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This nifty travel kettle is a small lightweight item that’s easy to bring around. I find it to be a good choice for business travellers looking for an easy-to-cry option that guarantees a piping hot cup of coffee or tea in the morning. Box Dimensions (L x W x H) Clive Coffee’s Hellweg recently went to Milan to attend a big coffee festival there and noticed the changing buzz. “There’s a massive push towards capsule stuff,” he said. “I’m not vehemently opposed to it — there’s a good and a bad way to do it.” If you’re also typically making single cups of coffee, even for a group, you’ll also be great with the 1L Bonavita kettle.
Carguilo did add that the real competitive marks for those startups are K-Cups and Nespresso — that is: ubiquitous, even simpler vehicles for drip coffee — not so much all automatic drip rigs. Still, the fact that they are turning professionals’ heads indicates that mainstream coffee consumption patterns and expectations are changing. And it could mean a more difficult market for the new Bonavita. But as Bonavita seeks to relaunch, the broader atmosphere has changed. Bonavita’s initial rise came because it represented a growing home craft coffee culture. While most households still have an automatic drip machine at home, there are new players in town. For example, startups like Cometeer are making instant coffee into something even industry professionals are paying attention to. Honestly, I have not (yet) done a side-by-side comparison to every comparable model. So, there may be a good alternatives out there. But the Bonavita is the one I see recommended everywhere—not to mention oftentimes sold in all the third wave coffee shops I visit who offer home-brewing supplies.From French press users to Chemex lovers, two subtle factors make a drastic difference in the quality of your coffee: water temperature and the evenness of the pour. The Coffee Gator Coffee Brewing Kettle covers both these areas thanks to a built-in temperature gauge and a precision-flow spout. My current tool of choice for that is the Wirecutter-recommended Kalita Wave. The Wave is a forgiving intro-to-manual-pour-over brewer. It’s less in need of exacting pouring than something like the famous Chemex (which I admittedly aspire to buy when both money and time-to-learn are high enough). This piece was written by Derek Rose, the coffee and tea expert for The Spruce Eats. He researches a variety of coffee products, from measuring scoops to commercial espresso machines, and interviews field experts for their insight. He's a fan of non-electric coffee makers, typically using the Bodum Brazil French Press at home.
One of the biggest gripes coffee lovers consistently have with machines is their inability to heat water to the desired temperature. This makes for an under-extracted product, in layman terms: weak coffee. This became such a big problem that a governing coffee body known as the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) began offering a certification for home brewers. Certified brewers meet certain minimum standards: the water must hit the ideal brewing temperature, the machine should brew a full pot of coffee from start to finish within four and eight minutes and the brew basket size needs to be in the correct proportions to the carafe. The Lloytron Small Kettle holds almost 1 litre of water at a time and comes extra, which are two cups. With universal voltage, you will never have to worry about finding yourself in a foreign country without your morning cup of tea or coffee again. It’s lightweight and when travelling between destinations, you can use the kettle to store your cups, tea bags and coffee. Box Dimensions (L x W x H) The temperature can be adjusted between 100 and 212 degrees. A downside to the manual buttons, however, is that you have to press them for every degree you want to change. For instance, if the kettle is set to 170 degrees but you want the water to be 200 degrees, you have to press the button 30 times. While this is more frustrating than using a dial, I've personally never had an issue with it after testing the kettle for a month. I primarily brew pour-over coffee between 198 and 203 degrees, so I don't need to adjust the temperature too often or too drastically. There have been times that I made matcha with 176-degree water, but even then it wasn't much of a hassle to adjust the temperature. I also consider this one of the easiest-to-use kettles that I've tested because the display is so intuitive. You can unbox the kettle and understand all the features right away, unlike some kettles that require a glance at the instruction manual first.Bonavita, Hellweg said, “did an amazing job at educating [consumers] on what goes into a proper filter brewer.” For a little bit, he recounted, Bonavita and Moccamaster were the only options. But it could take out some of the air and buzz that was once relegated toward developments from brands like Bonavita. “The way Bonavita made brewing at [home] coffee more accessible — and coffee pros had to acquiesce that people can make [good coffee] at home — is the same with Cometeer,” said Carguilo. According to Peterson, many of these companies were adding bells and whistles — like in-machine grinders — to make for a higher price-point. “To us, they were just adding intimidation factors to the consumer,” he said. But they were also adding validation of a new type category.
But there may be more to it than just that. Court documents, for instance, give a more nuanced view, highlighting frictions between its Chinese manufacturer and U.S. distributor — as well as heightening tension with a competing brand named Brewista. Some parties have alleged breach of contract and bad faith business dealings, others have gone bankrupt. Meanwhile, demand for higher-end coffee pots has increased as bigger appliance names began to enter into the space. What’s resulted is a clogged and muddy mess on all counts. Bonavita heralds a new coffee category With this agreement, Bonavita the brand was essentially the child of a Chinese manufacturer and Washington distributor. One side made the products, the other sold and marketed them. But, the two parents didn’t always see eye to eye. According to Jim Peterson, one of the first salespeople for the Bonavita account (who is now working with Smartco to relaunch the brand), Bonavita’s launch was perfectly timed with a growing coffee zeitgeist. Most of Espresso Supply’s sales were business-to-business, catering to the needs of baristas and coffee shops. But third wave (industry jargon for ‘craft’) coffee was increasingly popular among young people at the time, and demand was increasing for at-home rigs.The other big bonus of electric is that many electric kettles let you set a specific target water temperature. This is a big win. Most fussy-coffee brew methods have a preferred temp to achieve an optimized extraction for a given brew method. For my pour over, it’s 205F. For Megan’s AeroPress preference, it’s 185F. Was this Reddit post correct? Is Bonavita calling it quits? Similar to the flavor profile of an Ethiopian single origin, the answer is complex. One version says that Bonavita never went out of business, but was instead hampered by its former U.S. distributor. Now, these stakeholders say, Bonavita is about to rise from the ashes like a phoenix and relaunch like never before: new products are on the horizon, along with old favorites. For those hiking or camping outside, you would have to boil water on a heater or even start a campfire to just get a hot cup of tea or coffee. That’s where a travel kettle really comes in handy.
