Dosacaffe
I first saw this tool 15 years ago, when a friend who's a devotee of good coffee taught me how to use a moka-style espresso pot. Anyone who makes their own coffee -- and especially those who do moka -- knows a fine layer of grounds comes to inhabit the counter space where you fill your coffee pot. The difference between this dispenser and using a spoon is two-fold: the Dosacaffe isn't messy, at all. And it's much more accurate.
Just put the dispenser over the bottom half of the moka pot. Flip the lever 6 times, for a six-cup pot. (If you are having a rough day, bang the base of the pot against the counter to make room for a few more flip's worth of coffee.) Screw the top half of the moka to the bottom half. Make your coffee on the stove, and enjoy.
For 15 years, I have looked for this dispenser off and on, and finally found it at a small general store/online retailer in Vermont, which claims to be the first US supplier of the Dosacaffe. I can say that the thing lives up to its promise: mess-free grounds dispensing, accurate coffee measurements, and the elegant simplicity of a tool that does exactly one thing relentlessly well.
The cleaning is easy, just rinse it out between refills. I can't imagine any maintenance, though I bet the little springs will wear out eventually (I've had mine 3 months). Regardless, it easily holds a full can of coffee (12 oz.), so refills aren't inconvenient. It actually seems bottomless to me.
I just learned there is a sugar-dosing companion piece, too.
Favorite (15)
Bill Papantoniou
Thank you! I've been looking for this for over 5 years!! It really solves a very annoying problem in my daily routine...
MDT
Cleanliness is next to godliness, but why oh why would you use pre-ground coffee! EGADS, man.
George Cochrane
This device works a little like the doser on a commercial espresso machine, like this:
http://www.caffetech.com/pages/images/Mazzer/mini/grinder.jpg
You grind the coffee into the attached canister, thwack the doser lever a few times, and you've got the right amount for a shot of espresso.
The problem with these devices in anything but a fast-paced commercial environment, is that ground coffee loses flavor and freshness unbelievably fast. Most coffee aficionados say you must use coffee within *30 seconds* of grinding, or risk a fate worse than, well, subpar coffee.
In a cafe, the barista can fill the grinder's doser, and expect to have it emptied into a succession of drinks within a few minutes. For home use, people have been verging toward doserless grinders, that grind directly into your coffee filter, so that old grounds have nowhere to collect and go stale.
This device, unfortunately, would have a tough time finding use in a cafe, and in the home, it stands to serve a gradient of successively less-fresh cups over time until refilled.
That said, if I take off my nerd cap and look back to times when I've been served cups of moka coffee out of probably weeks-old cans of ground Illy at my friend's place in London, and loved it (probably as much for the experience as the coffee), maybe this tool does have a use for the less-fussy folks.
Sometimes I regret having taken the red pill.
cubanita
Oh my god- I can't believe I found this. I've been searching for this for YEARS. All my cuban family wants one. There used to be a door-to-door salesman that went around Miami selling a similar item. They long stopped selling these and when all the kids grew up, they all wanted one like our parents but they are no where to be found. I've looked at cuban stores, italian stores, etc. Now it's all these overpriced gadgets that dose and dispense ($100+). All these hipster newly born cafe snobs who think they really understand the science of drinking coffee don't get that folks elsewhere who have long been drinking coffee before it was a big fad here love these things. You can find them in homes all across Italy and Cuba. It's possible to grind the coffee right before putting it here I guess if it matters that much.
The one they used to sell was a contraption that set on top of the coffee can itself and had a lever on the side that would dose and dispense the perfect amount of espresso into the stove top machine. No messy grinds to clean up. I've been doing a million google searches and can't believe I found this. I can't even remember what combination of keywords I used to get here but who cares? Who would have guessed it would be brought to us via Vermont?! Now that I know what this is called I'm finding more info and ordering one today! Thank you for posting.