The 35 Best Gifts for Coffee Lovers
Whenever people ask me to recommend a gift for a coffee drinker (as someone who’s worked in the specialty coffee industry for 16 years), I ask: how much tinkering does this person like to do? For some, the allure of coffee is spending the afternoon adjusting their espresso grinder to pull the perfect shot. For others, coffee is best when it’s available quickly, and in large quantities. There are great coffee gifts for both kinds of people included in this guide, and for those that fall somewhere in the middle.
From ways to grind, brew, and drink, the items below cover every aspect of the coffee experience (from automatic drip to pourover to espresso). And remember: even the best-equipped home baristas could use more filters and cleaning supplies.
Automatic Drip
For those who want a brewer that’ll do all the work or just drink a lot of coffee, an automatic drip machine is a great choice.
The Best Brewer to Gift Someone
A reliable, easy to use auto-drip machine, the OXO 8-cup brewer was our best coffee maker under $200. With a wide sprayhead and a programmed bloom cycle, the OXO even saturates grounds and heats water to an ideal brewing temperature.
The Best Splurge Coffee Brewer
The Ratio Six scored top marks in our taste tests with a unique spiral sprayhead, auto-bloom cycle, powerful boiler, and quick brew times. Its sleek, modern design looks great on every counter, and you always know exactly where you are in a brew cycle by its indicator lights. It’s a great splurge pick for anyone who demands ultimate coffee quality and aesthetics in a single package.
The Best Grinder for Auto-Drip
The Baratza Encore performed nearly as well as our overall winner in our coffee grinder testing, but at nearly $100 less. One of the best parts of any Baratza grinder is the construction: almost all of the moving parts are easy to access and can be replaced, making each model a long-term countertop staple. The Encore has a consistent enough grind profile to brew great coffee on any automatic drip machine.
A Scale for the Coffee Curious
Weighing out your coffee can improve the consistency and quality of your brews, and the OXO Precision Coffee Scale is a great way to elevate anyone’s drip coffee routine. With a built-in timer and a .1-gram resolution, this scale is also a great gift for anyone who is curious about pourover brewing.
The Best Way To Maintain Your Brewer
Heating water can leave residual mineral buildup, called scale, in your coffee brewer’s boiler. Biocaf descaling powder (with natural, biodegradable ingredients) breaks down scale, keeping your brewer running smoothly and preventing clogs.
The Best Way To Keep Coffee Tasting Great
Even if your coffee maker is spotless, coffee oils can build up in the carafe and impart old, stale flavors to fresh brew. Biocaf machine cleaner quickly breaks down oils and makes a great gift for anyone who wants their coffee tasting fresh every morning.
The Best Way To Keep Your Grinder Running Smooth
These grinder tablets flush out old coffee grounds and absorb oils as they work through the grinder, ensuring only fresh coffee is making it into your filter.
A Great Coffee Mug
Designed with input from professional baristas, the notNeutral Lino line features a flat handle flush with the lip that allows for better thumb placement, making each mug easier to hold and drink out of. Their 10-ounce mug is the perfect size for drip coffee, and the vertical mug shape will keep coffee hotter than a wide, bowl-shaped cup.
An Excellent Travel Mug
The Carter Move travel mug is designed to make your on-the-go coffee experience more like drinking from your favorite mug at home. With an easy to clean ceramic interior, the Carter picks up fewer coffee oils, which can develop musty odors and flavors. It also features a wide mouth that allows you to fully take in the coffee’s aroma while you’re drinking.
The Best Temperature Control Mug
With a digital thermometer readout and an internal heating element, the Ember Travel Mug lets you know exactly how hot your coffee is and keeps it at your favorite drinking temperature for hours. It’s considerably pricier than a standard travel mug, but great for people who have a long commute or find their office coffee unpalatable.
Manual Brewing
If you’re looking for a hands-on approach or just like the freedom to brew smaller amounts of coffee, there are a handful of great manual brew options out there.
The Best Pourover Dripper
With a flat bottom and small exit holes, the Kalita Wave supports excellent coffee bed geometry, promoting even saturation. The top pick in our pourover testing, this brewer is also nearly indestructible and easy to travel with. The 185 size is ideal for 16 to 24 ounces, so it’s perfect for people who want to brew two to three mugs of coffee at a time. If you’re buying this, stock up on the matching filters too.
A Helpful Accessory for Pourover Fans
A 4-ounce ramekin is the perfect vessel for weighing out doses of coffee while also being a great place to set a pourover dripper after you’re done brewing to collect drips. While any ramekin will work, I’m partial to these reasonably priced ones from Dowan.
A Single-Serve Coffee Brewing Option
The eminently portable Aeropress gets a boost from the Prismo attachment, which adds a pressurized valve where the standard filter holder screws on and helped the duo score high during our taste tests. Because the Prismo functions as a reusable filter, it eliminates the need to buy (or pack, for those traveling) paper filters. If you already know an Aeropress lover, the Prismo on its own fits all models and is a great upgrade.
The Best Electric Gooseneck Kettle
An absolute necessity for pourover brewing, the Fellow Stagg EKG has a precise spout and weighted handle that makes controlling pours effortless. Its programmable temperature settings were the most accurate out of all kettles we tested, not to mention its stylish design which looks great on every counter.
The Best French Press
The Fellow Clara dominated our testing by brewing great tasting coffee and keeping it hot with its dual wall design. It’s a great upgrade for anyone with an old French press on their counter that’s seen better days, but also makes a wonderful introduction to manual brew methods for anyone looking to learn how to brew with a French press.
The Best Standard Electric Kettle
For folks who stick to French presses and tea, the Fellow Corvo EKG sports all the accuracy and speed of its Gooseneck counterpart, only with a faster pouring spout, which is suitable for Aeropress or French press brewers.
The Best Cold Brew Maker
If you have a giftee that prefers iced coffee, the OXO cold brew maker brews great tasting cold brew with a unique, easy-to-use spring loaded release valve that makes filtering and cleaning simple.
The Best Precision Home Grinder
As our top performing grinder, the Baratza Virtuoso+ delivers the speed, consistency, and precision necessary for getting the most out of your manual brew methods. Like the Encore mentioned above, it’s easy to replace parts when needed, making it a great long-term investment.
The Best Handheld Coffee Grinder
A good handheld coffee grinder delivers precision grinding capabilities at a lower price point than many burr grinders and is more compact, storable, and portable. The 1Zpresso JX Manual provided amazing quality coffee during our testing, and routinely ground coffee twice as fast as other handheld coffee grinders.
The Best Precision Coffee Scale
With a built in timer, .1-gram resolution, a real-time flow indicator, and bluetooth connectivity, the Acaia Pearl is the most responsive and accurate coffee scale we tested. Its sturdy construction makes it a great upgrade pick for anyone who likes to tinker with their pourover brewer.
The Best Way to Clean Manual Brewers
Brew equipment can develop a build up of coffee oils over time, and Biocaf Coffee Equipment Cleaning powder gets glass, metal, and ceramics sparkling clean. While this product works great on all brewing equipment, it’s highly recommended for cleaning French press screens, and this version is packaged in bulk so you can use exactly as much as you need every time.
A Brush to Keep Counters Clean
Grinding coffee can produce a fair amount of static, which causes coffee chaff to scatter across the countertop. For folks who brew frequently, the Pallo Grindmaster brush features a flat stretch of firm bristles to sweep up your countertops and a circular ring of soft bristles for detail cleaning around your grinder.
A Glass Carafe to Brew Into
With a wide enough opening to accommodate an Aeropress and any pourover dripper, the Fellow carafe is sturdy, lightweight, and perfect for brewing one to two cups of coffee at a time.
An Insulated Carafe to Keep Coffee Warm
Clocking in at an 800-milliliter capacity, the Hario V60 Insulated Server sports dual wall insulated construction to keep your large brews hot to the last sip. It’s a great option for people who like to savor their coffee all morning long.
A Complete Manual Brewing Set
The Manual Slow System is an all-in-one set for people who want their coffee brewing to look as good as it tastes. Centered around an amber glass carafe, the Slow System features a pourover dripper for coffee, a strainer lid for coffee, tea, and cocktails, and matching amber glass mugs and rocks glasses. You can even buy extra mugs separately to expand your set.
Espresso
Espresso can end up as much of a hobby as it is a brew method, but these picks are a great to help introduce anyone to pulling shots at home without spending thousands of dollars on high-end home equipment.
The Best Beginner Espresso Machine
The Breville Bambino Plus was our top pick for both its approachability and performance. With a number of automated features and a compact design, the Bambino Plus can make anyone a home barista with programmable shot volume and an auto-steam function for milk.
The Best Espresso Machine for Hobbyists
The Gaggia Classic Pro is a great entrypoint for people who want to pull shots like a pro and don’t mind tinkering. With pro-sized 58-milimeter portafilters, it’s a prime candidate for our basket upgrade recommendations and temperature surfing protocol. For people who want a project, there are a variety of aftermarket kits available to replace screens, add timers, and even a digital temperature control module (though some of these options will void any warranty from the manufacturer).
The Best Precision Espresso Grinder
While other Baratza grinders can achieve a fine enough grind for espresso, the shot pulling process is so precise that most grinders don’t have enough settings to truly dial in your coffee. With a macro and micro adjustment level, the Baratza Sette 270 offers (you guessed it!) 270 different grind settings to perfectly hit your desired espresso ratio and time. It even served as our control grinder for espresso machine testing. Sporting a unique inverted conical burr set up, the coffee from the Sette series falls directly into your basket and even has a programmable timer for consistent dosing.
A Great Combo Tamper/Distribution Tool
Two keys to a well pulled espresso shot are an evenly distributed and compacted coffee bed. Both processes used to involve a lot of technique, training, and practice, but newly designed distribution tools and flat palm tampers can help any espresso novice build consistency into their routine. Available in all basket sizes, this is a great option to pair with any espresso machine.
An Espresso Basket Upgrade for 58-Milimeter Portafilters
VST manufactures precision espresso filter baskets for professional espresso machines, but some home machines also feature a 58-millimeter basket. With straight sides and precision-drilled holes, the VST baskets are industry standard for consistent, high-quality espresso extraction. Each basket also goes through an imaging process to ensure every hole on the basket is to spec, and comes with its own printout to prove its precision.
An Espresso Basket Upgrade for Breville Machines
Espresso filter baskets aren’t always machined to precise standards—baskets that taper tend to have dead zones in the corners that force water to move towards the middle of the puck, and sometimes the holes themselves aren’t evenly punched out. The IMS Precision baskets are a great option for Breville users who have 54-millimeter portafilters, as VST only manufactures 58-millimeter baskets.
The Best Way to Clean an Espresso Machine
Nothing makes backflushing your machine easier than Biocaf cleaning tablets. Featuring their biodegradable cleaning powder that breaks up coffee oils compressed into easy to dose tablet form, the Biocaf tablets are ideal for home espresso users.
An Espresso Cleaning Brush
The angled head and firm plastic bristles of the Pallo Coffee Tool are perfect for scrubbing your machine’s dispersion screen and gasket. With a dosing scoop on the other side to measure an ideal dose of loose coffee cleaning powder, it’s an indispensable item for any home barista.
A Set of Espresso Cleaning Cloths
Wiping down the steamwand with your basket wiping cloth is a big no-no, so Rhinowares color coded set of barista towels is perfect for keeping things organized. WIth a general cleaning cloth, a coffee cloth, and two steamwand towels, it’s a great starter set for encouraging good coffee hygiene.
Excellent Espresso Demitasse Cups
The perfect size for an espresso or a macchiato, these notNeutral demitasse cups feature the same flat handle as their entire Lino line. They’re easy to pour into, and wide enough to catch espresso streams from both spouts.
FAQs
What to put in a coffee gift basket?
This totally depends on the coffee drinker! However, a bag of coffee (we suggest heading to your local coffee shop to pick one up), a travel mug, and a package of coffee machine descaler or coffee grinder cleaning tablets would probably be appreciated.
What should I get the coffee lover who has everything?
Well, if they have all of the gear and cleaning supplies they could possibly want, a gift card to their favorite local coffee shop (for coffee or to buy beans) would be helpful.
Jesse Raub September 18, 2022 at 01:38PM