When one of my older relatives gave me a percolator as a gift last summer, I literally had to Google what the hell the thing was. You put the water where? Does the coffee go in out or, do you have to shake it all about? If so, for how long? I eventually got the hang of it, but then instantly switched over to a regular, drip machine a few weeks later. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t be bothered with the “oldness” of the device. Why use a rotary phone if I don’t have to?
To me, the taste wasn’t so much “better” that I had to re-arrange my schedule just to get the percolator out of the blast furnace. El Sr. Ruhlman, who writes about food for real, disagrees. Percolators, apparently, fill the soul with only the freshest nine cups of coffee.
Maybe I’m the wrong person to have written this, not being much of a coffee person. I’d be fine with doing a double stacked hit of ecstasy in the morning to wake up if it weren’t for the wicked teeth grinding that happens a few hours in.
Percolator Love [ruhlman.com via Boing Boing Gadgets]
This is somewhat, um, rubbish article.
First, he claims that percolators have disappeared, when the stove top ones have been around all my life and still sell well.
I am what might be termed a coffee addict, ordering beans and grinding myself to ensure they’re fresh (haven’t got round to roasting them myself yet, I’m sure that’s the next step).
Point is that you can get stove-top percolators anywhere, and there is no question they make better coffee than that repugnant drip-filter cr.p. The best coffee, I think not. All percolators will burn coffee slightly so a slightly sweeter been is required. Some advocate the “French Press” (as you call it in the land of an electoral process that seems to take the entire time someone is in office), but that is still not much of a step up from the drip-filter. The good old Italian style stove-top percolators (although burning coffee slightly) or cafetieres/espresso machines will give far better coffee.
For more information, go to http://www.coffeegeek.com – or, if you want to report on a gadget (this being a gadget blog), try the Handpresso: http://www.handpresso.fr/
I’d have to say a coffee plunger makes the best cup