$50 Coffee Grinder Vs Pre-ground From A $3,500 Grinder

Ryan from Prima here! How fun to see this still being debated! And even more fun that our findings still (kinda) hold up. I do wonder how my own palate would score these grinders almost 9 years after I wrote the article, with a whole lot more coffee tasting under my belt. Years ago, I remember you mentioning the article in another video and you made a great point that I think is worth mentioning again: Flavor aside, there's nothing quite like the experience of grinding your own coffee in the morning and filling the air with that amazing smell. It's a ritualistic part of the process for so many, and that's important. Ultimately, whatever you choose to do, the process of making coffee should make you happy, and if it doesn't, then you're doing it wrong.

That graph with James' faces is EXCEPTIONAL, I was laughing like mad

I wonder if "stale" ranks higher than expected because it's the most familiar to most people who drink coffee, because it's probably what they drink at home. Grounds from a bag, bought in a supermarket, who knows how long ago, not "properly" stored in a cabinet, etc. Drinking perfectly prepared and brewed coffee can taste so different compared to what they are used to at home they don't rank it as high. Stale matches their expectation of what coffee should taste like, because that's how it often tastes to them.

Bravo to the editor throughout, from the graph to the moving labels as James moves the cups around. I know that takes a lot of work to make it look natural, and it's well done! 👏

I appreciate that you do the maths, but also understand statistics enough to be truthful about your results. That's really refreshing!

20 minutes of James grappling with the fact that he hates the coffee most people are accustomed to. 🧐

The editor deserves a raise for that graph.

This video made me finally go out and get a Baratza, my first proper grinder. When I bought it and dialed it in to the spec for my aeropress at first I was underwhelmed- it tasted almost weak to me. So I tried it for the first time without my usual cream and sugar and realized that I finally GET black coffee. The natural sweetness was enough to carry it, and the usual bitter taste I use cream to dampen was gone entirely. It was kind of incredible to me the sheer difference between the two. I had always heard that a good grinder was as important as what you use to brew with, but always waved it off. It's absolutely true!

Okay the graph is peak Hoffman. Absolutely peak. There is nothing better than this.

Kind of a related story. I used to get croissants for my team in the office several times a week and one day, there was one left over from the day before. Living in Hong Kong, we eat much more rice and noodles than bread and many people don’t really know what fresh croissants should taste like; so I invited one of my young colleagues to take a bite of the 1-day old croissant, and told her to then take a bite of the fresh croissant. The expression on her face said everything. We are so used to eating one day old croissants that we think it’s how it should taste. That is until we get the revelation from an A-B comparison. Thanks for this really interesting A-B comparison video, James.