Expensive, yes. But look at the balance of their line. Anywhere from cheap to insane.
Four hours ago I measured 203 degrees in two of these units after filling 'em with a fresh boil of water. Just now one was 179, the other 185. Not bad at all. By that time the coffee's bad from just being hot so long.
They handle an AeroPress fine, though I'm still not cocky about whether it's possible to fortify a liter carafe properly with just one pass of the Aero and supplemental water. So let me take a moment to note that Alfi's filter cone isn't bad at all. Click Here (www.amazon.com) (couldn't find the blasted thing on their web site). That's actually three parts you see, there. The thing has a way of accommodating thermoses, as with the thermos model on this page: http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.brewers.shtml . It handles carafe openings with an inside dimension exceeding 2.5", and the piece that makes that happen can be reversed to implement a "flat" surface that would work on pretty much anything for the careful user. It works perfectly with the Alfi carafe, of course. Also, and this is really important to me, their fluting rides up the entire side. The unit linked to at SweetMarias, by contrast, has little fluting. This is a major peeve of mine. Melitta and Alfi are the only players who seem to get it right -- although the old-school Melitta moreso with bigger holes on the bottom of the cone; this otherwise nice Alfi still doesn't quite get it right, IMO -- they have a single hole in the bottom, and they exercise the premise that it should be up the side a quarter inch or so. But I bought one anyway, 'cause the thing's solid, it has my fluting, it can accommodate a wide range of receptacles, and I got it cheap. ;-)
I've mentioned Alfi in these parts before; I'd urge that "attention must be paid." In particular, they have a cold beverage dispenser coming out shortly that has a transparent glass vacuum bottle in it, making beverage levels visible (the outer plastic is frosted, however). The unit will be available in May, I'm told, and if I'm not the first buyer I'll be close. I'm an iced coffee guy all summer, and this thing is the absolute dream for that. Absolute. I can fill it with ice and run a concentrated AeroPress right into it. And it's also attractive.
While I'm on that subject (whokay, enough Alfi for now), Bodum has a tall, clear plastic, thermal mug (a shorter version too) that fits the AeroPress as perfectly as this does: Click Here (www.absorbentprinting.com) This is great to brew into, but I'm dying to get the Bodum one. Figures -- it's not even on Bodum's site. Geesh.
The Bodum would also be great for iced tea.
Bonus fact: http://www.brugomug.com seems to have hired a rather distinguished engineer from a firm that gave its name to vacuum insulation of beverage containers -- or at least, their Japanese partners. Can anyone say "darned thin walls on them thar stainless steel jobbers, yessir"? The company has ambitious plans, and it might be worth watching to see what happens next.
Posted Wed Mar 15, 2006, 9:36pm Subject: Re: Alfi "review"
rasqual Said:
Four hours ago I measured 203 degrees in two of these units after filling 'em with a fresh boil of water. Just now one was 179, the other 185. Not bad at all. By that time the coffee's bad from just being hot so long.
OK, let's see how bad we can make our coffee taste. Keep it hot overnight, maybe?
This is the best vacuum I've ever seen. I suppose other folks have seen better, but this thing freaked me out this morning.
Well more than 12 hours after that 203 measurement, the temperatures were 150 and 158.
So it's a good drinkable temperature, but it's dreck from being at that temperature for so long.
LOL
I really, really like these units. I was ambivalent about this particular design at first, but after brewing pourovers into them this afternoon for the first time (one with the Alfi cone, the other with my Melitta 103), I think I love everything about them. They were a bit of a conversation piece among assembled friends this evening, as well. Coincidentally, tonight was another first -- the first time I'd served the first decaf I've roasted. Decaf is some scary stuff to roast.
The Alfi cone suffers a bit from the "just one hole" problem (as I see it), so I'm going to bore another hole in it. That'll make it pretty close to being almost as good as nearabouts as possible to the Melitta (my benchmark of all time).
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