Motif Essential Pour Over Coffee Brewer w/ Thermal Carafe
- Ever see the list of tasting notes on a bag of coffee and think, I want to taste those things?
- With this thing, you can!
- It gets the water real hot, like up between 198 and 205 degrees, which brews a mean cup.
- The 8-cup stainless thermal carafe will keep your bean brew hot for hours.
- It also has a ‘pre-infusion’ mode, which saturates the grounds with water, then pauses to let it bloom.
- This might sound like nonsense, but it’s very tasty.
- Other machines like this are legitimately $300.
- Sorry to be so earnest but our copywriter loves coffee and this thing just seems rad.
- Model: MT01001US. This kind of looks like one of our fake model numbers that’s actually a word, but it’s not. So you can stop staring at it.
The Pour Choice
When I first started reading about this thing, I was confused. Because what exactly is a machine that makes pour-over coffee when pour-over coffee is essentially defined as coffee brewed by manually pouring hot water over coffee grounds?
For example, I brew two cups of coffee each morning in a Chemex. That is pour-over coffee.
Oh, sorry! I should actually clarify my routine: first, I put on my fedora; then I listen to one Father John Misty album all the way through; then I brew coffee in a Chemex by slowly pouring water that’s about 200 degrees over freshly ground single-origin beans.
It is, in my opinion, the best way to brew. It brings out all sorts of crazy flavors that you might otherwise miss. And I use nothing that I have to plug into the wall aside from an electric kettle to get the water temperature right. Because again, that’s what pour-over coffee is: the pouring over is done by hand.
And so, a pour-over coffee machine is, well, just a coffee machine. A showerhead designed to pour water over coffee? That’s the mechanism inside every brewing apparatus known to humankind, from your $10,000 Clover to your $10 thrift shop Hamilton Beach.
Still, I wanted to give the Motif a fair shake. So I started poking around to see how exactly this thing mimics the pour-over process. And the couple things I found are actually pretty impressive:
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First, it features a “pre-infusion” mode. What that means is that it evenly soaks the grounds for 20 seconds, then waits 30 seconds before launching into the actual brew. This allows for “blooming.” Gases are released from the grounds, which helps extract deeper flavors. (I know this sounds dumb and snobby to some of you, but trust me, it makes for a delicious cup.)
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Second, and probably more important, this thing brings the heat. A typical drip coffee pot is only going to get your water to somewhere between 160 and 180 degrees. Many of them make up for this with a hotter burner under the pot. That can lead to scalding, which is, obviously, not ideal. This thing? It’s going to get you in the 198-205 degree range, which is exactly where you want to be for optimal taste.
In these two ways, it’s actually pretty similar to the Technivorm Moccamaster, although the Motif has 1460 watts of power, where as the Technivorm is only has 1400.
Oh, another difference? The Technivorm Moccamaster is $300+. We’re selling this one for $49. Not a bad deal at all.
Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I ought to wrap this up. There’s only so many hours in the day, and I haven’t yet watched all of Wes Anderson’s movies in a row, nor have I lectured at least 6 strangers about derivative nature of Stranger Things.
Too-da-loo, friends!
