Variable Temperature Electric Kettle

If I’m going to brew a french press or want to make tea for more than just one or two, I turn to using a trusty stove top kettle to make the required amount. It’s quick and hasn’t let me down yet – although you do need to stay on top of it to watch when the water boils. This Variable Temperature Electric Kettle from Breville has some interesting advantages over the traditional stove top kettle.

The Breville kettle does a lot more than just boil water. It allows you to quickly bring water to a preset temperature – and includes temperatures for green tea, white tea, oolong tea,black tea and French press, in addition to boiling – and will hold that same temperature for up to 20 minutes. The ‘hold’ feature is extremely convenient if you like to work or take care of things around the house while you’re waiting to make tea. There’s a safety shut off, in case you get too distracted and forget you left the kettle on. It holds 60-oz and has an easy to read water gauge on the side.

The downside is that the Kettle is pricey – no surprise given all its features – but if you can find it on sale and know you’ll make good use of a new kettle, you can’t go too far wrong with this one.

The best ground coffee from CR

The best selling coffees in the US are preground and sold in the supermarket. Preground beans have been making coffee drinking easier for the last 100 years, since Maxwell House started selling ground coffee back in 1907. There is a huge variety to choose from these days, and Consumer Reports set out a taste test to try and narrow down the field. They only tasted Colombian coffee and compared price, caffeine level and taste on all brands.

Their top pick – the best tasting and a Best Buy for value – was Eight O’Cock Coffee. It cost less than half of some of the “boutique” brands ($6.28/lb), but delivered a good, smooth coffee flavor that the tasters really enjoyed, with earthy and fruity notes and no burnt or over-roasted taste.

Their two runners up were Caribou COffee’s Colombia Timana and Kickapoo Coffee’s Organic Colombia. None of the coffees rated were bad, but the panel only gave Starbucks, Bucks County, Archer Grams, Gloria Jeans, Chock Full O’Nuts, Peet’s, Maxwell House and  Folgers Gourmet “good” ratings.

On the decaf side, none of the coffees garnered a “very good” rating, but Dunkin Donuts Dunkin Decaf, Millstone’s Decaf Colombian garnered average ratings and beat out the rest.

Coffee for One French Press

The one drawback to french press coffee is that you really need to drink the whole pot in a short time frame. Since the grounds are pressed to the bottom of the pot and kept there, any liquid remaining will continue to brew and will, most likely, become unpleasantly bitter. This isn’t usually a problem if you have two or more people to share the pot, but it definitely is an issue if you’re drinking alone. This Coffee for One French Press is a cute solution. It’s a single-serving french press that stacks on top of a mug for serving. It brews a 14-ounce cup – which is usually plenty for one sitting – and is microwave safe (except for the plunger) so you can heat up water in the cup and minimize the amount of work/number of dishes you need when using the press.

The best drip coffeemakers from CR

According to the December 2008 issue of Consumer Reports, you could save at least $345 per year by brewing your coffee at home instead of buying a few 16-oz cups a week – and that includes the cost of coffee and filters. You’d save more if you regularly by specialty coffees because they’re easy to make at home, too. All you need is a good coffeemaker to get you motivated to brew your own coffee at home, whether you’re starting from scratch or replacing a less-than-satisfactory model.

Consumer Reports rated 8 to 12 cup brewers on performance, convenience and carafe handling and picked out several top machines. Their top choices were the Cuisinart Brew Central DCC-1200, the Michael Graves 40304, the Oster Counterforms 4281 and the Zojirushi Fresh Brew EC-BD15. The Cuisinart scored the highest – excellent in all categories – while the Michael Graves model score a “best buy” with a price tag of only $40.

When choosing, you may want to take into account whether the unit is programmable, has a thermal carafe and offers brew strength control so you can pick a coffeemaker that will best suit your routine and coffee needs. For instance, the Zojirushi is the only one of CR’s top picks that offered a thermal carafe – a feature that is an absolute must-have for me and many others who like to be able to enjoy a warm, fresh pot of coffee over an entire morning without the coffee burning on a hot plate in a glass carafe.

Handpresso Espresso Maker

Espresso makers are not exactly known for their size or portability, and although there are some brands that make fairly small machines, it’s a type of appliance where bigger is usually better. In exchange for giving up a lot of counter top real estate, you get extra power/water pressure and a bigger heating capacity, not to mention faster brewing and recovery times. The Handpresso Espresso Maker set out to prove the good things – even where espresso is concerned – can come in small packages. The hand held gadget needs no electricity and can put out enough for a single serving per use. It uses ESE (easy serve espresso) pods and requires hot water. From there, you pump the handle to manually build up enough pressure to pull a shot. Very convenient and, while it might not be quite up to the standards of a $1,000+ machine, it’s definitely something for a space-pressed coffee fan to consider keeping on hand.