A few years back, mid-apartment-move, I unloaded my kitchen cabinets, and discovered I owned no fewer than a dozen different devices for making coffee. From Nespresso to Aeropress, Chemex to Bialetti, with French Press, vacuum brewer, SoftBrew, and even more obscure options between.

But what I didn’t own was a coffee grinder. Which, as a reluctant coffee snob, was sort of sacrilege. Sure, I knew that coffee ground moments before brewing was far better than a bag ground in-store left to oxidize on the shelf throughout its days of use. But I was also (perhaps penny-wise and pound-foolishly) cheap.

At one point, I purchased an inexpensive blade grinder, but the results were a bit of an abortion. Insert whole beans, pour out an inconsistent mess, a potpourri that ran from large unground chunks to fine silt. A consistent grind required a burr grinder, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to spring the $200 for a Baratza or any of its competitors. So, for years I subsisted on in-store-ground beans.

Until, that is, a few weeks ago, when I stumbled across a fairly excellent review for the Secura 903B. A bit of Googling confirmed: while not anything unusual, it was perfectly capable – an automatic ceramic burr grinder that reliably makes uniform grounds. And at just $40, cheap enough that I almost couldn’t justify not buying it.

The grinder arrived on Friday. Jess and I picked up freshly-roasted beans yesterday afternoon. This morning, I (Chemex) brewed a first test run batch.

The result: why the hell did I wait so long to buy a burr grinder?

If you make coffee daily, there’s no way in the world this sucker isn’t worth the ten cents a day it will cost you to make far better cups through the rest of 2020.