Food December 2007 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE

Do It Yourself

By Corby Kummer

The CafeSolo, another sexy newcomer to the brewing world, is an alternative to a plunger pot—a low-tech way to brew that involves pouring hot water over ground coffee, stirring, and pouring the brewed coffee through a filter after four minutes of steeping. In place of the glass cylinder of the plunger pot, which is easy to break if the coffee is too finely ground, is a curvaceous, sturdy flask with a flared top (a ringer for the carafe that used to come with mix-it-yourself Italian dressing), and instead of a screen attached to a plunger is a fine-mesh metal funnel that goes almost all the way down into the coffee mixture.

Also see:

"The Magic Brewing Machine"
Cool new coffeemakers bring out the deeper pleasures of a light roast. By Corby Kummer

The official reason for the enthusiasm is a cup that shows off the high notes of a medium- or light-roast coffee better than the plunger pot, which is best suited to a darker roast, and that has body almost as full but with less sediment (the mesh is finer than the screen in many plunger pots). And the pot comes with its own, effective way to keep coffee warm—a tight neoprene jacket with a big zipper—though you shouldn’t let the finished coffee sit for more than 10 to 15 minutes, because it continues to brew and grows sour.

The real reason is the cool Danish design and the frankly suggestive motion of using that zipper. (Available online at around $80 for the 0.6 liter size or $100 for the 1 liter; I’d recommend the smaller one, which makes two eight-ounce cups.)