alt Hacker NewsHuh, cool. If you want to save a few bucks you can go with a stainless steel French press or a mason jar if you're into cold brews. You're symbolizing a different kind of status though.
This summer was sunny and hot in Colorado, so every morning I'd make a jar of sun coffee. I'd leave it out through the day and overnight. The next morning I'd pull it in, filter it, refill it with grounds and water and take it outside again. It was cool enough to enjoy and really smooth.
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If you want to save fewer bucks, get to zero plastic and get better espresso, you can buy one of these and a burr grinder:
https://flairespresso.com/products/the-flair-classic
I've had one for about a decade. It reliably produces better espresso than >99% of Bay Area coffee shops. (>95% if you exclude national chains).
If I were buying one today, I'd toss the flow control head, silicon sleeve on the cylinder and the pressure gauge, but those come with it for free now, so to each their own, I guess.
The trick is to boil the stainless steel cylinder in your kettle (PID at sea level, conventional above ~ 2000 ft elevation) with the water so that you get the temperature dialed in within a degree C or so, like a conventional (lead-filled, unlike the flair) Italian machine. I use a pair of tongs to pick up the stainless steel cylinder, so I don't need the sleeve. (Check the boiling point of water at your elevation -- unlike a steam machine, this can't exceed that temperature, so stuff might start to run kinda cool at 3000 ft or so).
Flair doesn't sell a "true" classic anymore, but I bet they could get the bare bones variant I use to < $100 if they tried. Maybe someone else will when any patents run out. My only other complaint is that the two-in-one bottomless porta-filter I have runs the espresso across plastic when in non-bottomless mode.
Note that the thing I linked has a plastic plunger. They make a stainless steel one as an upgrade. At that point, you're down to one silcone o-ring in the water / coffee path. Everything else is stainless, so no lead. The next thing to worry about is nickel, but that only matters if you're allergic. I used to use the SS plunger, but then you need to boil it too if you want to dial in the water temperature.
When I broke my french press I got by fine with just throwing grounds in a pot of boiled water and decanting it off after a few minutes steep. Basically all the press does anyhow just less convenient.
> You're symbolizing a different kind of status though.
Now I'm curious whether you mean a higher status (which I infer when folks are using such things) or a lower status (which I could also infer).
I should get my cold brew setup out, thanks for the reminder.
I haven't heard the expression "sun coffee" before. Is it just a colloquial cold brew?
French press coffee isn't so healthy either because of stuff like cafestols in the fines (small diameter grounds) that slip through the french press screen. To get rid of those you want a brewing scheme with a paper filter. The simplest no-plastic approach is a Chemex. They have a history and they also look cool as heck. Unfortunately, since they are made of glass, they can break if you're not careful. https://chemexcoffeemaker.com/