This year our product of the year is a bit different. It doesn’t run on batteries and it doesn’t have Wi-Fi.
There is no keyboard and not even a single button.
However, to a fair degree, it meets my criteria for a unique product. For those of you who have not followed my little tradition, let me explain.
Each year I look for a single product that genuinely changes the way I work, live, or play. In other words, this is not simply a better laptop or a flatscreen monitor replacing a tube set. It has to be something fundamentally different.
Two examples from past years were the digital recorder and the digital camera. My first audiobook was recorded on reel-to-reel tape and corrections were made by literally cutting out bits of tape to remove errors and splicing in other bits of tape to add the corrections. Doing the same thing by selecting, cutting and pasting "wave forms" on a screen was a fundamental change. And most of you already understand how digital images have replaced film negatives.
This year I celebrate a coffee revelation. It would not be fair to say it is a completely new way of making coffee, as essentially any device that forces water through coffee grounds has been around for a while! But this device changed the way I look at and appreciate the noble bean.
I have made coffee in just about every way known to humans. However, I did draw the line with those coffee beans reclaimed from the droppings of some Asian mammal. I enjoy the "alchemy" of coffee making in all its forms.
That is why the award goes to the Italian-made Bialetti "Cour di Mocha" stovetop brewer of espresso-like coffee. This fundamental design change was a joint venture between Bialetti and Illy, supplier of high-grade coffee and accessories.
What changes did this moka pot include that caused me to switch from a style of coffee making I once hated to a daily favorite? It was this device that includes an improvement that (I’ve got to say it) works a lot like the thing in your toilet tank that shuts off the refilling water before it gets too high in the tank!
Here's my simple explanation.
Mocha pots units work by boiling water and forcing it up, through the grounds, into an upper chamber (see the illustration at the top, left of the page). This is the same thing that "vac pots" or vacuum coffee makers do, but in this case the coffee remains in the top section of the maker.
While the first coffee to comes up the tube and spills ito the upper chamber, it is almost an elixir or syrup-like consistency. What comes up the tube as the water level lowers in the bottom chamber is increasingly thinner and eventually degrades into superheated steam. This is because if the heat remains constant and the water levels lowers, it simply gets hotter.
The superheated steam tends to release waxes and other undesirable elements from the coffee grounds that make a bitter and "burnt" taste which ruins what was forced up at the start of the process.
To prevent this, Bialetti inserted a float and stopper that simply halts the flow of water before the it reaches that low level. The superheated steam never has a chance to reach the coffee. Hence the name, which roughly translates as "heart of the moka." Only the best is used.
The difference in the final brew between a standard pot and this one is like night and day. It also taught me a lesson in brewing with those other moka pots that do not have the patented float device: reduce the heat at the end of the brewing process to achieve similar results! (Why I have never seen this fact mentioned in coffee circles is a mystery.)
While the output of the Cour di Moka is not large (about 2 espresso cups) it is the perfect unit for times when you are busy or distracted and cannot monitor the pot to reduce the heat as I suggest. It also has an elegant locking system, as opposed to the more common screw thread approach, and a more upscale finish.
These units are available from online sources such as Amazon.com, from Illy and from independent coffee shops.
There is no keyboard and not even a single button.
However, to a fair degree, it meets my criteria for a unique product. For those of you who have not followed my little tradition, let me explain.
Each year I look for a single product that genuinely changes the way I work, live, or play. In other words, this is not simply a better laptop or a flatscreen monitor replacing a tube set. It has to be something fundamentally different.
Two examples from past years were the digital recorder and the digital camera. My first audiobook was recorded on reel-to-reel tape and corrections were made by literally cutting out bits of tape to remove errors and splicing in other bits of tape to add the corrections. Doing the same thing by selecting, cutting and pasting "wave forms" on a screen was a fundamental change. And most of you already understand how digital images have replaced film negatives.
This year I celebrate a coffee revelation. It would not be fair to say it is a completely new way of making coffee, as essentially any device that forces water through coffee grounds has been around for a while! But this device changed the way I look at and appreciate the noble bean.
I have made coffee in just about every way known to humans. However, I did draw the line with those coffee beans reclaimed from the droppings of some Asian mammal. I enjoy the "alchemy" of coffee making in all its forms.
That is why the award goes to the Italian-made Bialetti "Cour di Mocha" stovetop brewer of espresso-like coffee. This fundamental design change was a joint venture between Bialetti and Illy, supplier of high-grade coffee and accessories.
What changes did this moka pot include that caused me to switch from a style of coffee making I once hated to a daily favorite? It was this device that includes an improvement that (I’ve got to say it) works a lot like the thing in your toilet tank that shuts off the refilling water before it gets too high in the tank!
Here's my simple explanation.
Mocha pots units work by boiling water and forcing it up, through the grounds, into an upper chamber (see the illustration at the top, left of the page). This is the same thing that "vac pots" or vacuum coffee makers do, but in this case the coffee remains in the top section of the maker.
While the first coffee to comes up the tube and spills ito the upper chamber, it is almost an elixir or syrup-like consistency. What comes up the tube as the water level lowers in the bottom chamber is increasingly thinner and eventually degrades into superheated steam. This is because if the heat remains constant and the water levels lowers, it simply gets hotter.
The superheated steam tends to release waxes and other undesirable elements from the coffee grounds that make a bitter and "burnt" taste which ruins what was forced up at the start of the process.
To prevent this, Bialetti inserted a float and stopper that simply halts the flow of water before the it reaches that low level. The superheated steam never has a chance to reach the coffee. Hence the name, which roughly translates as "heart of the moka." Only the best is used.
The difference in the final brew between a standard pot and this one is like night and day. It also taught me a lesson in brewing with those other moka pots that do not have the patented float device: reduce the heat at the end of the brewing process to achieve similar results! (Why I have never seen this fact mentioned in coffee circles is a mystery.)
While the output of the Cour di Moka is not large (about 2 espresso cups) it is the perfect unit for times when you are busy or distracted and cannot monitor the pot to reduce the heat as I suggest. It also has an elegant locking system, as opposed to the more common screw thread approach, and a more upscale finish.
Need more reasons to
buy this $65 device? As one contributor to an online coffee forum
observed, the beauty of the mocha pot is that if you drink the coffee
straight it is similar to espresso. If you dilute it with hot water you
can make a very good “Café Americano.” And if you simply add ice to it,
you have excellent iced coffee. Add to that the ability to add steamed
milk for lattes and you begin to see the value of these kind of pots. I
commend the manufacturers for upgrading a product design that is easily
70 or 80 years old and removing once and for all the chance of
overlooking the timing of the brew and ruining an otherwise excellent
pot of European coffee.
These units are available from online sources such as Amazon.com, from Illy and from independent coffee shops.