Brewing great coffee at work doesn’t need to be as hard as you might think. Coffee is wonderfully flavorsome, and even aside from that, it’s packed full of all the caffeine that you need to get you through the day. If you decide that the coffee at your work needs something of a boost, then we’ve got some great suggestions for you.
So, read on to find some simple ways to make great-tasting coffee in your workspace without having to deal with the nightmarish coffee that your company might put out.
Aeropress
The Aeropress is, we might argue, the ideal candidate for this job – it’s rugged, easy to use, and perfectly simple. This combination, along with the fact that the Aeropress can be easily rinsed after brewing, and washed later, means that it makes a great option for taking to work.
The main reason that the Aeropress has been a longstanding go-to for campers and other people that need to travel with their brewing equipment is really quite simple: it’s built to last. The rigid plastic of the body and plunger of the Aeropress is designed to stand up to sustained use over a long period of time, though you might need to replace the rubber end of the plunger after around three years of use.
Another reason that the Aeropress is a great option for brewing excellent coffee at work is that it’s really easy to make great coffee with it. It’s a simple brewer, to be sure, but don’t mistake this simplicity for a lack of ability or functionality.
Instead, this simplicity just reduces the chances of you making a mistake while brewing.
The Aeropress isn’t just resilient physically, but it’s also resilient as a brewer – it’s quite tough to actually mess up a brew when using the Aeropress. You might be a little over or under-extracted at times, but that’s something that you can learn to correct with each new coffee that you use. If you bring some coffee and some hot water, the Aeropress, and its compact travel case, you’ll be in business to make some wonderful coffee in no time at all.
You could consider the recently released Aeropress go, which is a smaller version of the classic brewer designed to fit into a smaller space – the size of one travel cup. If that sounds like something that you might need (if you have a long commute and a small bag, for example) then an Aeropress go might be a great option for you. It’s worth considering, however, that the Aeropress go is generally considered a smaller version of the classic Aeropress – unless you’re really low on travel space, there isn’t much in it.
Nanopresso
The Nanopresso, from Wacaco, is a fascinating brewer that promises portable espresso wherever you might take it. While this is a huge promise, it really does a great job of delivering upon that promise.
The general concept is fairly simple. To the brewer, you add ground coffee and hot water, before inverting and pumping a button on the side of the appliance. This pumping motion, combined with the heat and steam from the hot water, builds pressure, leading to that water being pushed through the ground coffee akin to an espresso machine.
On the surface, this does work very well! The rubber seals all hold well and the mechanism itself delivers an espresso every time it’s used. This leads to the upshot being quite simple, really – the appliance works.
That’s just the thing, though, it works, but very little more than that. The appliance doesn’t heat water or steam milk, for example, and neither does it store espresso for later consumption. Instead, it simply brews a small, acceptable espresso in short order.
If that’s what you’re looking for, then you’ll certainly find it with the Nanopresso. We would caution you, however, to consider the failure rate of the brewer.
While it’s vanishingly unlikely for the brewer itself to break in your hands and spill water and coffee everywhere, it’s quite likely that one of the many rubber seals within the brewer will degrade over time. As that rubber becomes less and less flexible, it will eventually become totally hard, preventing it from making a seal. This will result in the brewer not forming pressure, and you not getting coffee.
In a countertop espresso machine, this isn’t an issue – the gasket of a group head is a part that needs to be replaced every now and then to ensure the machine is working well. With the Nanopresso, however, it’s trickier to fix. If you don’t mind the potential for failure, then it can be a wonderful product, and will give you great coffee! If you’d rather have something more dependable, an Aeropress with a Fellow Prismo might be a better idea.
Porlex Mini Hand Grinder
There is a great range of things that influence how good your cup of coffee is. The specific hierarchy is up for debate, but we would argue that, above all else, the most important thing is the coffee that you use.
By this, we mean that specialty roasted beans will taste best, while instant coffee will likely taste worst. Pre-ground coffee is typically somewhere in the middle, offering great flavor in the majority of situations. To ensure you’re getting the most flavor from your beans as possible, we would always recommend grinding as close to brewing as possible – a small, portable hand grinder is a great way to do this at work. The Porlex mini is exceptionally small, and can fit within the plunger of an Aeropress, making it easy to travel with – this traveling capability could see you grinding coffee beans in the break room or up a mountain, the possibilities are endless.
Conclusion
Having great coffee at work doesn’t have to be a hassle – you can easily brew a wonderful cup with little effort whatsoever. To ensure that your next work brew is as good as you might hope, consider the options that we’ve laid out here – we truly believe in them.