This is our ultimate coffee list for the holiday season. Every single gift suggestion on this list is certain to be well received, well loved, and well used by the coffee lover in your life. We’ve made sure to select the best products in their various categories, or in the case of a few selections, something entirely unique that you won’t find in most people’s kitchens and home cafe setups. All for under $300, and sometimes way less.
Our Under $300 Coffee Gear list joins four we’ve published so far, including:
- Coffee Gear and Gadgets Under $50
- Espresso Gear and Gifts Under $50
- Coffee Gear Under $100
- Espresso Gear Under $100
- Coffee Gear Under $300
- Espresso Gear Under $600
In the interest of transparency, many of these products listed are a) sold by a CoffeeGeek advertising supporter, or b) use our Amazon affiliate link (but not all!). We do not get any kickback from the advertiser sponsor links.
If you appreciate these lists and want to help our website further, please consider using our general affiliate link for Amazon when you do your holiday shopping there. We get a tiny micro percentage kickback on anything you buy, as long as you visit Amazon with this link.
Now it’s time for our top and most unique gift picks for coffee lovers, under $300!
Move aside, Hario. This could be the ultimate in an all in one, beautiful and very advanced home pour over system. It’s the Melitta Senz V, and it’s very under the radar for one reason: Melitta doesn’t send their products out to influencers, so none of them have reviewed it.
We are. We bought one in September and are evaluating it for a January review. And while it isn’t perfect, it’s actually kind of amazing. First off, the Senz V is beautiful in that Scandinavian kind of way, and it is made with premium materials: the filter holder is ceramic, the brewing chamber underneath is glass, and the wood handles and pillars are nicely finished. Second, it’s packed with technology, including four different sensors to know coffee weights, water weights, water temperatures (!!!) brew volumes and more. Third, it has an integrated and fairly unique brew scale. And fourth: it has a connected app, complete with a Brewprint function, recipe storage and more.
This is a single cup brewer, brewing up to 350ml max volume. As mentioned, it’s not perfect (you’ll have to wait for our review to find out more), but for $150, this is a beautiful, complete and very feature rich pour over system that includes a very advanced scale.
Want an automatic drip coffee maker that a) brews a better cup than a Technivorm, b) looks way better than a Technivorm (I know, subjective), and c) costs half of what a Technivorm? The Enfinigy Brewer from Zwilling is the machine for you. We conducted a private review of this product when it came out, and our NDA is just ending on that, so look for a full published review on CoffeeGeek in the new year on this brewer.
Zwilling knocked it out of the park with this brewer. First, the dispersion screen for showering the coffee is massive. The brewing times are excellent and fully up to SCA Gold Cup standards. It is also an SCA certified machine. It has a pretty intelligent mode for low volume brews and has a multi stage bloom cycle depending on what brew volume you select. It also has a full stainless steel boiler (indeed, all the metal touching brew water is steel, no aluminum). Looks fantastic too.
The only issue we had with it is the UI via the single dial button can be a bit confusing at first. Otherwise, a solid auto drip with timer and small volume options. And beautiful too.
We’re featuring 3 auto drip coffee makers in this guide, but this one might be the best bang for the buck overall for function, quality of build, and looks.
This remains the best overall pour over scale you can buy. Even if the app (which was a big part of Acaia’s initial push) has gotten horrible.
The reason it’s the best is what’s inside. It has a true industrial grade scale inside, unlike most of the consumer coffee scales you find on Amazon these days. The scale system inside the Acaia is super accurate, repeatable and durable. The 2021 version update of the Pearl brought needed new features, like a brighter screen, USB-C charging, new brew modes including a full brew assist mode, and a much faster response time.
There’s a reason why you see this scale in almost all influencer videos, product photos like you see here on CoffeeGeek, and in cafes. It is because the Acaia scale is the best you can buy today.
Here’s our recent review.
The Ratio Six makes our list this year based on several factors. First, it’s kind of unique in look and function in the auto drip world. Second, it has some pretty nifty hover-touch controls and very subtle lighting and indicators. Third, it’s a small run, almost cottage industry company producing an exceptionally well made product. And forth, it brews a darned fine cup of coffee, at all batch sizes.
The Ratio Six is a flat filter basket brewer, and there’s some debate that this is the better way to make larger batches of coffee. The brewer is fully SCA certified, and there are additional options available, including a glass carafe, chemex style brewing receptacle, as well as an Able BASKET metal filter.
We reviewed the Ratio Six and found it to be an exceptional batch brewer with a very unique design that should compliment most counters. If the coffee lover in your life needs more than one cup of coffee brewed, this machine will be sure to please.
The pedigree grinder. Truly. This is the evolution of the consumer grinder that completely changed the game back in 2004. This is the choice of gift you make if you want to give someone a coffee product that is well designed, well made, and most importantly, backed by the industry leading after sales service Baratza offers. You’re not only giving them a grinder, you’re giving peace of mind that this will be operational for decades.
The Virtuoso+ isn’t the latest in cutting edge grinder tech. But it is solid, with solid, high quality components. The Etzinger burr set is fantastic. The DC motor is nicely torqued to handle all coffee types. The grinder is quick, and capable of grinds from fine espresso through press pot. The addition of the digital timer and lit up grinds bin is a nice touch. It is an on demand grinder (ie, full hopper of beans) but can be converted to single dose if that’s your jive.
This grinder is an excellent gift choice as an all purpose, long lasting coffee grinder. Here’s our detailed First Look at the Baratza Virtuoso+.
A lot of folks are fans of the Technivorm brewers. We just can’t bring ourselves to recommend them on our Holiday Gift List because the value isn’t there. Plus at $330 retail, they don’t qualify for this list.
If you want a coffee maker that works almost exactly like the Technivorm, looks a lot like it too, but has some additional features that end up producing a better cup of coffee when compared to the Technivorm, the Simply Good Coffee Olson Brewer is the match for you. At $150 it won’t break the bank. It heats up, manages water temperatures, and brews in the same time as the Technivorm.
But it has three tricks that make it perform better than the Technivorm. First, it has a bloom cycle mode for pausing the brew to saturate the bed of coffee. Second, there’s a flow valve control on the filter assembly to do a partial immersion brew, especially good for lower brew volumes. And third, the dispersion screen is better than the Technivorms.
This is a no-nonsense large batch coffee brewer that brews an excellent cup or pot of coffee.
Here’s the super short version: This grinder is like 90% the Niche Zero grinder, for ⅓ the price.
We love the Turin brand of grinders that are hitting the marketplace. There’s two of them at the $200 price point: the SD40, pictured here, and the SK40. The main difference is the way the grind is chosen: on the SD40, it’s an easy turn of a stepped dial, making it super easy to jump from espresso to press pot and back again. On the SK40, it’s a stepless worm drive, and going from espresso to press pot can take you a few minutes of dial turning.
The downside to the SD40 is the grind settings for espresso are pretty limited, unless you do an easy stepless mod to the grind dial. We wrote a bit about both grinders recently.
This is a fast, 40mm upgraded burrset single dose grinder. It is quiet, and while it retains a lot of grinds, the bellows system does the job flushing it all out. It occupies a tiny footprint, has a really powerful motor, and for the single dose, single brew coffee lover in your life, this would be an ideal grinder for them to use every day.
Quite literally the best bang for the buck refractometer you can buy today for measuring coffee and espresso, but mainly because of how good the included app, DiFluid Cafe, is. There may be better and more accurate refractometers out there, but they’ll cost you $700 or more. We use this, in conjuction with DiFluid’s microbalance scale, in all our testing and evaluation at CoffeeGeek.
Why would you want to consider a refractometer as a gift for the coffee nerd in your life? Because if they truly are a coffee nerd, this is going to give them sensory overload on the coffees (and espresso) they brew. It’s going to help track brew strengths, give them clues on how to improve coffee, and the app makes it all that much easier to fully track and evaluate the process of brewing coffee.
This is a very intelligent and fast response refractometer that doesn’t require a lot of sensitive hand holding and specific light conditions to operate. It is USB-C rechargeable, completely waterproof, and has some really advanced abilities, like programmable auto-tests in sequences.
A super geek out gift for the coffee geek in your life.
This literally is the Swiss Army Knife of auto drip coffee brewers, and to be honest, should be near the top of this list, not near the bottom. It’s the Breville Precision Brewer, and the amount of sheer technology and ability in this brewer is staggering.
It quite literally handle brewing everything from single serve V60 pourovers (with an optional attachment), all the way up to large batch cold and iced brews. In between, it can do 300-400ml brews in Melitta cone filters with a motorized immersion flow stop feature, and it can do large volume, flat basket filter brews to full SCA Gold Cup standards. Breville built a masterful machine with this auto drip coffee maker.
If the coffee lover in your life wants a do everything (and do everything pretty well!) brewer, this right here is your answer.
85.5 points is a pretty high rating at CoffeeGeek (we reserve above 90 for beyond-exceptional products). That’s what the Smart Grinder Pro rated and ranked in our recent review. Not too shabby for a nearly 10 year old grinder.
The thing is, in terms of multipurpose grinders this remains the best one you can buy today given the breadth and width of features and abilities this grinder offers. Is it the best $200 grinder for output? No. Is it the best espresso grinder under $200? Nope. Is it the best pour over grinder at that price? Naw. Does it have the most accurate timer in that price range? No again.
But this grinder is a “the sum is greater than its parts” grinder. The total package and what if offers makes it an excellent all around choice for the household that wants a do-it-all coffee grinder. It can easily handle your 2 litre big batch auto drip, but also delve out a decent 18,5g espresso grind.
If you’re looking for a true multipurpose grinder that won’t break the bank, this is it.
Natia loves coffee and relishes at the chance to write about it. She's competed in regional barista competitions in the past, and while no longer a Barista as a profession, she says espresso runs through her veins.
Mark has certified as a Canadian, USA, and World Barista Championship Judge in both sensory and technical fields, as well as working as an instructor in coffee and espresso training. He started CoffeeGeek in 2001.
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Mark Princehttps://coffeegeek.com/author/markprince/
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Mark Princehttps://coffeegeek.com/author/markprince/
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Mark Princehttps://coffeegeek.com/author/markprince/
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Mark Princehttps://coffeegeek.com/author/markprince/
2 Responses
Looking forward to reading the Senz V and Enfinigy reviews in the new year.
I’m having an issue with the Senz V which might result in a fairly negative review. Trying to follow up with Melitta about it now, but they are a tough company to contact.