What is a coffee maker?
If we were to paraphrase the definition for coffee (provided by a smart coffee lover), that says "coffee is water flavored with ground coffee", well,
...a coffee maker is then a device that extracts the flavors from the ground coffee into the water.
In order to be exact, we have to mention that there is a little controversy on which devices can pass for "coffee makers" and which don't. Going back to coffee, we noticed that there is a numerous coffee-community that separates two concepts: espresso and non-espresso coffee. Hurray! That little detail makes the decision much easier: when speaking of coffee makers, we'd better refer to "non-espresso coffee makers".
Now, we still have various styles (or nationalities) of devices that can be successfully used to brew coffee:
- stovetops
- moka pots
- french presses
- drip coffee makers
- vacuum brewers
- percolators and urns
We kept the last three of them in the coffee makers group (drips, vacuums and percolators), and decided to treat the others separately:
- stovetops for their traditionality; we could consider the pot that grandma' used to prepare the morning coffee as a "coffee maker"; the same goes for the Turkish ibrik;
- moka pots, both for being non-automatic and for the "superstition" that they can brew, if used in a certain manner, real espresso;
- French presses for they always were and will be non-automatic devices ("maker" sounds like it's really able to take over some of your tasks).
Look into coffee maker types and what they can brew in the next section...