My Tiny Kitchen Solution to Having Fancy Coffee at Home (with No Fuss)
I both love and require coffee in my life. This makes me fairly non-unique, as studies find that most American adults are regular coffee drinkers. What does make my situation unique, however, is that I cohabitate with two other adults with slightly different morning schedules than me — and one moderately sized kitchen.
That leaves us with some challenges. Namely: coffee. A coffee pot doesn’t make sense when we all want a mug at very different times, and we’d rather have the counter space anyway. A French press (or two) is a good single-use solution, but is messy to clean out. It’s a situation that would be easily solved with a coffee pod brewing system, but I’ve never loved the taste or plastic waste.
Enter: OXO’s single-serve pour over coffee dripper. I first discovered it in an even tinier kitchen when I lived in an apartment in New York City. There, I really wanted to keep coffee clutter to a minimum. Plus, my roommate didn’t drink coffee and, during the week, I tended to just drink office coffee anyway. Giving up counter space to something I only sometimes used seemed silly. So it didn’t make sense to get a drip coffee maker. But it did make sense to get the OXO dripper! Not only was it easy to store, it also brewed a good cup of coffee.
While pour over coffee is nothing new, this one is much easier to use. See, most basic pour over contraptions require you to slowly trickle the hot water over the coffee grounds to get the best flavor and prevent it from overflowing. And require a special gooseneck kettle. The tank in the OXO model controls the dripping, meaning you can pour (and measure) the hot water in one fell swoop and let the holes in the tank do the work.
The tank has a precise hole pattern to distribute water evenly over the coffee grounds and eliminates the need for that special kettle. And it still makes an excellent cup of coffee. (OXO actually made sure the dripper would brew coffee that would adhere to the Specialty Coffee Association‘s “golden cup” standards.)
There are lots of other little things that I love about this pour over gadget, like the fact that it can fit on a variety of cups, including many
travel mugs
This is a single-serve dripper, making up to a 12-ounce cup, so it’s not ideal if you brew coffee for two or more people in the mornings. But when it’s just me on the weekends, I’ll break out the OXO dripper to brew up a cup or two. As it turns out, some tiny apartment solutions are worth taking with you, even when your square footage (slightly) expands.
Do you have a small kitchen? What do you use to make your morning coffee?