Review: Fanttik Cafein 11 Portable Coffee Maker

Folks who need their caffeine fix no matter what the circumstances are can sometimes find themselves in dire straits. If you’re on the road, in the woods, or simply far from a Starbucks, what’s a java junkie to do?

Fanttik’s Cafein 11 proffers a solution: This is a portable coffee-brewing machine that needs only two ingredients: Coffee (or a Nespresso-like coffee pod) and water. Regular water, not boiling. Armed with a couple of simple ingredients and a fully charged battery, the Cafein lets you produce 5 to 8 (tiny) cups of coffee while otherwise fully disconnected from the grid, no strings attached.

Sound too good to be true? I put the device to the test to see if the reality measured up to the promises, and I’m mostly happy to say that yes, it did. While there’s a bit of a learning curve (and lots of pieces to navigate), the Cafein 11 is ultimately fairly easy to use. Measure ground coffee into the tiny filter basket, screw it into the main chassis, and add water to the other side. A built-in insulated cup captures the coffee that comes out the bottom, in a process that takes about 2 minutes.

The completed brew tastes great — this unit can heat water to 198 degrees and push 20 bars of pressure, which helps to create a modest crema on top of the beverage. I couldn’t really tell any difference between the quality of the coffee the Cafein 11 produced vs. a Nespresso.

Except for one thing: The amount of coffee the Cafein 11 produces is tiny, just 80ml at most, or less than 3 ounces of brewed coffee. It’s a tiny amount even in the miniature serving cup that Fanttik provides, so small that it looks like something went wrong. Nope, that’s just how much — or how little — coffee it can produce.

There are surely reasons for this: The unit is designed to be kept small, and heating up water requires a lot of energy. The more coffee you make, the bigger the battery would need to be, which would cause this lose its portability. Yes, you can always make more than one cup, but that’s not easy with the Cafein, either: The filter basket gets very hot and needs to cool down (and be cleaned out) before being used again. Cleanup isn’t difficult, but it’s time consuming, much like the setup process is. You’ll need access to running water to do a proper cleanup job of tidying up the 6 components you’re left with at the end of a single coffee run.

Those issues aside, I had fun playing with the Cafein 11 at home, and can — maybe — see a use for a device like this on a camping trip or a boat day. The quantity issue remains the thorniest of its few concerns, though, and there’s no easy way to get around it — except by maybe forcing yourself to make do with a demitasse instead of the Venti you’re used to.

B / $140 [BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON]

The post Review: Fanttik Cafein 11 Portable Coffee Maker appeared first on Drinkhacker: The Insider’s Guide to Good Drinking.