The Winner of the Coffee Test

A few weeks ago I wrote about my efforts to find a way to make good coffee without an electric drip pot.

We tried a Porcelier, a porcelain drip pot made in the 1930's-1940's, a big aluminum drip pot that makes 18 cups, a stainless steel drip pot because we wanted to be able to keep the coffee warm on the gas stove, and a plastic drip funnel with mesh filter.


The winner is: the Porcelier!

 

Here is the winning combination: 

•  Decaf Eight O'Clock beans: I had to order these on Amazon because I could not find decaf beans in our stores here. We went to decaf when my blood pressure got a little higher than normal and honestly I can't tell the difference.

• My old coffee grinder: I have an electric one but the goal is coffee without electricity. We used this one for years and it does a perfect job. 40-50 turns of the handle (less than a minute) and you have enough for a pot. The pre-packaged ground decaf was too fine to work properly with the Porcelier. The hand-cranked grinder can be adjusted and the coffee brews beautifully and fast.

• The Porcelier drip pot: This top part of the pot comes off. It has small drip holes in its bottom, and there is another interior lid. You put the coffee in, then put on the interior lid. This lid also has drip holes in it. Then you boil water in a kettle and pour it into the top section. The water filters down through the drip holes in the interior lid, through the coffee and out the bottom drip holes into the pot. 

We found the Porcelier at a local junk shop for $14.95, I think it was. The coffee has to be tasted to be believed. It is just delicious.

The only downside: now we make more coffee so we're spending more! Where a a 3-lb can would last a month or more, now we've used 3 bags of beans in less than a month. Ah me. I guess my next quest is a cheaper source of decaf coffee beans.