Everyday Beans Podcast - Mostly About Coffee and Other Stuff
It's about coffee, food, life and what other randomness I feel that'll be helpful to the common coffee drinker or to anyone who likes to be entertained by a stranger, briefly.
Everyday Beans Podcast - Mostly About Coffee and Other Stuff
The Truth About Expensive Coffee Gear
In this episode, I dive into something I've been thinking about a lot lately: does nice coffee gear actually matter? I share my recent experience with upgrading my equipment, specifically talking about the Fellow Stagg Pro kettle and what it's taught me about the relationship between premium gear and the brewing experience. I explore the honest truth that while expensive equipment might not technically make your coffee taste better, there's something psychological and experiential that happens when you use well-designed tools. I discuss the features that set the Fellow kettle apart from my previous Bonavita kettle, from the legendary spout design to the intuitive temperature control dial, and why these seemingly small improvements have transformed my daily brewing ritual.
By listening to this episode, you'll learn how to evaluate whether premium coffee equipment is worth the investment for your specific situation, and you'll gain insight into which features actually matter versus which are just marketing hype. I share practical considerations about when to upgrade your gear and when your current setup is perfectly adequate, helping you make smarter purchasing decisions in the world of specialty coffee equipment. Whether you're considering your first quality kettle or wondering if that expensive upgrade is justified, this episode will give you the framework to think through these decisions.
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[00:00:00] You already know that I'm into gear, right? Coffee gear. And as you can see, audio gear to film these videos and these audio versions. But one thing that struck me about certain things is that nice gear matters.
[00:00:26] I recently got a mic arm. This is the mic arm as you can see right now. And it's pretty cool. I've been eyeing it for almost a year and I finally decided to pull the plug. It's a lot more expensive than the last one that I got. Last one works fine. I'm using it for another setup.
[00:00:47] However, look at this. Look at that. Moves in, out, and you move it and it stays. The other one doesn't do that. This one, it's really cool.
[00:01:08] But here's the thing. When we think about coffee, we think about things that we need in order to make coffee. A lot of times we're wondering if we truly really need it. Most times we don't. It's just a nice thing to have.
[00:01:34] But after many, many years of experiencing different types of coffee gear, or any gear in general, I realized that for the most part, not every time, if you buy something nice, it does something to you. Does it make the coffee better? No. But you think it does.
[00:02:14] So you take the kettle off the water. You're just looking for that water. We wait for a couple of minutes. We have our various techniques for whatever, whenever we want to do something. And then we go on with our day.
[00:03:10] So that's the kettle. Whatever brewer you have, does it matter? Origami? I don't know. But as you see back there, I have so many different brewers out there. And for the most part, I'm not gonna lie, they do the same thing. You're gonna taste mostly the same coffee. Different degrees of variations. It's cool to play around with different things.
[00:03:31] But as I look at this mic arm and see what it does for me instantly, there's many pieces in my arsenal of my coffee gear that has done that too. One is the Fellow kettle, their pro version. I don't know why everybody feels that they need a pro on everything.
[00:04:03] I do think it's Fellow's probably best item. The grinder's no slouch either, a story for another day. However, as soon as I got this actual particular kettle, which is right here, I'll demonstrate it for you.
[00:04:52] And the spout is extremely legendary. That's the thing that makes this whole thing work. This is just a simple top. I think it fits about 900 grams of water or milliliters of water. Same thing.
[00:05:16] I think it feels good, nicely balanced, so I can hold it with one hand and pour with precision. Or any variable that I want, or I can just let it come out really slow or fast.
[00:05:36] I have the Hario kettle back there. And I thought that was the best kettle, which it is up there. And then after you put water in there.
[00:06:16] I had a regular Bonavita kettle for a very long time. I actually still have it. Luckily enough, I do have a decent amount of bases. I think I'm down to like one or two bases. But the thing about it is that it worked. It had no problems brewing coffee.
[00:06:53] When you get into the details really, and the things that it can do like this arm when you lift it and it stays, or if you can move it this way and it stays, just those couple things makes it that much better. It makes the experience cool. It makes the experience something that I really truly like a lot.
[00:07:45] And one of the things that I didn't think was a big deal between my Bonavita gooseneck kettle—I'm surprised PETA hasn't gotten us on the gooseneck calling it a gooseneck. I guess we're not killing anything, but whatever—is that when you put the actual kettle back onto the vessel, that's all it does, right.
[00:08:20] You have to push the button again in order for it to hold. It does a whole variable thing. We don't know which one's more accurate than the other. It doesn't matter. But at the end of the day, what this Fellow Stagg Pro kettle does when you put it right back onto the top, it holds it automatically for I believe 30 minutes. I think it can go up to an hour at the temperature that you want.
[00:08:55] With the Bonavita kettle, I usually kept it at one set temperature. You can change it, it's not hard to change the kettle. But it was a lot more work compared to this Fellow kettle.
[00:09:18] This Fellow kettle, Stagg Pro whatever it's called—it's not a brewer, I was about to say that—the kettle promotes you to change, to explore different temperatures because the dial is so easy to use.
[00:09:57] And it does the things that you may have a gripe with other kettles. Spectacular things that you didn't think that you would need. I guess what I'm saying here really is that if something costs a lot of money, question it, right?
[00:10:17] Think it through. Wonder why it is that way. Look at what you have already. See if it's actually usable or if the little bits of betterness is what you need.
[00:10:34] Sometimes it's very incremental. Like this kettle, it is truly incremental. However, the experience in the brewing, the experience and the act of brewing coffee is better and it excites you.
[00:10:55] Sometimes that's the reason why you would get something. But again, it is expensive. If you have something that works, it looks cool, it does exactly what you want, you're allowed to pour as fast or as slow as you want, the little things that I'm talking about, it's really cool. They are really cool.
[00:11:17] Something that I just saw online and I read about it and I kept on thinking about if I needed it or not. And I just went ahead and got it. And the main reason is because I wanted to separate the distilled water, Third Wave Water from the other kettle. I know, first world problems. So I went ahead and got another kettle in order for me to have that type of situation for myself.
[00:11:45] But it's nice. I'm not going to lie to you. It's pretty cool. Has it messed up a couple times? Yeah, it's turned off and on. Does it seem like it's overworking sometimes like the Bonavita has done many times where I have to throw away the base plate a lot of times? It hasn't done that. Not yet. Almost a year of use.
[00:12:13] This kettle just works. It's pretty, it's awesome looking. It's easy to use, it's balanced perfectly.
[00:13:15] I could have got the exact same arm for a lot cheaper. Things can be pretty much the same. Take it all as you will. This is Okay Everyday Beans, and I'll talk to you later. Bye.