Bialetti Brikka Espresso Machine

Moka pots, such as (Milanese aluminum kitchenware company) Bialetti's classic Moka Express, make a delicious cup of coffee, usually much better than drip or French press coffee, but without the need for labor-intensive preparation a la Greek/Turkish coffee or the expense of money, counter space, and maintenance time inherent in a home espresso machine.  The coffee that results sometimes even has a bit of a crema, the light-brown emulsion of oils that gives the top of an espresso a frothy look, but it isn't quite espresso.  Extracted at  lower pressure--at best 150 kPa abolute pressure instead of espresso's minimum 900--at higher temperature, and over a longer duration, it's a bit more harsh and acidic, and that aside the flavors taken from the same beans are different.

The solution is obvious: put a pressure valve in a moka pot.  I'm sure I wasn't the first person not in the coffee machine or housewares business to think of this (kept from simple hacking, of course, by concerns about blowing up a device not built to withstand the pressure), but we've all been beaten to it by engineers at Bialetti, whose pressure-valved Brikka pot has recently become widely available in the American market even though it has been sold for quite a while in Italy.

The Brikka has a weight in it similar to that of a jiggle-top pressure cooker, but captive (only able to move up and down.)  This weight serves as a low-maintenance pressure valve, ensuring that water will not pass through the coffee until steam pressure is at least 200 kPa above atmospheric pressure, meaning the coffee is brewed at about 3 kPa absolute pressure.  At this pressure the water will be at a little over 130 °C.  An extra washer keeps the coffee in the internal basket from being overheated when the outside housing reaches this temperature.  The Brikka is larger in size than a 3-cup Moka Express but brews only two demitasse cups, contributing to the "all-or-nothing" nature of its brewing.  The overall effect is to brew coffee more rapidly and at a higher pressure and temperature than in a moka pot but at a lower pressure and higher temperature than in an espresso machine.

The resulting coffee has a more substantial crema than that of a moka pot, althought reduced and transient relative to true espresso.  Coffee geeks (a number I don't count myself in) tend sometimes to use crema as a proxy for quality the way some digital photo gearheadds abuse megapixel counts.  There's more difference between Brikka coffee an that of an ordinary moka pot than just a crema.  My wife and I received a Brikka as a wedding gift.  Suspecting that the coffee we were getting out of it was better than that from a moka pot in ways that can't be gauged by crema alone, I got out the old Moka Express and made a batch using the same beans, ground in the same batch.  The Brikka coffee was both less bitter and less acidic.  Not only are more flavor compounds extracted, but more of the substances that one only wants small amounts of are left in the bean and out of the cup of coffee.

The Brikka is easy to clean (needing only rinsing), as easy to use as a moka pot, and easy to disassemble in case the extra parts clog (mine hasn't, over several months of use).  The culinary difference between coffee from a $60 Brikka and a $1000 espresso machine is small, with the extra nine-hundred-and-forty dollars left in one's pocket not tasted at all if the coffee is taken au lait.  The only practical drawback--and really the only complaint I have about the Brikka aside from Bialetti's bizarre continued use of oxidation-prone rubber gaskets--is its lack of scalability.  Erroneously advertised as a four-cup coffeemaker, the Brikka comes with a six-ounce plastic beaker that fills it exactly to the fill mark in its lower housing.  Six ounces of water produces only two demitasse "espresso shots" of coffee.  Brewing only takes 2-3 minutes, but the unit must be allowed to cool between uses.  Immersing it in water to speed this process up doesn't always help.  Perhaps the best soution is to have a good French press around when needing to brew coffee for company and keeping the Brikka for everyday use.

The Brikka is well worth the $60 for which it often sells, a much better choice than the dinosaur that is the drip coffee maker.  It also is a good gift, for occasional espresso drinkers and the teenage college student that spends too much money at Starbuck's.  Unscalability aside, I recommend it highly.