I got up this morning and thought "I need a coffee". I'm not interested in pour overs, I want that shit ready when I get up. Are people still doing drip coffee makers in 2026? Or are they all bullshit machines full of vendor lockin?
The standard coffee pot brings such a wonderful spirit of community. Having an easy option to make 4, 8, or 12 cups is good for the soul and invites one to imagine using it for a gathering that would call for it.
Keurig is the epitome of alienation and Western decadence. You WILL consume this alone, or you will be greatly inconvenienced. You WILL create endless single-use plastic waste. You WILL soon have a useless, expensive, broken appliance (as time has gone on, it seems to me that older Keurigs invariably break down like the overengineered cheap plastic crap they are).
It is curious to me, when you read literature from the 70s and before, how often people seemed to drink coffee - in Raymond Carver's stories, for example, the characters seem to have a pot of coffee on at all times and have no problem drinking it together at 11pm. That shit would keep me wired until the following night and ruin the next week of my life lol. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive to caffeine.
I wonder if the coffee back then was just less potent, kind of like with weed
No, their bodies were just full of over-the-counter amphetamines
When you're that hopped up on speed, coffee is a downer
No, it was more nasty though.
My grandparents used to just make it weak when they would drink it in the evenings, like use way less grounds. Idk why they didn't just drink decaf at that point though
based on absolutely nothing but vibes, i'm gonna guess that it used to be generally more potent because robusta is cheaper and people had less say in what they got
Overall correct analysis.
Re 11pm coffees my thoughts:
There are different ranges of body clocks considered acceptable in different cultures. If you get some sleep in nap form you can stay up later. Ive been around people who eat dinner at 9 or 10pm as a normal thing too. Whereas others consider 6 as late.
Don't forget about coffee additives like chickory which decrease caffeine. And there are some methods of coffee that are deliberately weak, like having very coarse grinds. I read about it once I can't recall all the details. But it was done on purpose for this very reason.
Factors affecting all this are how externally regulated your time is, like if your whole social groups economy is based around a need to be at work 5am every single day then all night coffees won't be popular for working adults. If early mornings are absent, seasonal, optional, can be missed now and again or made up later then you can indulge. I wonder how proximity to the equator where days and nights have consistent durations effects this one way or the other.
Btw, you can buy reusable, refillable pods now.
I feel like the machines themselves break down left and right. Push the button and coffee just doesn't come out. Open and close it ten times to get something to happen, etc. Never an issue I've had with a classic drip coffee maker, and obviously not a percolator or French press. As a coffee appliance I feel like it's the most failure-prone out there
I've never personally owned one, but I surely bought the reusable pod for the office.
I feel like the french press, a modification of guillotine technology, is probably more proletarian than a pour over set up
I'm not picky when it comes to coffee, but I appreciate a good one. There's something comforting about a cheap diner cup of drip coffee that's just a little bit too bitter. At a third-wave coffee shop drip is where it's at anyway. Pour over takes too long and frankly if i can't make a full pot at a time it's seems too decadent.
I've tried making coffee almost every other way: moka pot, french press, vacuum filter, aeropress, espresso, Keurig and nescafe pods (yes I know). All of them come up short either in quality, time, volume, or even flavours (when using light-medium third wave roasted beans, some methods can miss flavours or come out too sour).
I try to get nice beans, grind them fresh, and make a pot in my cheap automatic drip. It's the way to do it. Lately I've been drinking Zapatista beans from Chiapas. They're really quite good.
How does one get Zapatistas beans
This is the one I drink. It's on the pricey side, but it's very good and supports a good cause.
2nded. It is good coffee.
I've heard good things about the Zapatistas beans. Famously Alex Jones used to sell them on the Infowars store and had to down play the fact that the Zapatistas are far left militants lol. He just liked the coffee apparently.
Yes, good beans, grind at home, drip machine. It's acceptable.
no such thing as proletarian coffee
Check out these comrades: https://schoolsforchiapas.org/store/coffee-corn-and-agricultural/zapatista-coffee/
I make cold brew for bulk coffee, I’d really call that the zoomer way of making coffee. I don’t know anybody my age with a regular drip pot or some Kurig bullshit. Then again, all my friends are bisexual so iced coffee is just part of the culture.
Drip is all I drink for the most part. I drink at least a pot a day at work
How do you function lol I'd be neurologically destroyed by that much caffeine
I will say, as a ADHD haver. Caffeine just hits some people differently. I can drink coffee have my medication and still sleep. My wife drinks black tea before bed and is up all night.
There is also something to be said about being ND and having various disabilities like autoimmune issues. In some cases caffine can reduce pain. I don't think there is a lot of research on this yet, but from personal experience and the few things I have come across something is there.
Aka to all the above. Self medication is a hell of a thing.
I'm the solo programmer and systems guy for my telecom engineering firm. I write and maintain all the project management, design, and quality assurance software myself. I have to reverse engineer AI generated code that is sent to us by clients (none of it works), and I have to train ~10-20 employees on new design, and run multiple large scale build outs (usually areas with ~50-100k customers).
It's a good day when I can get by on just one pot lol. The owner of the company is also a 3rd generation rich kid who has the executive function of a cockroach and thinks the best use of his time is harassing the employees and re-writing the company handbook every other day because he didn't like the color of someone's tie.
You all day at work:
Literally exactly this. Trying to explain to management that the script they were using for coordinate system conversion on 3 month worth of work was vibe coded and all of those projects need to be redesigned is never easy or fun.
At least I have virtually no oversight and just write all my code as open source GPLv3 Python packages that anyone can use lol. Only the stuff that's project specific is in a private repo, but all my generally useful GIS development is public.
All-steel fr*nch press (1L). Caffeine in significant amounts fucks up my emotional regulation, so I prepare a mostly chicory blend with just a teaspoon of actual coffee, and a half-teaspoon of cocoa powder.
I like coffee
I know right ? I bet you think I am an empath cause I could sense you are intimidated by my free spirit.
I refuse to become a snob about coffee because it means Ive enjoyed every coffee ive ever had.
I like the plugin percolator the best
Problems:
If I didn't have a perc I would be happy with a drip machine. Why be a snob when you can be satisfied?
Actually I did find a drip machine on the street, I made a couple of pots of coffee but then it stopped working. It seemed like there was a loose connection with the control panel so I opened it up. It smelled really bad and there were a bunch of old fly larva casing and gross stuff I'm there. But I'm such that is not representative.
I use a drip machine because I drink a lot of coffee. Next best option for quantity is a French press but it's slightly more hands on.
this is proletarian? it was made by a fuckwit who thought coffee was tea.
moka pot is where it's at.
In Scandinavia drip coffee machines is the default at home brewing method. I'm kind of atypical for using a French press but that is what I'm used to from my parents. A French press also has the advantage of not taking up counter space when not in use and since I'm the only person at our house who drinks coffee, I like having a small French press that brews a single cup at a time.
I use a drip pot, aeropress, and occasionally I’ll make cold brew. I don’t think drip makes for a bad cup of coffee, as long as you’re using beans that are freshly ground with a recent roast date (aside: if you see a sell by date on coffee beans, that’s irrelevant). It’s just that it’ll never make for a great cup of coffee.
Most of the fancy controls and features they put on the “nicer” drip pots are marketing fluff that make little difference, except for one: a thermal carafe. The weak point with most drip machines isn’t the drip mechanism itself, it’s the heating element the pot sits on. It’s cooking the coffee in unpredictable ways and that can impact the flavor. A thermal carafe is more akin to a thermos, using insulation to keep it warm.
If you do use just a regular glass carafe with a heating element, I would recommend turning the machine off the moment the dripping is done. That way you minimize flavor impact. If you need it reheated later, just pour a mug and microwave it; microwaving is by far the best method to reheat coffee as it’s not using a heat source that will impact the flavor.
Aeropress with flow control valve cap
Feel like I’m always learning about new aeropress stuff, I’ll have to try that sometime
You know I'm on that cold brew grind! Cuts down the acidity to where I can usually enjoy with some milk and no sweetener.
I've just been buying concentrate like a dweeb but it's pretty easy and cheap to brew yourself overnight, and you can make a big batch to last the work week
I'm a chemex guy. I'll make a liter and a half at a time, which is usually over a day's worth. An iced yestercoffee is my favorite breakfast.
In the summer at least I make cold brew. So it's ready when I wake up because I just have to pour it out from the container in the fridge. Cold brew is ridiculously easy to make. It drives me mad how many people go out and buy it in the summer.
I do have a drip coffee maker for when I have people over (otherwise my winter coffee is pour over). It's a 30 dollar entry level Mr. Coffee and it works great. I see zero reason to spend lots of money on a fancy drip coffee maker.
I’m not sure if I prefer fresh iced coffee or iced cold brew. Ongoing internal debate
I do iced coffee at diners, there's just something nostalgic about it
Drip coffee when people are over. Espresso or pour over at home. I have memories of living in my shitty apartment in 2010, lighting the element on my stove with a cigarette to heat up my moka pot at 5am before work.
High end drip brewers are good enough to consistently replicate perfect pour overs these days. Baristas are gradually being converted into low-skilled waiters instead of being involved in the brew.
The most consistent and cheap way to make good coffee involves immersion (e.g. French press or Aeropress) because all of the grounds are evenly extracted in the water. Can make gigantic batches if you want, just need a big enough boiler.
Yeah, I either do cold brew or French press. I actually have a cheap pour over filter because I just moved into my first ever apartment so I have nothing. Bought the pour over thing for $5 because my roommate likes hot coffee and I wanted something to make her happy. But for me personally, it’s all about the cold brew
Drip machines are cool. I do pour over instead but just because I don't really trust plastics and boiling water. If there was a simple Mr. Coffee with a glass reservoir, metal shower head thing, and metal basket I'd be all over that.
The bigger food service brewers are sometimes plastic free, at least where the hot water is. I've thought about getting one since it makes brewing coffee for events easier (I basically do a big batch of passive french press now). But I can't imagine using one every day for myself lol
I have a basic $30 drip coffee maker and every morning it tastes like shit but it also tastes like home. No coffee I could buy would taste like how I make it at home and that’s cool with me.
At work they tried to take away our coffee and milk/oat milk this year, it's been the only thing among many shitty things that resulted in so much pushback that the organization had to back off. We have a 15min paid coffee break, the drip coffee machines exist in all the numerous offices and it is indeed a very communal thing.
At home we now do aeropress as there are only two people drinking morning coffees and I started to feel uneasy about the wasted coffee as with a drip machine at home you tend to make too much. And you tend to drink too much coffee, which I used to do (two pots a day at my worst). My gi system can't handle it anymore so there's no reason to keep counterspace for the machine.
I've always used drip coffee makers. When mine have stopped working it's always been because of the thermocoupler, so if you know how to fix that and you don't crack the carafe you should be set for many years.
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