Four grinders we actually recommend
Your grinder is the most important piece of equipment you'll buy. Here's how we'd spend at four price points.
The beans cost €18 a bag. The grinder, amortised over the two years you'll use it, costs roughly €5 a bag. This is a line of defence you should not skimp on.
Under €60 — Timemore Chestnut C3. Hand grinder, steel burrs. Slow and deliberate. Good enough that we used one in the office for six months before we admitted we wanted the electric.
€150–300 — Baratza Encore ESP or 1Zpresso J-Ultra. Either is defensible. The Baratza is electric and grinds fast; the 1Zpresso is hand-powered and grinds better.
€400–700 — Option-O Lagom Mini. A slight splurge that produces filter grinds we struggle to tell apart from our commercial setup. No retention to speak of, swap burrs in two minutes.
Over €1000 — you're into the weeds. At this point the decision is whether you want to also pull espresso; if not, you're paying for marginal improvements in uniformity that most palates can't detect.