The only way I drink coffee is black. So when it comes to variety, my only options are buying different beans, which I do, or brewing my coffee in a different way.
From French press to Italian press to stupid and terrible Keurigs to cowboy coffee boiled in a pot, I've tried nearly everything.
My mainstay is an auto-drip Mr. Coffee, but the burned coffee drips on the hot plate and the continuously wet inner structures have sketched me out more than once.
So a few weeks ago, I bought a Bodum pour over. You put coffee in the permanent cone filter on top of the glass carafe and slowly pour hot water over the grounds.
This simulates an auto-drip pot but doesn't have any of the nasty wet inner parts.
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The Bodum is essentially a cheaper version of the Chemex, which pioneered the pour over in 1941, as far as I know. The Chemex uses a paper cone filter instead of a permanent one, which I think must work better due to my experience with the Bodum's micromesh filter.
In the Bodum, the bottom of the coffee always ended up slightly silty, which is something I don't enjoy, although I know plenty of French press drinkers do.
From what I've seen in online reviews, water filters much faster through the Bodum than the Chemex, which consequently doesn't give the coffee as much time to brew.
Luckily, there's an easy fix-add a paper cone filter to the Bodum's permanent filter. This slowed down brewing, removed the coffee's silt and made cleanup faster.
Instead of having to fully rinse out the grounds in the permanent filter, you can just dump out the paper filter and give the permanent one a quick rinse.
NOTE: Don't replace the permanent filter with just a paper filter in the Bodum. The bottom will rip out with the effect of a reverse whale blowhole.
Rating: A
Price: $29.99 at Target
