I mainly want to get a coffee grinder because beans have a longer shelf life and are cheaper. If I also get better coffee, that’s a bonus! (Basically, I’m not looking for a premium option)
What is something I should pay attention to when buying a grinder. I see people mention “flat burr” grinders all the time. Is that something important?
A few years ago I bought a cheap terrible manual coffee grinder off Amazon. It took 5-10mins to grind my coffee. The grounds where too course and my hands hurt. Is the experience better with higher quality manual grinders? At the moment, I’m not a huge fan of manual grinders because of this experience and am leaning towards buying an electrical one.
What makes a coffee grinder better than others? What is the difference between premium and budget options?
The cheapest electric grinder you should get is Baratza Encore. That’s pretty much it. Options open if you double your price budget (which is a huge ask and.not reasonable for many, don’t worry)
The cheapest hand grinders you should get (unless you really have no budget) are the 1zpresso Q2 (single cups of coffee) or a Timemore C3 for pourovers. They are at least the quality of the baratza encore if not slightly better without modifications to the baratza. It literally takes me 30 seconds to grind through 16g of beans. It is night and day from those cheap shitty amazon grinder and also affordable.
Just don’t buy from amazon. Amazon sucks, in unethical, puts smaller companies out of business not because it is better, but because it uses its immense wealth to directly copy products but make them worse and sell them at a large loss while losing a ton of money until the smaller company folds then jack up their prices. They also fund illegal Union busting, barely pay even a fraction of their taxes, and use their software side of the company to lock in people and other companies. Not to mention their workers’ rights and OSHA safety violations of which are many. They are just untouchable because they have a Disney-tier legal division.