Javapresse Manual Coffee Grinder Review – Is it Worth the Wait?

Manual, hand mill coffee grinders are pretty trendy nowadays… at least in a certain coffee crowd.

So like any proper coffee experimenter, I decided to get one!

I went with the Javapresse brand, which is the hottest selling one on Amazon. Little side note: I sometimes forget that the most popular thing is not always the best!

I thought I would make my nice, budding coffee setup look even more aesthetically pleasing by adding this great looking Javapresse manual coffee grinder to it. The coffee grinder is sleek looking for sure.

In the title of the article I asked, “Is it worth the wait?”

The reason I asked this is because one aspect of this coffee grinder is… it takes a really long time to grind coffee. That is, if you’re used to any kind of electric grinder.

So let me now answer the question: along with the other pros and cons of this fine looking coffee mill, is it worth the five minute or longer wait to use this Javapresse coffee grinder? NOPE!

Javapresse and their coffee grinder are definitely not worth it. My rating of is 3 out of 10.

This is one of my only reviews so far of a product that I’ve purchased that I can say I truly give it a non-recommendation. And I’m about to tell you why!

Let’s Start With The Cons This Time

I’m going to be brutally honest. In my opinion, this coffee mill has some big cons.

Here are what I see as the cons:

• Takes super long
• Not the best design
• The bottom piece falls off
• I have trouble trusting the brand (see explanation below)

This thing takes a really long time to prepare your coffee beans for brewing.

I haven’t timed it, but I’ve glanced at the clock and it’s taken me at least five minutes every time I’ve used it, between refilling the chamber and actually milling the coffee.

One time I noticed it took me seven minutes to grind out coffee for my AeroPress. It really gives you a workout too… which is ok with me but may not be for everyone!

I really see some design flaws in this hand mill. Something I’ve noticed is because many of the manual coffee grinders have a similar design, so I need to give at least a little credit to Javapresse there. Many of them probably have these same “issues”, at least I see them as issues.

What are they? For one thing, the main chamber isn’t wide enough. How are you supposed to pour beans into a chamber that’s like an inch in diameter without spilling the beans all over the place!?

Yes they’ve certainly tricked me there! But I came up with my own solution. So I’ll even give you a little hack in the video below.

Another issue with the design is there’s no marker for how coarse or fine your coffee is ground.

Sure you can just test it and adjust it, but for me it was like… by the end of testing over and over I had a whole AeroPress chamber full of different sized grinds.

And it was still hard for me to find the right grind after! There could at least be a guide for how many clicks for which kind of brewing method, right?

Another con is because in the almost two weeks I’ve been using this grinder, the bottom piece which contains the coffee grinds has fallen out when I’ve picked it up two separate times.

There’s no use crying over spilt coffee, I know.

But when that’s a mistake that just cost you at least 5 minutes and maybe your water will get too cold to brew coffee, that’s not fun! This definitely seems like a design flaw.

But either way I’ve learned my lesson, hold the coffee grinder in the middle, gripping both main pieces simultaneously so that there’s no chance the coffee will spill!

“Free” Coffee???

Now, lastly… I have trouble trusting this brand.

Reason number one is because in a tutorial video explaining first time use the coffee grinder, the guy who’s from the company says it takes about a minute and a half to grind enough coffee for an AeroPress.

I don’t even think that if Arnold Schwarzenegger turned the handle for a minute and a half straight without stopping that it’s fast enough to grind enough coffee for an AeroPress portion.

It takes me more than 5 minutes!

I don’t even think it’s in the realm of possibility because you also have to refill the small chamber to have enough for AeroPress.

Second, they advertise that if you get their coffee mill that you can also get a free bag of coffee. Woohoo!

But what they don’t tell you is because you have to send them your Amazon purchase number, sign up to their email list, and write two reviews about the coffee grinder.

Yeah… I get the marketing technique in that, good job Javapresse. But I don’t know if I could personally say that this is truly giving away “free” coffee.

I could certainly understand if it were only signing up for the email list, or even writing one review maybe, but seriously? Email list and two reviews!?

Do you want me to write a 1,000-word APA format essay about how “glorious” your coffee grinder is, too!? Oh and you forgot to ask for a video!

As I wrote this article, I tried to click on the button on the website for the free coffee to be sure of what the steps are for this alleged “free coffee”, but every time I tried it just gave me an error message.

Oops! Here’s the link for it if you want to give it a go and see if it’ll work!

“We’ll give you free coffee, you just have to give us free marketing and advertising!” Not free in my opinion. There’s no way I could give this product a good review so I suppose I won’t get the “free” coffee! Thanks anyway!

It’s a wonderful marketing strategy but a poor ‘good customer relationship building strategy’, in my opinion.

The Good Things

Sure there are some good things about this coffee grinder, too.

Here the pros:

• Doesn’t require electricity
• Quieter than electric grinders

That’s about it!

This hand mill would certainly be a great thing to take on a camping trip or in any other situation where you don’t have electricity to use an electric grinder.

I hope to purchase a different brand’s manual coffee grinder and see if I have a better experience, but for now this is what I got to work with.

It’s also much quieter than electric coffee grinders, which are pretty noisy.

If you need to grind your coffee early in the morning and want to keep from waking people up, this would be a good option for that.

And that’s it for the good stuff!

Electric Or Manual Grinder?

There are good things about both, and there are bad things about both.

And there are different types of electric grinders as well.

But I would actually go as far as to say I would even go with a super cheap electric blade grinder rather than this Javapresse manual coffee grinder.

But if you can get a nice burr automatic grinder, that is the best in my opinion.

Since I’m kind of opinionated I’ll just say it again… any electric grinder is better than this manual one.

The thing about the metal blade electric grinders is because it can be difficult to get a fine grind. They’re practically made for drip coffee makers or pour over, or anything that requires a more coarse grind like French press.

But still, between the time, effort and the pain-in-the-neck of using this Javapresse hand mill, I would prefer any electric coffee grinder over it.

I would like to try another hand mill with a wider chamber and that has other features as well, and will hopefully write be able to review another one.

For another example, I’ve seen manual coffee grinders that have a lock feature on the bottom piece so that it doesn’t fall off when you hold it.

The Bottom Line: Do Not Go With Javapresse

Ok… I do feel like I’m a bit harsh in this review!

In all honesty and candor, if the only cons I saw were the design and functional flaws, I wouldn’t be so quick to say don’t get Javapresse. I would simply say that I don’t recommend it. But with what I can see about this company I feel like I should take it a bit further.

With Javapresse, they do have a lifetime warranty on their products. That’s nice.

BUT, the website says it’s a warranty for manufacturer defects… so I’d also be willing to bet, from what I can see about this company, that this warranty does not include breakage or wear and tear or an accident like dropping it or whatever else.

That is speculation of course. But it even says in their website on the FAQ page, “The warranty covers any manufacturing defects and dissatisfactions associated with them.”

Remember, as I’ve said in other reviews, a good warranty is a sign that a company stands behind its product and cares about the customer’s overall experience.

With a partial warranty like the one that Javapresse has, it shows me that they stand behind their product to an extent, but they maybe don’t care as much about the customer’s overall good experience.

Here’s the real bottom line underneath the other bottom line: If it were only for the function and design flaws in this product, it would simply be something I simply didn’t recommend. But these combined with what I can see of the company make say AVOID this product and company!

I’m just a bundle of positivity today, aren’t I!?

If you read almost any other of my reviews, you’ll see that I’m generally very upbeat about products and services, as long as I feel they are good products from good brands.

And I cannot say from my experience that the brand Javapresse or this coffee grinder are good.

I hope you found this review helpful, and like any review or article I write, that I can help you find good brands/products and avoid bad ones!

If you have any questions or comments about this product please feel free to let me know and I’ll be happy to hear from you.

Coffee cheers!