But with the increasing need for safety and cleanliness, having a travel kettle is ideal for those looking to avoid using shared items in hotel rooms or for those camping or travelling outdoors. 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.

Which is to say: the coffee industry is not what it was nine years ago. “I’m really happy that great coffee is making it to people and in so many more spaces than before,” said Carguilo. “Before, you had to go to a coffee shop, and it probably had to be in a certain area. Now, in the short span of a decade, really good coffee is making it into more spaces.” Blooming is an important step in the brewing process where coffee grounds are lightly saturated with water before the rest of the water is poured. It makes the coffee release CO2, also known as "degassing," which leads to a purer taste. Smartco’s telling is a little different. The company declined to go into details about the move to end the trademark agreement, but likened it to a messy divorce. “We did everything we could do to make a nice transition,” said Chen. “Bonavita is a nice brand and we didn’t want to lose that.”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.”

A decade ago, however, the coffee machine competitive landscape was much less crowded. As Brian Gross, one of the people who first designed the Bonavita brewer, told PBS in 2018, the aha moment came when he read a Cooks Illustrated article in 2010 that stated there were only two SCA certified brewers on the market. And for all you non-Americans horrified by the Fahrenheit temps, the kettle does have an easy-and-convenient conversion button for you, and works just as well in Celsius mode. 😝 Nigel Price is the founder and owner ofDrip Coffee Makersin New York City. Nigel has worked in the coffee industry for more than a decade. Established in 2015, Drip now has multiple locations.

Bonavita heralds a new coffee category

Timothy Johnson is the Head of Education and Training at Vibe Coffee Group. Timothy has worked in the coffee industry for 16 years. Vibe Coffee Group is the parent company of three Washington-based coffee brands: Victrola Coffee Roasters, Whidbey Coffee, and Seattle Coffee Works. Indeed, in 2013, there were 68% more coffeeshops in the U.S. compared to a decade previously, and overall coffee consumption had grown 4% in 2013 year-over-year, according to the SCA. “It was coffee shops that said to Espresso Supply that there’s business here — you have a retail business,” Peterson recounted. 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. It was pretty remarkable to see,” said Mark Hellweg, founder of the specialty coffee retailer Clive Coffee. His business has sold high-end coffee equipment to consumers since 2007. In Hellweg’s estimation, the rise of Bonavita — and nicer auto-drip brewing devices as a whole — was a natural after-effect of the third wave coffee shop culture. “It started with specialty cafés and roasters, and the home market followed,” he said. “People started thinking about their home gear more intently,” he said. 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.

Most conventional stovetop and electric water kettles have a rather wide mouth for speedy pouring. And this works great for many applications, but not when we want control over where exactly our water comes out—and how much comes out at time. It’s very hard to direct a wide-mouth of water over the relatively small area of most pour-over brewing contraptions. The kettle has boil-dry protection that switches off the device when the water level is too low, so you do not need to worry about forgetting about turning off the kettle. But, during Bonavita’s rise, there were more than a few quietly growing conflicts behind the scenes. For one, Brian Gross — despite being the brains behind Bonavita — began building out another brand called Brewista, which was still manufactured by Smartco but not distributed by Espresso Supply. Since Gross was employed by Smartco at the time, the Brewista brand was also owned by its Chinese manufacturer. Editorial Director Taysha Murtaugh received a sample to test and found the kettle easy to control, with a steady flow rate. "This kettle is comparable to my old Hario model, with one significant advantage: I love that I'm able to control the temperature of each drink, which is critical to my morning French press or pour-over," she says. "When heating up, it does create a louder 'whirring' sound than others I've tried, but if you can even call that a con, it's a small one for great coffee." If you’re also typically making single cups of coffee, even for a group, you’ll also be great with the 1L Bonavita kettle.

The final legal battle

The Lardera Smart Electric Kettle is a high-end option that fits any coffee lover's setup. And I mean "fit" literally because the kettle is compact and saves valuable counterspace. It measures 10 inches from spout to handle, and the base is about 6 inches on each side.

We were all taught that most brewers don’t get water hot enough or spit it out at the right rate,” said Katie Carguilo, western coffee manager at Counter Culture Coffee. The company is also planning a marketing bonanza, tied with key coffee professional events and trade shows in March and April. “We know March is the big time when you’ve got your housewares shows,” said Chen. “This is when buyers are looking — you have to get things in.” 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). Well, if you’re anything like me, you love a hot cup of tea in the morning or if you’re most others, you prefer a cup of coffee to start you off. When you’re travelling, this might mean having to buy a hotel breakfast or even find a cafe somewhere around town. Stovetop kettles can take a beating, particularly for those who have open-flame gas burners. But this simple stainless steel kettle from Coffee Gator is up to any task, and it comes at an affordable price. In addition to being durable and affordable, the stand-out features include a temperature gauge, finger-groove handle, and a precise, reliable spout that you can depend on to up your coffee or tea game for years to come.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. 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.