Stovetop coffee sans grounds

If you've read any of my blogs about coffee, you probably know that I'm in love with my French press coffeemaker. This isn't to say that I don't love all coffee, because I do, and will drink it regardless of where and how it was made. But my favorite cup of coffee comes from the French press, which gives it a rich and strong flavor that's hard to replicate in a drip coffee pot.

If you've ever used a French press before, you know that the downside of using them is that your cup inevitably has a layer of coffee sediment hanging out at the bottom of it. Because the coffee is filtered through a fine mesh screen instead of through filter paper, the coffee is left with a significant amount of grounds. If you ask me, the sediment is what gives French press coffee its delicious flavor. However, all of those grounds sometimes make the coffee gritty, and they inevitably end up pooling like chocolate syrup in the bottom rim of my coffee cup, making cleanup much more annoying.

This Santos Stove-Top Vacuum Coffeemaker apparently will still make the same strong-brewed cup that I love without all of the grounds. It's cool to watch too, relying on principles of physics for both the brewing and filtering.

As the water warms, the pressure builds up in the bottom compartment, forcing the boiling water into the awaiting coffee grounds up top. When the heat is removed, the vacuum created by the pressure drop in the lower chamber sucks the water back down, bringing the newly infused coffee flavor back down with it. It leaves the grounds behind, so the only thing you end up drinking is full-bodied coffee.

The Santos Coffeemaker costs about $80, and is available from the Brooklyn Kitchen's Web site.