Pour over Coffee Got Good | Hacker News Reader

Pour over Coffee Got Good

worksinprogress.co

63 pointsmxstbr41 comments

My problem with coffee hobbyism is it's just people constantly trying to upsell each other more expensive gear. I'm not sure why $400 for just a grinder makes sense to some people, people can get computers and phones for that money

And there's this general attitude of snobbishness, like you have to spend at least 600 on gear to have a "real espresso". Pretty much r/coffee in a nutshell (r/espresso even worse). And in typical reddit fashion, calling them out on their bullshit isn't allowed

And I don't have a problem with spending more to get nicer stuff, it's just if there's no objective measure of how it's "nicer" (e.g. pixel density on a monitor), then it raises my bullshit meter and makes me wonder if there's some shilling going on

I’ve used a little $20 blade grinder. The difference between it and a $200 grinder was night and day. Then I tried a $400 grinder. It was definitely better than the $200, but the diminishing returns were stark. Ultimately I kept the more expensive unit, though, because it generated about 1/10 the mess, was easier to clean, was faster, and ran much more quietly.

That’s my limit, though. All my research indicates you can get “better” cups by spending (a lot) more, but the difference is slim and possibly nonexistent if you aren’t some aficionado.

Todays <$100 electric burr grinder is the same tech as the $400 burr grinder from 15 years ago

Fanboys get obsessed with the story telling; except hollow body electric guitars, the wood makes no difference to sound; it’s all the electronics. People have setup body less electrics and get the same recorded wave form. But humans reduce the truth to manageable snippets to circumlocute

Definitely not true. If you want espresso, you’re going to be spending $200 at the absolute minimum, unless you get an 1zpresso hand grinder (but you can only do about 20g and making for >1 person is a hassle).

I have a $100 burr grinder (OXO) and the grinds are not very consistent. The Barratza Encore produces a slightly more consistent grind, and is $50-$80 more. The Encore ESP can also do espresso but the regular one cannot. Most cheap grinders cannot do espresso. Turkish coffee grind is even harder.

We have an expensive grinder at work (I think it’s a Mahlkonig?) and the build quality is night and day. The higher you go up in price point the better materials you get.

Oh sure if you go up the price chart today, cheap grinders get blown out

My point was the Baratza I bought over a decade ago for $600 is $250 for similar build quality now. And the $600 one now comes with a bunch of electronics and lights I don’t need.

2010s $250 grinder is $99-ish. Unless someone is putting in the effort to build the palette and notice the difference, anything over that is wasted.

Pin stripes, LED case fans add horse power!

> Baratza I bought over a decade ago for $600 is $250 for similar build quality now.

Maybe the exterior build quality? I highly doubt that the $600 grinder and the $250 grinder has similar internal construction. I'm not complaining if it's true, but I find it hard to believe they didn't save on cost somewhere. Maybe they're cheaper because of how ubiquitous it is now?

But yeah... those electronics and lights are an absolute waste.

Nice things I own:

1. 1zpresso hand grinder

2. 1974 Honda CL125S

3. Black totem cam x 2

Everything else can go to the dump as far as I'm concerned.

That happens in every hobby. There was just a thread on Reddit about cheeky names for people who spend too much on gear. Apparently, mountain bikers call them 007s: 0 skills, 0 style, $7,000 bike.

I think for coffee in particular the GP is missing that a lot of people are buying lattes every other day for 5$+. In a year that's +900$ which is definitely enough to get excellent gear.

My mignon grinder and rancilio silvia set me back 1000$, but I have been using them daily for 4 years to make lattes for my partner and I. That's over 2920 lattes at an average of 0.34$ each!

Are you ignoring the cost of coffee and milk? Even modestly priced coffee ($14/12oz) ends with each shot being roughly $0.75 in just ground coffee. No idea what milk costs for you since pricing can be so variable, but in actual raw components you can quickly get above $1 purely in cost of goods. Even easier if you're drinking expensive or special stuff. Expensive coffee truly can have raw material cost exceeding $4/cup, although it would be unusual to use that in a latte.

Sure, a bought latte every day is expensive. That doesn’t mean you have to chase the expense with your own spending

In photography it is a little less derogatory... GAS. Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

$600 on "real espresso" really is a pretty appropriate bar. It might be a bit lower nowadays thanks to some cheaper offerings, but getting that number below $400 is quite difficult barring used gear, incredible sales, or compromises like using a hand grinder for your grinder.

The alternative is using a pressurized portafilter to simulate espresso, which ends up with a much thinner, much less flavorful espresso shot. Not what should be considered espresso, even if it is a simulacrum.

if there's no objective measure

There are lots of objective ways to compare grinders and espresso machines. With grinders you have obvious ones like speed, but also consistency (does every run give you the same size particles) and particle size distribution (are all the particles more or less the same size). With espresso machines the big ones are temperature and pressure stability, both within a single shot and also shot to shot. All of these things can measurably affect the end result of the coffee you make. That isn't to say that there isn't also a lot pseudoscience and snobbishness also in coffee, or the diminishing returns don't kick in quite quickly.

All of this is ignoring things like design and ergonomics that many people also value. If I'm going to have a large machine that I use every day taking up counter space in my kitchen then I might be willing to pay a bit extra just for it to be pleasing to look at and enjoyable to use, even if those things cannot be detected in a blind tasting of the resulting coffee.

My $400 grinder will be working just as well in 50 years time, can you say the same for your computer and phone?

Grinders make the biggest difference for espresso quality and consistency, it's the espresso machines that people generally over spend on.

I don’t doubt there are people that can recognize subtle differences in the taste of coffee depending on its origins and roasting and brewing.

However that’s not me. I did my best to recognize the “notes of blueberry and molasses” or “floral hints with nutty aftertones”. I can’t.

The most I can tell apart is sour vs. bitter vs. smooth (some snobs would call the last one as “tasteless”).

Nowadays I’ve mostly given up on expensive coffee and usually just get the cheap brew from the newsstand on my commute. My sole indulgence is the bag of Kona I buy every now and then to grind in my $300 grinder and brew on my $400 drip machine - artifacts from when I delved into the hobby.

$10 Blade Grinder < $25 high torque blade grinder < $150 burr grinder < $400 coated micro abrasive burr grinder < $6 mortar and pestle

> $6 mortar and pestle

maybe for granularity but the mess is probably god awful to deal with

> $6 mortar and pestle

Really? How does one get consistency?

Elbow grease mostly, but when you feel you've done enough, screening.

If you need consistent particle size with a mortar and pestle, you regularly screen whatever you're grinding with a tamis.

Eye hand coordination

Presumably you're joking, but even assuming perfect articulation of a mortar and pestle, the inherent uncertainty with how coffee breaks when cracked is going to lead to inconsistent particle size. The reason burrs actually work for precision is due to the fact that they cut the coffee until it is small enough to exit the burr gap. There's no such restriction on when coffee is finished cutting on a mortar/pestle.

I mean, for better or worse, we've accepted pour-overs are the way to go at home. I have a 60 dollar setup that's been great for me for 6 years. I'm sure I could be convinced a 600 dollar setup tastes better and is more convenient and whatever, but I don't care too much when I just need to serve myself and my roommate.

But this article is about the cafe setting, where it'd be irresponsible to limit customers based on how fast you can handgrind beans, and that's where salesmanship works its magic. And yes, some of it's pure snobbery, but even that's a marketing point if you're the only coffeeshop on the block with the all-copper setup :P

The not-so-secret truth is that espresso isn't an 'upgrade' from pour overs, it's just a fork in the coffee road. They're different beverages altogether. Pour overs/drip/brewed coffee is not necessarily worse, and in many cases can exceed espresso quality depending on the bean and other equipment.

The trap a lot of people get themselves into is thinking they'll "upgrade" to an espresso setup (usually spending $500+ to do so), only to be disappointed compared to their even modestly priced ($60, as you say) pour over.

The absolute peak of pour over setups only really needs to cost maybe $300-400, and most of that is in the grinder. Anything more is essentially a waste. But espresso can easily get you into the $10k+ range with expensive machines, silly grinders, accessories, and more.

Or just do as the Italians do, and make coffee in a 30 year old mokapot, using ground coffee bought from a store.

I’ve never been able to get a cup of coffee I’ve liked out of a mokapot :(

Two mistakes I made, and often see people do, when first using a moka pots is a) use an espresso grind on their coffee and b) to tamp down the coffee in the basket like you would when making espresso. Once I started to use a slightly coarser grind, halfway between espresso and pour over, and stopped tamping down the coffee (just tap it lightly to make it level is enough), I got much better results. Also remember that moka is not espresso. Too many people think they can replicate an espresso using a moka pot and just end up disappointed with the results.

> we've accepted pour-overs are the way to go at home

I do espresso, that's just my preference. If the shot comes out right, it has these flavors that are really hard to describe (can't find an appropriate word here)

But consistency is hard

IDK about all that. I'm sure there's pretense and over-priced gear. However, lots of people can afford $400-1000 for a major appliance they use every day.

Frankly, if you just enjoy coffee a whole lot, that investment makes sense for most people. Coffee is a major part of people's lives.

The issue with espresso, is that the process itself is NOT simple, and involves tons of heat an pressure. I'm not 100% sure what makes it expensive, except that it obviously pays to make it heftier.

You don't have to drink espresso. There's lots of reasons not to go with espresso that don't involve cost/difficulty. Some very well regarded methods involve just leaving the beans in water with a $20 piece of cookwear.

Regarding grinders, people just find that they don't get a consistent grind. It's functional concerns, not hipsterism or consumerism. In all cases, there's options at every price range.

I agree about the bullshit meter. 20 years ago it was people claiming they could hear the difference if they had a headphone cable with gold-plating.

> it's just if there's no objective measure of how it's "nicer"

I think with all of these topics there is a fundamental test: make the person do a blind test and see if they can see the difference.

Sometimes people can (somebody challenged me to taste-test filtered water vs tap, a coworker could identify bottled coke vs normal) and others can't (a friend couldn't identify FLAC file vs normal).

If the person is afraid to do the test, that's a good indicator to me that they might already know it's more of a hype thing.

>Coffee – and what Americans like me mean by that is black coffee, filter coffee, drip coffee – is much more popular in the US than Europe. It became popular after the Boston Tea Party as a more patriotic alternative to the unjustly taxed tea.

Sort of. What a lot of people don't realize is that coffee used to be very popular even in England. Isaac Newton was a coffee drinker. The intellectual elite of England met in coffee houses in the 1600s and 1700s. The Boston Tea Party may have led to the decline of tea in the US, but it wasn't as if coffee was some weird unknown drink to them that they had to learn to drink in the aftermath of it.

Also that quote seems a bit silly anyway. Because if we look per-capita, European countries beat the US in terms of coffee consumption. Of course, in absolute amounts, the US will have more consumption than most, but then again, with a population of 300 million people, it'd be more surprising if the absolute numbers weren't in the Americans' favour.

OTOH, for per capita consumption, it has tended to flip between The Netherlands and Finland, wherein for example here[0] it's said that the Dutch drank 8.3 kilograms of coffee per capita in 2020, while Finns drank 7.8 kilos per capita. For comparison, the Americans used 3.5 kilos.

Of course, TFA could have also meant that drip coffee is more popular across the Atlantic than here, but even that I do find hard to believe. Besides, if that's the case, then this point was expressed in an odd manner, frankly.

---

[0]: <https://www.statista.com/chart/8602/top-coffee-drinking-nati...>

I was similarly confused and finally decided that the commenter could have also been referring to the unsubstantiated fact that Americans drink more black/drip/pour over than Europeans, who mostly drink espresso-derived variants.

I say "unsubstantiated" because a cursory web search didn't turn anything up. Anecdotally, it seems true.

mostly drink espresso-derived variants.

I'd say in general there is a very clear north/south divide in Europe when it comes to coffee. Northern Europe drinks more filter coffee and souther Europe drinks mostly espresso. Of course over the past couple of decades a lot of 'foreign' influences has greatly changed how Northern Europeans drink coffee (much like in the US)

The inventor of the Aeropress believed that over the last century there was a trend towards shorter and shorter brews and that if you left the beans in water for too long it extracted unpleasant sour flavours. I know it's a matter of taste but I'm inclined to agree: I'd rather a faster brew with an Aeropress or an espresso-Americano than a pour-over.

Again, it's a matter of taste, but I was an espresso bar a few weeks ago and had the worst coffee I've had in many years because I decided to wait for pour-over (and they roasted the beans in-house so I assume they were fresh!)

FWIW I had Clover coffee once and I hated it too; maybe I just have bad taste in coffee.

Great article. I wonder if anyone has experimented with ultrasonic vibrations to extract more or different flavors from beans, as this technique has been used to extract the flavors of barrel-aged whiskeys in a short period of time, rather than through an aging process [0].

0. Science 2.0. The Acceleration of Spirits Aging Using Ultrasound. https://www.science20.com/scott_beers/the_acceleration_of_sp.... Published May 31, 2018. Accessed September 6, 2024.

Great read! I love a pour over, but it's always "...but only if you have time" because I know how much of a pain they are for the staff.

I wonder if the Starbucks story was one of those situations where the CEO had a pet project but the rest of the company silently conspired to kill it? I feel like I'd be the exact target market for this, yet I've never heard of either Clover nor Starbucks Reserve before.

Hadn’t heard of the clover. Over $10k for 1 cup at a time. Nice

The clover was a magical device. Andy Rubin, of Android/Danger fame, was a huge coffee aficionado and would have all sorts of coffee machinery in the Android offices at Google. When we were in a partnership with the team, when we had to meet if I could help it, it would be at the Android offices just so I could get a cup of clover brewed coffeee. The most satisfying part of the ritual was after the coffee was brewed, the piston would push up the spent grounds to the top of the clover and you would use a rake shaped squeegee to clean the grounds from machine in a motion that resembled tending a zen garden. Aeropress is a rough approximation of the richness of the resulting brew. But it was a delightful machine. Shame Starbucks could not make it more ubiquitous. Bulk filter coffee is just faster. On an unrelated note, I am surprised the author didn’t mention Philz which is pourover using Mr. Coffee style filters. The volume Of coffee used for a cup a Philz is epic.

This is such a well-written and informative article. Wow.

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