With so many ways to make coffee, and so many gadgets to choose from, do we need another? We barrista the Pour Over Coffee Maker from Coffee Gator.
‘It doesn’t look like much,’ says Luke one of our designers and in day to day charge of the XXXXresso machine. He means in terms of functionality, it actually looks pretty elegant with its fine glass jug and shiny silver filter.
In an age where we have capsules as well as bean to cup machines that look like the boilers on the Queen Mary, plus of course the ubiquitous cafetiere, do we need another way to make coffee? We were dubious.
The Pour Over Coffee Maker from Coffee Gator, certainly could not be simpler to use; place filter on top of jug, fill with your choice of ground coffee and then slowly pour off-the-boil water through. Coffee appears in jug, still hot and ready to drink.
We looked at each other; could this be any good? And then we tasted and lo and behold it did taste remarkably better than cafetiere coffee. Cleaner, fresher and hotter.
The secret is that filter. Laser cut from steel it allows the water to pass through smoothly and at the perfect speed. Paper filters tend to clog very quickly and the water passes through at an infuriating crawl, allowing the water to cool down too much. The paper also absorbs flavours and oils that should be in your cup. And you have to keep buying more filters, which is not very eco-friendly.
The steel filter also makes easy to flip out the grounds into your compost bin after and the filter rinses through in seconds. Younger members of staff, who want instant gratification, disliked having to stand still for a few minutes slowly pouring water. Older members understood the beauty of a device that gives you a legal few minutes away from the keyboard.
We live in daily expectation of breaking the jug; it’s very delicate, which is charming but also a worry. Otherwise it’s become the coffee maker of choice for many of us, it makes about three mugs worth which is a good quantity, and it does taste good compared to the cafetiere and is a lot cheaper to run than the capsule machine.
Coffee Gator do a range of coffee making and coffee storing accessories, all simple ideas stylishly executed. Check them out at Coffee Gator.com and you can buy the pour over coffee maker on Amazon.