At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company.

More >>

Coffee machines: traditional versus automatic

Choosing the right coffee machine for your catering operation can be a tricky matter. Ian Boughton looks at the arguments in the traditional versus automatic debate

The right coffee machine in any catering situation is not the newest, or the most colourful, or the most fashionable.

More >>