Spotted: Not one but TWO at an otherwise crappy garage sale, never used
Cost: $19.95 to $25.00 (also available in 1-, 2-, 6-, 9-, and 12-cup models)
Attraction: Doubles as a lightweight bludgeon
Where to buy: I’d try your locally-operated camping and outdoor store first, or order straight from Bialetti online.
Every year, in an effort to make a tastier cup of joe, designers of coffee makers concoct aroma-savers, attached grinders, and all sorts of bullshit to convince yuppies to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on this liquid fetish. What if I told you the best home coffee maker on the market costs $19.95? You’ve probably seen one of these iconic little aluminum jobs, which looks like a hexagonal teapot cinched at the waist. So small and light, you probably didn’t take it seriously, but the Little Bialetti That Could does make the best fricking coffee you’ll ever achieve inside your own home.
I don’t know why this is — I only have 15 years of empirical evidence with the same contraption as proof. I’ve made coffee on boats (works great on electric ranges), and trucked that sucker to altitudes and valleys all along the Cascade mountain range.
Operating the coffee maker requires little instruction: Put water in the bottom and coffee in the basket, screw it together, and put it on the burner. The quality and taste of the coffee has to do with a mini-percolator effect. A few tricks can improve the quality of your brew. First, though it defies logic, the coffee you make will improve the more you make it, like a cast iron pot. So if you haven’t used your Moka in a while, “season” it with a quick dry run of coffee before you go for the black gold. There’s even a slightly more expensive model (Brikka) with a fitted nozzle on the inside that better controls the flow of coffee, creating honest-to-the-coffee-gods crema.
As further evidence that I would make a better rich person than most rich people, if I were rich, I wouldn’t waste my money on a stupid in-home espresso maker. I’d just get a Moka for at least every day of the week. So I could make my coffee, but my maid could clean up after me. I’d use the money I saved as toilet paper in the guest bathroom.
Maggie Savarino Dutton is an industry veteran who has played bartender, sommelier and line cook and who now consults. She writes "Search & Distill," which appears every Wednesday in the Seattle Weekly, and maintains The Wine Offensive, her blog about wine, food, and anything else that might be discussed over the bar.
"Point of Purchase" photograph by Roadsidepictures via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Pantry" photograph by Áslaug Snorradóttir.
