WHAT COFFEE GRINDER TO BUY: BLADE GRINDER VS BURR GRINDER | BLIND TASTING COFFEE
Channel: ZIGGING by Mark Sigg
Date: 2021-07-08

Looking for ways to make better coffee at home by finding out what grinder you should buy? Like me, you probably bought an espresso machine thinking that you can instantly improve your coffee game! While true, there's a part of the coffee making process that we often neglect and take for granted. We can buy the fanciest espresso machines and get your hands on exotic coffee beans from across the world, but without these fundamental step, you might still be selling yourself short of having better coffee. This step that we may often neglect is in the proper grinding of our coffee beans! For many years now, I've always valued grinding my coffee beans fresh right before making my coffee. It's been years since I bought pre-ground coffee beans and have always to buy my coffee beans whole. I was quite content with this process but I really found out that I was selling myself short and I can still make my coffee much better! In all honesty, I was quite incredulous to this new information. Well, the information was not entirely new as I had always heard it, but never cared to listen hard since I was set in my practical ways: my blade grinder has been working fine and continues to deliver me good tasting coffee. But the comments from my viewers in my video where I reviewed my espresso machine got me thinking: is my blade grinder really standing in the way between myself and better coffee? What's been great about my YouTube journey is that through sharing, my age-old beliefs and mindset has been put into reflection. I've been happy to take suggestions from you, my viewers, to see what's out there to explore. Thus, I set practicality aside and my $20 blade grinder from Procter-Silex. Anyway, it's been a whole 7-years since I bought this from Amazon! I waited for the Shopee Sale last 04.04 and finally got my hands on this generic automatic burr grinder at a little over 1,800 Philippine Pesos or around $35 (US Dollars).

In a previous video, I unboxed this generic automatic burr grinder: https://youtu.be/QOChc6VXpsA

While I unboxed and quickly tested this burr grinder in that previous video, I made a promise to you guys that I would review the machine further by actually tasting the extracted coffee from the grounds. It took a while but I finally got around to making that video! Aside from just a simple sampling of coffee grounds from my new burr grinder and making espresso, I wanted to really test it. Sure, it's easy to tell you that this new grinder makes better coffee, but anyone can do that! I wanted to test it and compare it side-by-side coffee made from my previous blade grinder. I guess I was still skeptical, in my head, I'm still thinking that coffee beans plus hot water yields the same results. So a side-by-side comparison between coffee from a blade grinder vs. coffee from a burr grinder would be great. But, I still wasn't content to make a mere comparison. I felt that it would be too easy to favor the burr grinder over the blade grinder because that's what the experts say. So I sought ways on how I can do this without any bias and really let my taste buds do the talking! Thus, I resolved that the only way to do this was to it through a blind taste test. By tasting the coffee without exactly knowing which is which, I would be able to unbiasedly arrive at a conclusion as to which coffee would be better. With this method in mind, the challenge was how I'd actually be able to do it! What I did was to use the same exact glasses and marked its underneath with a masking tape to remember which is which. But throughout the actual tasting, I wouldn't know which glass is which since the glasses are identical and mix them up. I can only make the distinction from the markings underneath the glasses.

Will I actually be able to tell any difference between the two glasses of coffee? And if yes, will I guess the better coffee as coming from the burr grinder? Or will I end up liking the coffee from the blade grinder better? I won't reveal the result of my blind tasting here in the descriptions section so go watch the video!

Is the burr grinder actually better? From the bling tasting, the burr grinder actually did make better coffee! But is it a world of difference? Unless you are already a coffee aficionado or able to distinguish taste nuances, I think you might not notice too big of a difference. If you don't have a coffee grinder, I do suggest that you buy a burr grinder at this same affordable price point. Burr grinders are usually more expensive than blade grinders so only at this price point would I recommend it. If you already have a blade grinder and are happy with your coffee, that is perfectly fine and understandable. Enjoy your coffee as you like it!

Watch the review of my Lazada Espresso Machine under $50 here: 
https://youtu.be/uv2Xp_IBlQ4

Want to mix it up? I tried if I can make up Kombucha from Coffee to make Koffucha:
https://youtu.be/YHlf4CMDOaY

#CoffeeGrinder
#CoffeeTasting


https://youtu.be/uv2Xp_IBlQ4