Hey folks. As you recall I recently asked about electric coffee
percolators, and got a lot of responses. My research didn't stop
here, though. I found a lot of similar dissent about the percolator
around the web, but there was also a very small population of radicals
that were arguing that percolators are great. Many of these folks use
other "coffee snob" methods (press pot, manual drip, vacuum pot)
alongside an electric percolator. Something I noticed a lot was that
a lot of people who hated percolators had also never used one.

Seems like the bad reputation that a percolator gets comes from about
20+ years ago. Here's why:

1) Most percolators were stovetop. It was difficult to know the
difference between 'perking' (between 190-205F) and boiling (212F) the
water. As we all know, actually boiling the coffee destroys it.
Modern electric percolators are regulated to the 190-205 temp, which
is also the optimum extraction temp for coffee. It seems to be a
common misconception that percolators "boil and reboil the coffee",
but they actually do not boil if used properly.

2) Up until 30 or 35 years ago, all coffee in the US was made from the
cheap and bitter Robusta family instead of the Arabica. Arabica costs
more (significantly less yield per tree) but the taste difference is
huge. Coffee as an 'art' wasn't established yet in the US. Just like
how the only beer you could buy was Budweiser, Schlitz or Coors, the
only coffee you could buy was robusta. Nobody really knew the
difference.

3) You must keep percolators spotlessly clean. A lot of people either
don't know this or don't do it. You also have to remove the coffee
basket when it's done perking, as the steam from the coffee below will
continue to overextract the grounds above.

After learning all this, I decided to take a chance on one. I bought
a National Presto 12-cup electric percolator. It makes some pretty
good coffee. Really strong, really smooth, not bitter. Gone is the
'plasticy' flavor i used to get from my Automatic Drip machine. So all
in all, I think that coffee from the modern electric percolator is a
completely different animal than that from the old stovetop in the
1950s.

Just thought I'd share.

-J