You can keep your fancy, pricey Keurig-type coffee-making contraptions

Coffee makers: A round-up of low-cost, minimalist-approved machines
 

You can keep your fancy, pricey Keurig-type coffee-making contraptions.

I take a minimalist approach to making my morning joe, with coffee-brewing techniques that are nonelectronic and, in some cases, nonmechanical.

It all started with the AeroPress, an inexpensive coffee-making kit that initially confused me -- it has a bewildering assortment of plastic tubes and other doodads -- but has now consumed me.

This is what I use to make my Latina sweetie's cafecito every morning.

Inspired by the AeroPress -- fittingly the creation of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Alan Adler -- I have been on a grand exploration of low-cost and dead-simple coffee-making apparatuses.

Four of my faves, including the AeroPress, are detailed here.

I am hardly alone in taking such a simplified approach to coffee brewing. Adler has spawned a movement with the AeroPress, which has its own coffee-making world championships.

And if you wander into a local coffee shop, there's a decent chance you'll see a barista using a nonelectronic, nonmechanical coffee-brewing method.

At Dogwood Coffee Co. at Calhoun Square in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood, for instance, one of the employees recently brewed my coffee in a Chemex, which is little more than a glass pitcher and a paper filter. I wanted to applaud -- cheer, even.

This roundup does not include any kind of French press, which I happen to loathe, mostly due to its too-messy cleanup.

 

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