Coffee Time

Wonderful grinder. Gorgest. It currently has a problem and I need to get it fixed, but the nice people at the company need me to send it in for the repair, all the way to Germany... I will not be seeing my precious coffee grinder for a while once I do. Luckily, a friend has loaned me a new toy for a few months, which I have to start playing with.

This isn't mine! Information coming as soon as I start experimenting...

One nice thing about the Comandante vs the Kinu is that it is significantly lighter. This is a plus for both grinders: the Comandante is more compact and is more travel-ready, while the Kinu feels sturdier and has a more convenient catch mechanism. The Comandante also has a splash guard, which means no occasional flying coffee shards. My friend's model is the Cherry Sunburst maple, and despite having a luxurious facade I'd be worried about using it daily around something so obviously water based.

Now that I've used it a bit more I have a better idea of its strengths and weaknesses. First off, for most people this grinder is going to be just fine. The technical advantage the Kinu has is that its grind setting is continuous while the Comandante's is discrete; the settings "click" into grooves and if one wanted to go in between two of those clicks, too bad. That's an advanced level of accuracy that I don't usually need though. The catch being glass makes me nervous for its eventual drop on the counter, and because it threads into the bottom of the grinder every time you empty it there is plenty of opportunity to accidentally drop it. Be careful and this won't be an issue. On the other hand, the main drawback of the Kinu is the "splashback"; shards of bean occasionally jumping out of the top and onto the counter (or floor). This is not an issue with the Comandante—the handle attaches to the body and a plastic cover stops any coffee from jumping out of the top.

But going back to the Kinu after a week of the Comandante reminded me that the Kinu is a luxury experience. The grind is smooth and the weight feels like something meant to last. Perpetual travelers probably want something like the Comandante for how much lighter it manages to be without sacrificing quality. But I won't be replacing the Kinu as my daily driver at home.

I use this more than anything. When I was first introduced to the Aeropress in 2018, I was told to use the inverted method and did that for a very long time... It's a dangerous and potentially messy method. I never had any catastrophes, but I also never had any real success with it. Today I use James Hoffmann's recipe and it seems to treat me well (though I've drifted to using a lower water:bean ratio somehow). Having fewer variables to futz about with on the Aeropress is nice; grind size and bean freshness is already enough of a calculus problem without

I particularly like the Aeropress Go because it is the exact size I need for 200g of water with my water:bean ratio. I've had at least one roast foam up enough that I had to wait for it to filter a bit before putting on the plunger, but this isn't usually a problem. I didn't think about trying a bloom at the time (to let some of the CO2 off-gas). Maybe I'll have a chance to try again, inshallah.

Don't forget the pullback!

Мне не нравится. I've owned two of these and they both lost the entire top row of the seven seg. The first one didn't ever work and the second waited six months to trick me into passing its warranty period. If this wasn't a problem, it would be a decent scale. I do see it drift in weight fairly often, usually in very small increments. I don't remember it doing that the first year I had it. It also does not have a hard "off" switch, which makes it less convenient for travel. I wanted to like it but I will not be buying this a third time. Right now I'm not sure what its successor will be.