From Kate Bush and Top Gun to inflation and soaring petrol prices, 2022 is already turning into the year of the comeback.
But for a number of Brits, this year has also meant coming back to the office fully for the first time in over two years.
This return to old routines has forced many of us to abandon some of the creature comforts that made WFH enjoyable; from pyjama bottoms on Zoom calls to lunchtime walks around your local park.
If that weren’t bad enough, it’s also meant the loss of a killer drink selection to power you through the day.
After all, unless you work for a tech firm or excessively overfunded start-up, the chances are your office coffee offering likely consists of a calcified kettle and an industrial-sized tub of Nescafe Gold.
But a return to those halogen halls doesn’t have to mean consigning yourself to a cup of brown slop that tastes like it’s been strained through a car exhaust – and here at Metro.co.uk, we’ve got some tools and tips you can use to upgrade your office coffee game and get you a great-tasting caffeine boost.
Novice
First up is a simple, entry-level device that’s almost impossible to mess up – even for those just starting to think about new ways to make coffee.
The cafetière
Despite its name, the humble cafetière, or French Press, was actually invented and patented in Italy by designer Attilio Calimani in the late 1920’s, and is what’s known as an ‘immersion’ brewing method. As the name suggests, you’re immersing the grounds in water and allowing all the bean-y flavour to infuse into said water over a period of time.
This is perhaps the fastest and easiest route to improving your beverage game instantly. For a one-cup cafetière, simply find some course-ground coffee in any good supermarket or roaster of your choice, add 16 grams of coffee – that’s around three levelled tablespoons of the stuff – to the chamber and fill to the top with water. Let it sit for 4 min, then stir, pop the lid on and plunge.
The extra stir may sound pointless, but it forces the grounds to settle at the bottom of the vessel, meaning it’s less likely to find its way into your cup when you pour after plunging.
And just like that, you’ve got a tastier, more flavourful cup at work.
Three sleek cafetières to buy
Anyday three-cup cafetière
Buy for £7 from John Lewis
Bodum coffee maker, three-cup (in multiple colour options)
Buy for £26 from Bodum
Hay French press brewer
Buy for £79 from END
Enthusiast
If the cafetière isn’t quite doing it for you, or you want a cleaner, more nuanced drink while you’re plugging away at those spreadsheets, then these next two devices will help you up the ante a bit. For both of these you’ll want a slightly finer grind of coffee than the cafetière to get the best results, so look for a ‘medium’ grind on bags in the store.
The Aeropress
Our first option is another popular staple of the coffee-brewing scene: the Aeropress.
Simple, lightweight and basically indestructible, this caffeine contraction, invented by the man behind the ultimate frisbee, is one of the best bang-for-your-buck devices out there at just £30. Just ignore the fact that it looks like some sort of kitchen cleaning tool.
Once again, this device’s ruggedness, along with its inbuilt guide markers, makes it ideal for the office by cutting out the risk of damage and saving the need for a scale.
Buy for £30 from Amazon
There’s a few ways you can brew with this contraption, but for the most consistent results, we’ve found that the following works:
And there you have it: a clean and surprisingly flavourful cup that tastes as good as filter from a coffee shop, all from the confines of your work kitchen.
Best of all, you can eject the entire coffee ‘puck’ into the bin with a single, satisfying press of the plunger, meaning speedy cleanup and no mess for colleagues to get annoyed about.
The Trinity Zero
What sounds like a terrible Matrix spin-off is actually our next, and slightly more niche, offering for office coffee enthusiasts.
The second device built by specialist engineering company Trinity, the Zero offers many of the same benefits as the Aeropress, such simplicity and near-indestructibility, while also boasting an even smaller profile for easy storage, and most importantly, inbuilt guide lines so you can nail your ratio every time.
Buy for £31.99 from CoffeeHit
Using a similar principle to espresso extraction – albeit with way less pressure and courser grounds – the Zero utilises a thumb-pump to force water through coffee and into your cup to deliver that sweet, sweet nectar in minimal time.
Simply fill the bottom chamber with coffee, the top chamber with water, press away and you’ll have yourself a mug of near-espresso strength coffee that you can then top up with water or milk with minimal fuss.
Expert
Okay, we get it: you love coffee in all its forms, but what you desperately crave is pure, authentic espresso that you can knock back in that early morning meeting to assert your dominance.
Some might say it’s not possible, but we beg to differ. Presenting…
The Wacaco Nanopresso
Buy for £84.90 from Amazon
To put it simply, you need two things to make espresso: very finely ground coffee and a lot of pressure (nine bars, to be exact).
This is usually only done by machine, but there are a few devices out there that let you do it by hand.
The Nanopresso is one of those, and has the benefit of being super portable too – so ideal for the office.
Just like the Trinity Zero, you’ll need to load up the smaller device chamber with (espresso grind) coffee and the larger chamber with water, before pumping away with the device’s pop-out plunger until coffee starts to pour out. Within minutes, you’ll have a cup filled with fresh, creamy espresso ready to enjoy at your desk.
What’s more, the Nanopresso now comes with a Nespresso attachment too, so you can cut out another step by simply whacking a pod into the chamber – no fresh grounds needed.
Just try not to look too pretentious strutting around the office with a little espresso cup in hand.
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