The Daily Grind – Part Two

If you missed part one of this series on starting your coffee journey, click here to read it.

We believe that the grinder is the single most important purchase you should make, followed probably by your espresso machine. Disclaimer here: grinders are essential to a good espresso (and they’re milk-based derivatives). If you drink filter, pour-over or French press, you probably can get by with a lower end grinder.

The next question usually is how much should I spend on a grinder (or good grinder) if I love my espresso (and my lattes or cappuccinos)?

Blade or Burr.

Well, first, let’s talk about the two, or three main ways coffee beans turn into a powdery substance. Blades is the cheapest and worst option. These use cutting blades (obviously) to chop the coffee beans up. They work for garlic or vegetables but please, please, do not put your coffee through them.

Burr grinders, on the other hand, use two grinding-toothed plates to crush the beans into a uniform, consistent size. There are two common types of burr designs, flat which is flat and conical which is a cone shape. We will not discuss which is better or the diameter of the burr here. You will see specifications like 40mm conical burr or 55mm flat burr. We will also ignore other features such as titanium burr and so on.

In a bean, burr grinders are preferred and obviously superior coffee grinders. Now, how much is good enough for espresso?

Manual or Electric.

How about MYR 1,200 or USD 280? This will get you a good quality hand-grinder like the Comandante C40 which definitely can grind fine enough for most espresso machines. It is a very solid conical burr grinder. The drawback here is that you’d need 2-3 minutes of your morning trying to turn the crank and grind. If you’re only making a cup of coffee for yourself, this actually works out quite well.

For electric grinders, I would suggest a budget of around MYR 2,500 to MYR 3,000 which is USD 550 to USD 700. This will give you a wide range of quality grinders that will last you a fairly long time. Going up towards MYR 4,500 or USD 1,000 is going to give you better features and better build quality generally. A special mention here is the DF64 which is a Chinese-made grinder that features high-end burrs in a budget package. Coming in around MYR 2,200 or around USD 480, it does have its quirks but it is a very capable grinder for that price. As with all things, do try to read some reviews (or ask us!) as well as visit a store where you can try out the grinders and see how you like the workflow.

Alternatively, as we mentioned previously, the Fellow Opus at MYR 1,000 or USD 220 is also a good starting grinder with 40mm burrs.

It is getting expensive.

If all this starts to look a bit pricey, then you ought to try counting how many cups of coffee you drink in a year to see if you should invest. A good grinder will easily last many years with regular cleaning and maintenance. Just make sure you only grind coffee in them, but also not overwork them.

My back-of-napkin calculator uses RM5 as a typical saving (USD 1.15). Multiplying it by 365 days a year gives you MYR 1,825 or USD 400 which is almost the price of the DF64. Obviously, the savings are actually more, and also if you drink two cups a day, you would have paid for a good grinder already.