, the percolator is my morning wake-up friend.

I recently visited a friend at his barista academy and he let me taste 3 brews from the same batch of beans: a standard espresso, filter coffee and a coffee from a Japanese method using a halogen lamp to heat up the water. If it would have been a blind tasting, one would have sworn they were made from completely different beans. The espresso was fruity and light, the filter coffee was more bland and the Japanese one was tasting of toasted grains. Incredible what influence the brewing method has. It is a lovely world, the coffee world!

T

I have worked with a good lot of very different coffee machines, and ended up with three favorite brewing methods. Those are: espresso, siphon and the little known (but brilliant) Kinto Faro. I also have a drum roaster and a very good grinder, because good coffee should be absolutely fresh.

Manual coffee grinder, single-plantation coffee bean from The Algerian Coffee Store in Soho (established 1887), Neapolitan flip coffee pot from Stella (established 1924) and love for a proper ristretto.

Bialetti does make a very good "home" coffee, but they do require maintenance. The most classic is the "Moka Express", which I would guess a significant percentage of italian households use daily, is globally available and in many sizes. If you can get your hands on a Bialetti "Brikka", they are slightly more expensive but are siad to make mroe crema / bnetter regualted pressure..

Another pointer, do NOT wait for the moka to be hissing and spluettering for a while or leave the coffee for long inside the top portion befopre pouring, you'll be drinking "scorched" coffee.