December 1, 2024:
Black Friday is a perfect moment to update your coffee game with the best new gear and accessories at discount prices. We’ve sorted through a storm of Cyber Monday and Black Friday deals on espresso machines, grinders, French presses, and cold brew to find the absolute best buys on our highest-rated coffee gear.
For other coffee recommendations, check out our Best Espresso Machines, Best Automated Espresso and Cappuccino Machines, Grinders and Kettles, and Pour-Over guides.
Updated November 30: We’ve added some coffee subscription deals and corrected prices.
WIRED Featured Deals
WIRED’s Black Friday 2024 Coverage
The Fellow Aiden drip coffee machine is probably the most talked-about device this year among coffee heads, in a year full of hype. The Aiden looks fancy, and it kinda is fancy. But the Aiden is less about hype than simple ease. “A coffee machine’s ability to brew delicious coffee with as little friction as possible should be the primary yardstick of greatness,” wrote WIRED contributor Pete Cottell in his rave review of the Aiden (8/10, WIRED Recommends). Its real strength is that it makes beautiful, café-quality drip or pour-over without being any harder to figure out than a grimy old Mr. Coffee from the 1970s. Pair it with the WIRED Gear team’s favorite bean grinder, the Opus, and you’ve got a powerhouse brewing setup at a steep Black Friday discount. (You can also just spring for the Opus, a terrific grinder, and get the same 20 percent discount.)
Technivorm’s Moccamaster drip coffee maker has been handmade in the Netherlands since 1968. It’s a big, sturdy, and technically precise drip machine that will maintain water at optimal brewing temperature during the entire brewing process. Note: to get this Black Friday deal, you may have to compromise on color. Some colors are sold out at the sale price already, so click around among the different color options to see if you find one you like at a discount. But choose wisely: chances are it’ll stick around for decades.
When this terrific, SCA-certified drip brewer came out only a few years ago, WIRED reviewer Joe Ray had to reassure readers that high-quality home drip coffeemakers were indeed possible, and real—and that the Oxo 8-Cup was resounding proof (9/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s still a great coffeemaker. And that insert allowing you to make just a single cup of coffee, rather than a whole pot? Still also a great idea.
The Breville Barista Express is the WIRED Gear team’s favorite premium all-in-one espresso maker that’s priced within reach for mere mortals—and this weekend it’s significantly below list price, with potential rebates that could push the price down still further. What do we like about the Barista? It’s a sturdily constructed, mostly metal machine that’s easy to use and easy to froth your milk with. It’ll grind your beans for you, and it’ll produce consistent water pressure you can watch on its included pressure gauge. It’s also durable: It’s lived happily on WIRED reviewer Julian Chokkattu’s shelf for more than five years.
The Terra Kaffe is a pricey hunk of coffee machinery and has its bugs, but it’s one of few on earth to offer not just quality espresso and macchiato, but also true drip coffee that’s not Americano in disguise. This all arrives in a nifty, easy-to-clean package with a smart screen and all the trimmings. Using a phone app, you can begin warming the machine up from your bed, just like a remote starter on your car. Anyway, it’s a whopping $500 off till December 15, with an extra hundo off the top if you sign on for a coffee subscription. —Matthew Korfhage
Every espresso lover with a spouse or a roommate knows the score: The grinder on your espresso machine might as well be an alarm clock for the whole house. What a delight, then, to hear the gentle spin of this KitchenAid machine (8/10, WIRED Recommends), whose burr grinder is like a susurration of the leaves. We can’t promise a light sleeper won’t stir, but it is the quietest such device our Gear team has tested. The KitchenAid is full of such considerate touches, whether it’s an astonishingly compact profile, wheels that let you tuck it away when not in use, and its intuitive operation. Note, however, that our reviewer lamented it took a few more tries than expected to dial in the device to get a great cup.
The WIRED Gear team has long loved Mr. Coffee’s automated latte and cappuccino devices, and the Cafe Barista is already our budget pick in the category, often clocking in with deals below $200. The device’s low price comes with a trade-off: It’s a bit plasticky and lightweight. But for that, it makes rich single or double espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes with no fuss and a single button push. Milk comes out quite foamy, which is a plus or a minus depending on what you like.
Wacaco’s Picopresso is the best portable espresso maker the WIRED Gear team has tested: compact, lightweight, and solid, with excellent extraction. It’s a tiny device with delicious results, offering little bitterness and a nice crema. Caveats are that you’ll need to use fine grinds, and you’ll have to be able to apply quite a bit of manual pressure to get good extraction, making this a difficult device for those with joint pain or repetitive stress injury. We also had good results, though not quite as good, with the previous (and less expensive) Nanopresso.
OK, I know: A classic AeroPress is already pretty portable. But the Go is even more travel-friendly. It’s the WIRED Gear team’s favorite portable coffeemaker of them all. It’s lightweight, just a little bigger than a coffee mug, and utterly self-contained. Another plus for people on the go is that an AeroPress is by its nature quite forgiving. Throw in some grounds, stir it up, and plunge away: Chances are it’ll be a pretty good cup of joe. Anyway, Aeropress is discounting 25 percent off most Aeropress models for Black Friday, so pick your pleasure.
In the price range under $100, no automatic grinder beat Oxo’s Brew in our testing. The Brew offers a balance of features, the solid precision of a conical burr grinder, and a surprisingly large range for a bean grinder with a price in the double digits. Just note: Its slim profile means it’s not a space hog. But it’s tall, about 16 inches, which pretty much matches the standard clearance for cabinets—and it loads from the top, meaning you might have to find counter space with an open sky.
Sometimes it’s the simple things that make you love a product. And what first won over our Gear team testers about KitchenAid’s burr grinder was its ease of cleaning — the sort of thing you come to appreciate after weeks or months of daily use. But it’s also a good grinder, if not quite up to the excellent grind execution of our slightly pricier top picks. We also liked the precise control of dosing and the helpful guidelines on grind settings. This is the lowest price we’ve monitored on this model.
If you don’t buy it as part of Fellow’s Aiden Grinder kit, the Opus is well worth buying all on its own. It’s the WIRED Gear team’s favorite overall grinder (9/10, WIRED Recommends), a quiet device with a consistent grind even at the finest espresso settings. At less than $200, it also manages to compete with grinders that cost much, much more.
This is a solid deal on a terrific cold brew maker. The Oxo Compact is my favorite device to make classic cold brew—the sort that brews for most of a day atop your counter. Why? It’s easy to use and elegant in shape, and its combination of mesh and (optional) paper filter makes for clean-tasting and fine-free coffee. The Compact evinces a firm respect for scarce counter and fridge space. And most importantly, the coffee it makes tastes delicious. The coffee I’ve made with the Oxo is the closest I can get to the best packaged or café cold brew.
The French press is an essential and portable tool in any coffee lover’s kitchen, a low-tech default for countertops or camping. The Secura’s biggest sell versus many other French presses is that it’s sturdy, stainless steel, and insulated. Which is to say, the hot stuff stays hot and the cool stuff stays cool. Is this the right time to mention it’s the WIRED Gear team’s favorite French press to make cold brew?
File this into the “you didn’t know you needed one till you got one” folder—a sweet spot that makes this smart warmer a nice stocking stuffer for the caffeinated people in your life. This mug warmer isn’t “smart” because you need an app to use it, or because it records your conversations. It’s smart because it’s smart. The device registers when there’s a flat-bottomed mug on top of it, and responds by keeping it warm at about 130 degrees Fahrenheit—thus saving you the endless dance of either chugging down your coffee or topping it off to keep it hot. Remove the mug, and the device turns off. Easy is underrated.
Vacuum bean storage makes coffee taste better and longer. If you’re using fresh, premium beans from a local roaster, a vacuum storage container will better preserve the investment you’re regularly making in your beans. Drop your bag into this container, then turn Atmos’ twist-action pump. The device will remove all air and thus all oxygen, freezing the sad oxidation process that would turn your once delicately aromatic coffee into acrid cardboard. This is the lowest price we’ve seen on the Atmos this year, and it’s a great gift for the coffee-obsessed.
Sure, the Tally (9/10, WIRED Recommends) will weigh your coffee, if that’s all you need. But it’ll also start a timer to track the progress of a pour-over, and calculate the weight of water you’ll need to add to it. Consider it a third-wave coffee pour-over aficionado’s true companion. Like most Fellow coffee gear, the Tally is 20 percent off right now.
For the Aeropress lover in your life, even if it’s you: Swap out the cap on your Aeropress for a thicker Prismo, and you’ll drastically increase the pressure you exert on the resulting brew. During testing, the WIRED team found this offered a cleaner cup, a bit of aeration, and an even more satisfying cold brew. Science! Though this Black Friday deal isn’t a whopper, it still matches the best discount we’ve seen this year.
The best way to upgrade your coffee is to make sure you’re using fresh beans, and a coffee subscription service is the most reliable way to get a fresh bag at your doorstep. Read our Best Coffee Subscriptions guide for our various recommendations. If you are not a subscriber, a few of our favorites have some enticing offers.