Just came across the Brikka. They claim it is a stovetop coffee maker that, unlike regular stovetoppers, actually extracts crema because it has a built in pressure valve system.
I know we have a few coffee geeks and I wonder if anyone has tried this machine (not the regular stovetoppers but this Brikka thing.) Does it indeed produce crema? And more importantly, does it make a good espresso as I’ve seen plenty of electric cheapo espresso makers produce crema through frotting/disc tricksy devices without the espresso being any good even if it looked nice in the cup.
There’s no way I’m giving up my Gaggia but this Brikka would do nicely for travelling and/or back-up as well as for recommending to friends who want nice coffee but can’t afford the fairly pricey machines.
So did anyone try it?
It looks impressive, but the page for the standard moka express has equally impressive looking short blacks. My moka pot always looked like it had made pseudo crema, but I could never get it to pour into a cup.
In the event that no-one here has tried one, I suggest you go and poke around on coffeegeek.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a coffee geek, nor do I drink coffee often. As a matter of fact I only occassionally drink coffee and it’s usually some sort of horribly altered substance that was merely once related to coffee. I have no experience with the one you linked to.
Now then, for Christmas my wife and I received the Mukka made by the same company. **It behaves exactly as advertised ** and we have had the cappuccino from it nearly every morning since we got it. We’ve been using the Illy medium roast espresso coffee that we got with it and have enjoyed every cup. I want to get some decaf so I can have a cup in the evenings.
The ‘trick’ that this one uses (and it looks like the Brikka uses a version as well) is the pressure valve in the upper pot. It won’t release and allow the hot water through the grounds until the right pressure (and I assume temperature) has been achieved. When it starts brewing it only takes a few seconds before the water in the resevoir is used up and the pot is full.
I have only one complaint about it, and that is that it is a pain to clean off the milk solids in the pot. The instructions suggest leaving the pot on the heat for a minute or two after the cappuccino is ready to allow the milk to get hotter, but that just seems to bake the milk solids on to the inside of the pot. I doubt the one that your are asking about will have that problem (no milk…).