There are several different ways to make a great cup at home.  The most popular types are a Keurig-type single serve, French Press,  drip, and the artisinal coffee drinker favorite, Chemex.

Easy-Peezy Award: Keurig
Keurigs boast the perfect cup every time.  With exacting measurements at the push of a button, it is the busy (read: lazy) man’s cup.  With the bare minimum of clean up required and one perfectly brewed cup in front of you, who would complain.  The only drawbacks would be the amount of plastic you’re throwing away each and every day, the limited options and mainly big-name coffee conglomerates.  Now, I know that Keurig makes a metal, reusable cup that you can add your own coffee grounds to.  But this metal cup does not perform as well as the plastic ones, making more of a mess, and making the easy machine a little less easy.  Perfect applications would be office or shared settings, or for a busy professional who likes Starbucks coffee at home.

Seriously.  Stop Award: Automatic Drip
Walk down the aisles of Goodwill and you’ll see how often people give up on this lost cause.  There are so many better ways to brew.  But I get it.  It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.  I know they make a lot of really fancy, really expensive automatic drip coffee makers and they probably work just fine.  But the fact remains, you can easily burn your coffee, it’s harder to get the portions right, it requires a lot of electricity, and it doesn’t save you any time (unless you have the ones you can set on a timer, those are pretty cool.) Save yourself $200 and buy a French Press.

The Bill Nye Would Drink Coffee Like This Award: Chemex
I got a Chemex for Christmas from Mr. Adventure and had absolutely no idea what it was.  Thank you?  Upon further review, I realized it was pretty freaking cool.  It’s a large vessel designed for drip coffee, the precise, scientific kind.  Weighing the ingredients and adding them slowly and methodically, this is a process that takes time and patience, and practice.  So much practice, that I haven’t quite figured it out yet.  I’ve had a cup brewed in Chemex at places like Coava, who specialize in the method.  It’s amazing!  But I require a few more pieces of equipment to make it work as good at my house like a goose neck tea pot, a bigger flat-bottom scale, and a better coffee grinder. Watch this video and get inspired.

The This is My Favorite Award: French Press
Okay.  I’m bias.  Duh-doy.  This is my blog, of course.  I’ve been using a French Press and only a French Press for years.  I refuse to make coffee in an automatic drip machine and whenever I visit my mom, I look at her coffee maker like it’s an alien: scared, confused, and unsure how to initiate engagement.  I’m so pumped about my French Press that I will order a French Press coffee and restaurants if I see it on the menu.  It tastes better than other coffee.  It is easy to make, easy to clean, and it’s adorable.  Do you want a quaint little glass vessel on your kitchen counter or a bulky machine?  Man up and drink coffee like Dexter.