Electric vs Manual Coffee Grinders: Comparison Differences and Which to Buy - Hand Grinder or Electric Grinder?

Those who have specific requirements for coffee flavor will undoubtedly choose freshly ground coffee. If you want to brew it yourself, a coffee grinder is absolutely essential.

When you open an online shopping platform and search for "coffee grinder," you'll find price ranges from ¥22 to ¥71,271—a difference of 3,239.6 times. While this may seem insignificant compared to the recent billions we've been hearing about, it's an outrageous price difference between products. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has decided to write an article on how to choose a coffee grinder for everyone's reference.

FrontStreet Coffee is not particularly focused on equipment, so professional comparative reviews of coffee grinders aren't our specialty. However, FrontStreet Coffee has been in business for 8 years, having used seven or eight electric grinders and basically tried all the popular manual grinders on the market. Below, FrontStreet Coffee will share some insights from using so many different coffee grinders.

Manual or Electric Grinder?

Electric grinders comprehensively outperform manual grinders in terms of precision, durability, and even upper price limits. The advantages of manual grinders are portability, no electricity requirement, and adaptability to various situations. When comparing manual and electric grinders at the same price point, manual grinders are actually better. (A ¥1,000 manual grinder has significant advantages over a ¥1,000 electric grinder.)

FrontStreet Coffee has listed some groups of people who might be better suited for manual or electric grinders for your reference:

Consider choosing a manual grinder first if you are:

• A student (still living in a school dormitory)
• Working with a limited budget (under ¥1,000)
• Just starting with pour-over coffee and want to explore gradually
• Regularly visiting chain coffee shops and want to improve your coffee quality
• A fitness enthusiast
• A hiking enthusiast or frequent business traveler

Then FrontStreet Coffee suggests starting with a manual grinder and considering an electric one later.

Consider going directly for an electric grinder if you:

• Want to make a one-time investment and get it right
• Have a fixed 200-square-meter space at home for brewing coffee
• Pursue speed and precision
• Have an ample budget (no upper limit)

Then you might as well go straight for an electric grinder.

If you are:

• An equipment enthusiast collector
• A coffee fanatic player

Then FrontStreet Coffee suggests getting both.

How to Choose a Manual Grinder?

With the rise of domestic manual grinders, foreign models costing over a thousand yuan can now be found in China for under ¥500. So how should you choose? Basically, we won't discuss manual grinders under ¥200, those with ceramic burrs, or retro-style manual grinders.

The remaining options can be roughly divided into the ¥200-499 range, ¥500-799 range, ¥800-999 range, and above ¥1,000 range.

The ¥200-499 range is considered entry-level manual grinders. You can focus on coffee grind particle size, and when purchasing, just pay attention to whether it has dual-axis construction. In terms of lifespan, precision, and mechanics, they're basically similar. Suitable for beginners and office white-collar workers.

The ¥500-799 range is considered advanced manual grinders. Basically, each manufacturer will use slightly better burrs, and there will be subtle improvements in the bearings, significantly enhancing durability. FrontStreet Coffee recommends choosing ones with larger burr diameters, as grinding will be more effortless and uniform. Basically, if you buy a manual grinder in this price range and pay attention to regular cleaning, using it for two years shouldn't be a problem.

The ¥800-999 range is considered high-end manual grinders. Basically, there are only about 3 models to choose from. They mainly improve the user experience and innovate in appearance (they look better). Of course, you can see improvements in the data charts provided by the sellers (smartphone manufacturers would acknowledge this professionalism), but in FrontStreet Coffee's actual experience, there isn't a noticeable difference when brewing coffee compared to the advanced range.

The range above ¥1,000 can be tentatively called expert-level. You might ask FrontStreet Coffee why we don't divide it into ¥1,000-2,000 and ¥2,000-3,000 tiers? Because for anything above ¥2,000, FrontStreet Coffee would recommend going directly for an electric grinder—it's more convenient. Indeed, there are manual grinders above ¥1,000—some at ¥1,000, some at ¥2,000, some at ¥4,000, and there's a famous German manual grinder that increased from ¥1,500 to ¥2,500. Overall, quality and experience will definitely have visibly noticeable improvements compared to those under a thousand yuan.

How to Choose an Electric Grinder?

FrontStreet Coffee particularly advises against buying those portable electric grinders—you should pay attention to this. Grinders that determine grind size by timing, commonly known as "bean choppers," have a structure similar to a blender, with two blade pieces that randomly chop the beans.

One thing to pay attention to when buying an electric grinder is whether your need is for very fine espresso grinding or pour-over drip grinding. The appearance and grinding range of these two are very different, and basically they cannot serve dual purposes (except for some universal grinders).

If you have a budget of ¥20,000, you can choose between the Mazzer ZM Filter and Mahlkönig EK 43. Besides their beautiful pricing and relatively large footprint, it's hard to find reasons not to buy them.

Of course, most friends won't have such a high budget, probably within ¥4,000. So what are the options? FrontStreet Coffee believes the Royal Fuji and Fellow ODE are good choices. The Royal Fuji features ghost tooth burrs as its selling point, and its grind size is quite suitable for pour-over-focused drip grinding. The Fellow ODE is compact, pure black in color, known as the little black box, with full marks for aesthetics. Both grinders belong to the category of small electric grinders, so they share a common drawback: grinding time is relatively long.

Some friends have also asked FrontStreet Coffee whether the small Fuji models priced between ¥300-600 on online shopping platforms are trustworthy. FrontStreet Coffee quickly took a look and found various small Fuji designs, with text descriptions including terms like "small cannon," "defeated version," and "domestic small Fuji." Meanwhile, on a certain overseas online shopping platform, the small Fuji costs over ¥3,300 RMB. This is clearly an imitation of the Royal Fuji.

FrontStreet Coffee hasn't used these grinders, but FrontStreet Coffee has used the Little Pony 610N, priced around ¥800-900. Through comparison with the small Fuji's grinding, the Little Pony lost in terms of precision, especially evident in the amount of fine powder—it was惨不忍睹 (unbearably bad). FrontStreet Coffee's barista's experience: when using only the Little Pony, you won't notice any problems, but once you make a comparison, the difference becomes immediately apparent. As for how the ¥300-600 "small Fuji" performs, FrontStreet Coffee cannot make an assessment.

There are also many relatively inexpensive but high-quality electric grinders, but since FrontStreet Coffee hasn't used them, we haven't mentioned them.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473