Bialetti Brikka Review

Just because we are Naive Nomads doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the finer things in life. Sure, most of our camping gear might be second-hand or hand-me-downs but there are some things that you just don’t need to compromise on when it comes to quality. One of those things for Jazz and I is COFFEE.

We love our coffee, and to date we have not lowered ourselves to drinking instant coffee. We have a couple of espresso coffee machines and milk frothers that get used every day.

But when we are travelling on the road, space is always an issue. Sadly the coffee machine is too big and heavy to travel with. Not to mention the need for 240 volt power.

Drumroll please… Introducing the Bialetti Brikka. Like a lot of other bits of camping gear we have acquired, we originally learnt about it from another traveller. This old bloke made us an espresso coffee on his gas camping stove with this little contraption. We knew instantly that we needed to have one. I jumped on the Bialetti website and saw that there were a lot of different models to choose from. To be honest, I really struggled to work out which one to get. In the end, it was the Bialetti Brikka that we chose.

So to recap, this thing makes espresso coffee over a flame. No power cord. This is not a percolator. This is espresso coffee. Big difference.

The thing itself is 3 pieces. The bottom piece is the well that you fill up with water. The next piece gets inserted on top of that. It holds the ground coffee beans and has a pipe that goes down into the water well below it. When the water is heated, it has no option but to go up through the pipe and push its way through loads of tiny holes.

 

The third piece is the top. The top screws onto the base and creates a tight seal over the middle insert piece. Once the water is pushed through the holes and the beans, it has one last journey through a top pipe that acts as a valve. When it gets to a certain heat and pressure the perfect coffee squeezes through the valve (which is quite noisy and let’s you know it’s ready) and overflows into the top well, ready to pour.

Before buying it, I had read several reviews from people that said the machine is no good, it leaks or is broken. We have had our machine for 12 months and used it a lot. We have had not a single problem with it.

The only regret Jazz has is that the Bialetti Brikka doesn’t froth or heat milk. Some of the other models I saw on the Bialetti website may do this, but they confused the heck out of me.

But I found another solution. An Aldi milk frother. It’s small and cheap and it’s easy to use. Yes, we love our coffee so much, that I actually start the generator to run the milk frother!

So between our Bialetti Brikka and our Aldi milk frother, we are able to make cafe quality espresso coffee anywhere in Australia, even when we are in the middle of nowhere.