The Bialetti
Depicted here is my own battered-but-proud specimen of the Bialetti manufacturing empire.
The plastic handle melted off sometime ago but I thankfully had a pair of crucible tongs that enabled me to keep using it. That alone I beleive testifies to the fortitude of this contraption. I’ve replaced the gasket and filter a couple of times and had only minor interruption to the coffee-making routine, allowing me to keep the spare change to keep investing in roasted beans.
I was inspired to write this article and do the accompanying picture by a post I saw in macrobusiness, by the generally quite sensible Leith Van Onselen:
Last month, I visited Harvey Norman in search of a replacement for my decade-old coffee machine.
The sales assistant told me that sales of home coffee machines were booming, presumably because cost-of-living concerns had made barista-made coffee from a cafe unaffordable.
I have also observed growing lines at the local Coles Express, where I regularly purchase $2 coffees after a morning school run….
Further down he writes:
The other alternative is old-fashioned instant coffee, which appears to be making a comeback, especially among younger coffee drinkers.
CNBC reported that instant coffee giant Nescafé is targeting Gen Z, developing “solutions specifically to bring young people into the Nescafé brand”.
“Coffee is a big bet for Nestle, with Nescafé and sister brand Nespresso accounting for two of the company’s six key priorities for 2025”, CNBC reported.
Instant is poison. Machines are overpriced, and life is depressing enough nowadays without subjecting yourself to $2 Colesworth Express coffee.
Why shun the percolator anon? Does it remind you too much of an impverishment you thought you had long since fled?
Percolators have stood the test of time. They are modular, adaptable, portable and not dependent on the electrical grid. You can use them to brew real ground coffee and all you need is a heat source to boil the water in the lower chamber. If you buy a leading brand like Bialetti then all the parts are replaceable if they wear out and different sizes are stocked for convenience. The taste is IMO 80-90% what a professional barista can produce with their fandangled space machine, but will cost you far far less in basic overlays and ongoing costs. Those machines will cost about $30-$40 more than a large percolator at the low end, for a machine that isn’t in any way serviceable once it breaks and needs to be hooked up to mains power. The larger better machines, which you would hope are servicable, cost into the hundreds. As far as I can tell the only benefit any of them have over the percolator is that they can froth your milk. Who cares. Use a saucepan if you are so sensitive as to need heated milk with bubbles like a spoilt little western baby. Or just do as I do and throw a dash of milk in cold.
Percolators, especially the Bialettis, are a Euro classic, blending a satisfactory and healthy coffee-consuming experience with efficiency in cost, maintenance and use. You don’t need anything else and will save yourself a ton of money, time and probably spare yourself health issues too. You know exactly what kind of coffee and what kind of milk you are putting into your brew and the scientific process it goes through is very understandable. I use to work in hospo and had an old home machine. There were a lot of battles with accumulating gunk and calcified milk. Had no such problems with the Bialetti.
Invest in some insulated-handle crucible forceps in case the handle ever melts (search ebay) or use some oven mitts. And take note of the size you have purchased for when the time comes that you need to order a new gasket or something.
My artistic rendering of my own home Bialetti Percolator. It’s taken a beating and still works great. Adjacent are some crucible forceps that I use to hold it as the plastic handle melted off some time ago.