Choosing your grinder

Money spent on coffee gear obeys one rule: burrs before everything. A 40-dollar hand grinder with decent steel conical burrs will out-brew a 100-dollar electric with a blade, or with burrs mounted in flexing plastic. What you are paying for is not speed or convenience — it is the stability of the gap between two pieces of metal, held to fractions of a millimetre, cup after cup.

Hand grinders concentrate their entire budget into that gap. Electric grinders must also pay for a motor, housing, and electronics — so at the same price, the hand grinder nearly always wins on the only part that touches your coffee.