Coffee is an American pastime like football and barbecuing burgers. Most of us are not human without our first cup of Joe. But when it comes to coffeemaker design, we typically think … Italian. Or German. Wrong. Norway is where it’s at. Norway has a huge coffee culture; not the artisanal espresso brews that have swept our nation as of late, but black, classic filtered coffee. Cue Wilfa.

This Nordic electrical appliance company designs gorgeous coffee makers such as the Wilfa Svart Manuell. Winner of the Award for Design Excellence from the Norwegian Design Council, it is an object crafted – in cooperation with super barista and coffee connoisseur par excellence Tim Wendelboe – for pour-over style, manual hand-brewing. This process invites to slow down and be in the moment, because you pour the water over the ground coffee yourself. Even better, it doesn’t create as much waste as the popular pod and K-cup machines. The kettle holds 1.2 liters, and you can use regular Melitta filters.

If that’s too much effort on a bleary-eyed morning, check out Wilfa’s Precision Coffee Maker, an elegant automatic filter brewer. Aficionados of this award-winning coffee maker rave about its precision temperature and water control, and the fact that it brews a “coffee to the Golden Cup standard of the Specialty Coffee Associations of America (SCAA) and Europe (SCAE).” It’s available in sleek aluminum and stylish black. Learn more at www.wilfa.no and shop at www.williams-sonoma.com.

“I have spent a lot of time over the past 2 years together with Wilfa giving them feedback and teaching them about coffee. The first result was the manual brewer “Svart Manuell”, but that was meant as a teaser and a tool for the coffee geek to play with while we waited for the automatic version. There is a lot of technology and work put in to this pretty coffee brewer, and I think it looks awesome. It also brews really good filter coffee, but still you need to get your basics right like any other brewing techniques:

• Use traceable and freshly roasted and ground coffee of high quality
• Use clean fresh water with low mineral content (Tap water in Norway is perfect in most cases)
• Use precise measurements. I recommend 60-70g per litre of water depending on how strong you want it. Use a scale to measure.
• Make sure you grind the coffee to the right particle size. Too coarse will give you a watery and sour taste. Too fine will lead to bitter tastes.”

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Making tea has always been a soothing ritual, whether you use tea that comes in bags or loose-leaf teas that you load into an infuser. The Dreaming Whale tea infuser from Gongdreen is a sweet take on plain, boring tea infusers.

Meant to look like a whale in the middle of a pleasant dream, the Dreaming Whale opens its mouth to hold your loose-leaf tea. Close the mouth and dip the whale into a mug of hot water and you’re minutes away from your comforting beverage.

Water enters and exits through small holes in the whale’s body, gently joining tea leaves and hot water in a happy infusion of the restorative drink enjoyed around the world.

The whale’s cute water spout is used to swish around the infuser as the tea is being made. But it can also be detached and used as a stirrer or decoration for your beverage of choice. This would definitely make a cute gift for the tea lover in your life, and it only costs $13. Get it at Gongdreen, where you can find other tea-related items and loose tea as well.

“Do you know the sperm whale? The oil of the sperm whale is known to be one of Earth’s best natural elixirs. The motif of this product is a sperm whale dreaming a peaceful dream somewhere in the deep sea. It’s like drinking Earth’s best natural elixir!”

“Slow down your day with a Dreaming Whale tea break. You can enjoy the tea time when your tea is gently brewed through the Dreaming Whale’s tummy.”

“Open the cap of the whale’s belly under the whale’s body and add the tea. 
If you use the “stream of water” to put the whale in hot water, you can pump it conveniently.  You can see the water coming up. If you want to stir tea, just use the ‘stream of water.'”

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Why Minimalism?

Most people who describe themselves as minimalists live with only the basic essentials; however, you don’t have to chuck out your futons and footstools in order to feel like you are living in a space of reasonable justification. It’s more about ensuring that whatever you place in your home has a significant meaning and role to play, thus avoiding clutter. Sure, we’re all fully aware that your fridge is quite an important appliance, and you definitely need that sink with all it’s taps and trimmings. But the point to focus on here is the idea that if an inanimate object brings you pleasure or happiness (such as a photograph or an ornament) then they serve just as much purpose as the hob you’re cooking your meals on.
Minimalism is about happiness. It is about de-stressing your home by only having objects that serve functionally or appeal emotionally to you. It’s the notion that every thing you use should have a personal meaning, or story, to create atonement in your humble abode. It may sound far fetched, but this movement is sweeping the world and has helped to motivate hoarders to cast their collections aside and begin again with a healthy, blank canvas.

FUGA

In an era where sustainable living and edgy aesthetics are over taking the need to showcase wealth, brands like FUGA are providing those with a conscience for the environment as well as style with products that are made raw and uniquely beautiful. Founded in 2015 by designer Yana Osmanova, FUGA’s objective is to allow you the freedom of filling your living space with household items that represent not only your morals, but the rich Russian culture that is so very often disregarded in the media.

The Products

Producing custom projects, FUGA design and create home decor and tableware from oak wood. Carved bowls, place mats, chopping boards, serving plateaus, and plates adorn their website and boast an array of shades available for each design. Every individual piece from their collections has its own distinctive features due to wood’s natural forms, cracks, textures, and tones, which are carefully left intact by using traditional technology during the manufacturing.

FUGA’s stunning handcrafted wooden tableware can only be handwashed, however, but the inconvenience is only minor. After washing it is recommended that you wipe it down using a non-abrasive towel in order to reduce prolong exposure to liquids which could eventually damage the pieces. You can also refresh the surface by rubbing over it with a cloth dampened in linseed oil. This also protects it against mold and makes it water-repellent.

Collaborations

FUGA have successfully collaborated with big name hotels and restaurants all across Russia, including Beer & Brut, the Moscow Four Seasons Hotel, NB Studio and restaurant, LavkaLavka, Dreamers, and more. Notably, FUGA created a series of dishes for each of Vladimir Perelman’s restaurants, which included a specifically designed two-sided square serving board and round boards for serving pizza, all emblazoned with the customer logo.

If you’re on the hunt for household objects that encompass naturalism, beauty, AND function—especially for your minimalist living space—then look no further than FUGA, inspired by the history of Russia and with the passionate intent to bring art into our every day lives. Their products bring elements of nature into your home whilst providing necessary hygiene and function for one of the most important parts of your day—your meal time!

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IAQ?

The “healthy home plan” in question revolves around indoor air quality, or “IAQ.” According to the Consumer Public Safety Commission, “the air within homes and other buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities.” Why? Mostly because natural gas stoves release fine particles of nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide — compounds that are heavily regulated by the EPA when they’re released by fuel-burning cars — whenever they’re used. Electric stoves release pollution to a lesser extent. Most surprisingly, just the act of combustion in cooking produces pollution, and it even leads to more noticeable issues like excess moisture, foul odors, and grease buildup.

This Old House Idea House

This Old House’s fourth-annual “Idea House” kitchen spotlights the WhisperHood. The project aims to provide the multiplatform brand’s audience “with fresh takeaways, innovative products, and how-to instruction that home enthusiasts can incorporate into their own remodels and new-builds.” Construction of the 2,700-square-foot structure began in April 2018 in Narragansett, Rhode Island. The entire build was captured on a webcam and livestreamed on the This Old House website, and now, the home is being featured in the November/December issue of TOH magazine, as well as in segments of the This Old House TV series. Panasonic Eco Solutions is listed as one of nearly 30 sponsors whose products are included in the house, many of which focus on using advances in technology and design to make homes healthier and more efficient.

A lot of people simply don’t bother running their kitchen exhaust because their systems are notoriously noisy, ineffective, or both. Together, Panasonic and TOH paint a new picture of the kitchen as the “epicenter of your home,” touting the WhisperHood as the ideal solution to quickly clear the air of pollutants caused by cooking. The companies have also placed a lot of emphasis on the hood’s ultra-quiet operation noise, which apparently can’t even compete with the volume of a normal conversation.

The Technology and Design of Reinvented Ventilation

The wall-mounted, chimney-style hood is incredibly sleek, consisting of stainless steel, minimal lines, a low-profile control panel, and energy-efficient LED lighting. TOH notes that it’s design complements both the modern elements of the Idea Home kitchen and the traditional ones, like the custom-crafted walnut shelves. But how exactly is it innovative?

A range hood’s performance is measured in terms of CFM (cubic feet per minute, or how much air the fan can move) and sones, a unit of measurement for loudness. The hood’s HushFlow Technology reportedly allows it to be 86 percent quieter than other hoods — though this is a fairly subjective measurement. Moving air at 390 CFM, its real innovation comes in the form of a “capture efficiency plate.” Simply put, it uses a limited suction area to create more power. You can see this by watching cooking steam being drawn up into the plate. To keep everything clean and tidy, these plates have been designed to be both removable and dishwasher safe.

Panasonic’s Ventilation FAQ page literally reveals the nuts and bolts of their reinvention efforts, reading: “tip speed, blower wheel, exhaust outlet, and motor all combine to form a uniquely quiet design. Panasonic fans feature AC and DC four-pole condenser motors. The four-pole design helps the AC motor fan rotate smoothly and evenly. Not only does this mean reduction in noise, [but] it also makes Panasonic motors among the most efficient fan motors around.” The same design enables the fan to operate at a lower RPM (rounds per minute), which reduces its overall energy consumption.

The WhisperHood promises consumers safe, quality kitchen time, and a lot of it at that. The system is designed to run “about 11-and-a-half years without ever shutting off.”

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But progress is unstoppable. Despite the naysayers, each new year yields a bounty of innovations that make time in the kitchen more productive, giving cooks more time to perfect their culinary creations and pursue other fun and fulfilling pastimes.

Picture Perfect

Making and mixing bar-quality cocktails requires precision in both measurement and execution. Thankfully, the Perfect Bake Pro and Perfect Drink Pro take the guesswork out of the process and save you a lot of stress. Both gadgets have scales that work in conjunction with a tablet/smartphone app to make sure that every proportion is correct, and both are easily adaptable should you feel like adjusting the portion size. The scales scrutinize your mixing bowl or shaker in real time, telling you exactly how much to add and when to add it. The app will even make instant modifications if you mistakenly add too much of an ingredient. A few recipes are included, but it’s easy enough to program your favorites into the system.

Dish Watchers

Monitoring the “doneness” of dishes in the oven or stovetop is a tedious and time-consuming task. The Weber Kitchen Thermometer frees you up to walk away as soon as your food is exposed to a heat source. Wire probes calculate the temperatures of up to two dishes at once via a Bluetooth-connected monitor. That information goes to an app on your smartphone/notebook, which means you can be anywhere and still receive news that dinner is ready.

Back To The Future

Before microwaves were kitchen staples, many frozen meals were vacuum-sealed in plastic pouches, and you had to drop them into pots of boiling water to cook them. Microwave heating eventually replaced that practice, but now it look likes the trend has resurfaced, albeit in a much more personalized and precise application: sous vide.

Sous vide, which means “under vacuum” in French, is a relatively new culinary technique that’s become trendy in the last few years. Sous vide systems with immersion circulators start at around $100 to $200, with the priciest models boasting built-in water baths and topping out in the thousands. Touted by many as foolproof cooking, the process starts with vacuum sealing food and submerging it in a water bath maintained at a very specific temperature. The vacuum seal prevents moisture loss, and the unwavering water temperature guarantees that the food won’t overcook (no matter how long it remains in the water bath). Cooks can rely on succulent, flawlessly cooked food every time, and they can add a quick sear to it right before serving for added texture.

The Ultimate No-Brainer

If you’re not a cook and don’t even want to play one in your kitchen, then the June Intelligent Oven is your dream come true. This futuristic device boats a built-in camera that snaps a shot of the food you’re preparing and looks up the best cooking method for optimum results. No need to set a temperature or cook time, because the June does that for you. The crowning glory of this gem is its second camera, which is mounted inside the oven and lets you watch your food cook through an app!

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The Nise Wave is a revolutionary Wi-Fi-operated smart sous-vide machine that helps you make the most of your time by automating your cooking. Designed with all you busybodies in mind, this sous-vide allows you to make gourmet food at home with just the touch of a button, even when you’re out of the house! The high-tech chef device can transform your pan of water into a smoldering, smoking cauldron of culinary magic, using smart algorithms that allow the user to schedule cooking times and making the Nise Wave the first in its field to incorporate this “set and forget it” technology.

How Does It Work?

The Nise Wave’s accompanying mobile app has hundreds of recipes already built into it, including chicken dishes, steak, vegan soups, drinks, and desserts — all of which include instructions for your preparation and directions for the sous-vide to follow. CEO Rayner Mendes explains that the company goes by the motto “it’s what you want when you want,” representative of the care-free-yet-efficient lifestyle that the Nise Wave offers. “In the past, incredible cooking has required a big time commitment, that’s the beauty of our app…by allowing busy people to start meals up to eight hours before they plan to eat them, they can arrive home to delicious food.”
All you have to do is prep the food and add it to a pan of water. From there, you just use the app to inform the Nise Wave of when you want the meal ready by. That means that you can have poached eggs ready for breakfast in the morning or a tasty salmon fillet waiting for you after your evening workout. If you want to really treat those taste buds, have the Nise Wave whip up a fruity cheesecake for dessert!

The Nise Wave uses 1200 watts of power and boasts IP67 water resistance for effortless care. To top it off, all of these features have been compacted into a streamlined body for easy storage and mobility. The sous-vide is also ideal for the environmentally-conscious, as it only uses 20 percent of the power that a standard electric stove requires. The app even includes a “share” feature, which allows foodies and sous-vide enthusiasts to share their recipes and experiences with one another and create an engaged community of budding chefs!

Who’s Behind the Nise Wave?

Nise Tech wanted to create a product that allowed busy people to enjoy the luxuries and indulgences of restaurant-quality cooking. On top of this, the company wanted to give those who lacked the culinary skills and abilities to produce high-standard meals on their own the chance to fulfill their wildest cooking dreams.

Where Can I Buy One?

The Nise Wave device is currently seeking crowdfunding on Kickstarter and offering a staggering 40 percent discount to its “early bird” backers. By contrast, other Wi-Fi enabled home devices tend to start at around $199. The product is shipped with ready-to-make meal packages, which include scannable barcodes that the device can read and pre-program, reducing your overall prep time.

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What exactly is a coffee husk? Well, it’s the rough covering that holds the bean itself. “At the end of the harvest, coffee farmers are left with tonnes of this organic material,” the Huskee designers explain. “While it has previously been used as a fertilizer supplement and even a carbonized fuel source, there is currently no economically viable and sustainable way of dealing with it.” Cue the HuskeeCup.

Huskee sources its coffee husks from Yunnan, a Chinese province near the border of Myanmar. Yunnan is known for growing specialty coffee, and Huskee has been working in partnership with local farmers there for about 10 years. When HuskeeCup production takes off, the company expects to begin working with growers around the world. It’s truly a win-win-win: the company gets its raw materials, the farmers earn extra income, and the world is given a way to dispose of this particular waste stream.

While you’re entitled to feel a little virtuous when you’re sipping your latte from your sustainable, zero-waste HuskeeCup, environmental concerns aren’t the only reason to buy it. On top of being completely reusable and recyclable, the HuskeeCup is also chip and crack-resistant, which will surely make it a favorite in diners, cafés, and homes around the country. Durable means less hassle and less money to be spent.

Team Huskee designed their cup to keep your coffee hotter for longer. The HuskeeCup actually retains heat better than a traditional ceramic coffee mug, and because of the ridges along its body, your hand will always be cool and comfortable. The cups come in a range of sizes (six, eight, and 12 ounces), though they are all compatible with the same saucer and lid — and of course, the lid means you can take your coffee on-the-go, saving time and money and eliminating the need for disposable paper carry cups. You can put the HuskeeCup in the dishwasher, and we think you’ll appreciate the little design feature that channels water off of its base to ensure the entire mug is dry when you take it out.

HuskeeCups are designed to stack safely and efficiently, resulting in fewer breakages and the most effective use of cabinet storage space. This is an important plus for home users and busy restaurant staff alike.

“We are recycling hundreds of tonnes of waste material from the production of coffee,” the company says. “Our dream is to realize sustainability for cafés and home users while achieving zero waste at the farm. HuskeeCup is the first step in fulfilling this mission.”

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Making its debut at Kitchen Home Project, a satellite event at the 2016 Venice Biennale, ‘Infinity Kitchen‘ is an oversized kitchen island made entirely of transparent glass for an appearance that literally lets it all hang out—even the ugly back-ends of dishwashers and other appliances.

The modules contain drawers, shelving, cabinets, counters and faucets that call for transparency and clarity. Whether or not the overall effect is messy and chaotic is up to the end user and their habits around cleanliness and organization.

Inhabitants using the kitchen will be forced to constantly evaluate their food choices, say the designers, not to mention how well they stay on top of keeping their homes in order. One practical benefit would be instantly being able to see how much you currently have of any particular type of food, discouraging waste and potentially shaming you into choosing healthier items instead of junk your guests can clearly spot right through your cabinet doors.

“If we imagine everything is transparent clear and clean, doesn’t it mean that the only thing that is colorful and visible is our food?” says MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “I see this as part of a wider dream, this kitchen. It is part of an environment, if not a city, that is transparent and therefore accessible. Imagine if not only our kitchens were transparent, but the walls through to the neighbor and the next neighbor even. This would create infinite perspectives in our cities.”  

With the design, MVRDV is also seeking to disrupt what they call the “generic” aesthetics of the kitchen industry while celebrating the culture of food and cooking. Instead of hiding “both the ugly and beautiful sides of food preparation,” the Infinity Kitchen exposes it all, providing a new insight into food production, storage, and the rituals that are carried out in these spaces every day. Individual elements are showcased, but not in a way that’s just showing off carefully selected items we consider visually pleasing.

The design firm envisions this theme spreading beyond the walls of the kitchen to entire houses and buildings, imagining the next step of our living conditions. MVRDV hopes to take the accepted norms of today and push past them toward newer, better solutions. The desire for transparency has already resulted in a project called ‘Crystal Houses’ in Amsterdam, a traditional facade made from glass, as well as an office with all glass interiors, furniture and equipment in Hong Kong.

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Its seems like a new indoor gardening system debuts every week, each one promising some revolutionary step forward in growing herbs and other edibles with ease. There’s no doubt that certain innovations can make a big difference in keeping indoor plants alive, especially for those of us who don’t have the greenest of thumbs, like timed grow lights and self-watering systems. But what makes a growing system truly stand out these days? The Calla by 4Senses is a good example, with a highly compact, minimalist look and a modular design that makes it effortless to use.

If you’ve got lots of windows and plenty of space, spreading out a bunch of herb pots is no big deal, but try to grow more than one or two plants in a tiny apartment and you’ll quickly realize why space-saving designs are so in demand. If you’re particularly busy and have a hard time remembering to water your plants, it gets even harder to keep a pot of basil or chives from turning brown within a week. The Calla places six small planters around a lily-shaped base with integrated lighting shining down from the underside of the ‘petals.’

It’s a hydroponic system, so there’s no soil required, and it even has a built-in water irrigation system operated by a pump to reproduce the cycle of alternating high humidity and drought that helps herbs thrive. Small nutrient sticks included with the system can be added to each pot every two months to add the nitrogen, phosphate and potassium the plants need. Since it has its own light, you don’t even have to place it in the window – just put it on any available surface in your home. If you don’t cook and don’t care about herbs but still want some easy-to-maintain greenery, you can sub other types of plants like houseplants and flowers.

What if you don’t want six pots? Well, you don’t have to use them all. The modularity aspect allows you to remove however many you want, leaving just two, three or four if that’s all you need. A flashing light will remind you to fill the water tank when needed, and the integrated light turns off automatically at night. It even mimics nature with a light cycle that mimics the sunrise and sunset, set on whatever schedule is convenient for you. That means if you work odd hours, you can set the Calla by your bedside table to wake you up with light in the morning instead of an alarm clock.

The Calla system is currently raising funds for mass production on Kickstarter, ending on July 7th. Back it now and choose from a variety of rewards, or wait until it’s widely available next March. Get more details at the Kickstarter page.

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Fresh herbs are integral to a well-prepared meal, and growing them right in your kitchen within arm’s reach of your prep counter couldn’t be more convenient. But let’s be honest. Most of us are a little too busy and distracted to keep up with a kitchen garden, and our efforts are likely to be wasted. That’s where smart design comes in. Few kitchen herb planters make the process of planting, growing and harvesting them easier than the Verdure, a wall-mounted planter which requires no more effort than a bit of water every now and then.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a black thumb or even a windowless kitchen; the Verdure makes indoor herb gardening as automatic as it can be. You simply plant seeds in the soil sponges, place them inside the designated trays, and add water. The plants grow upside-down.

A battery-powered halogen light helps the herbs thrive, and a transparent cover protects them from steam and oil while you’re cooking. Pour water into the reservoir, and the soil sponges will automatically soak it up as needed. A water level indicator on the front tells you when you need to add more.

When you’re ready to harvest, just pick up the included pair of scissors, trim away and your cuttings will fall into the removable tray at the base.

“As the exploded view shows, the upper area is built with one layer which features holes and five columns which works as a reservoir for the water,” the designers explain. “Water then goes under this layer and, the water slowly evaporates which then moisten the air that travels to the sponge through the holes. The sponge consists of five cuts from the bottom part. The users can then insert seeds into the cuts which then produces the seeds to grow downwards through the five columns.”

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Maybe you’re a coffee drinker and you live with one or more other coffee drinkers. Maybe no one can decide whether drip, air press, or cold brew coffee is king. Maybe you’ve got gadgets to make all of those kinds sitting out on your kitchen counter because, let’s face it, you’re never going to change someone’s favorite coffee-making method.

Australian engineer Mark Folker has stepped in to save the day and free up some counter space by inventing a coffee brewer that covers all three options. His invention, the Trinity ONE, can handle pour-over brewing, air press brewing, and even cold brew without the need to fiddle with too much equipment.

The Trinity ONE is a sculptural kind of assembly that is meant to be out on display. It looks a bit like a mad chemist’s setup with its glass beaker suspended from a stainless steel and walnut timber frame. You’ll find no flimsy plastic parts or fiddly knobs and buttons here; all of the pieces are pretty straightforward.

To make pour-over coffee, you set a filter into the beaker’s conical opening, fill it with coffee, put a carafe underneath it all, and pour hot water over the coffee grounds. The air press method has you pour in the coffee and the water, then drop in the weighted press to move the water through the coffee and into the carafe. Thanks to the weighted press, you don’t have to worry about slowly and carefully pressing down on a lever with your hand.

Cold brew coffee is made by turning off the “flow control” and then pouring in the coffee and water. You can then let the coffee steep for as long as you like – most cold brew enthusiasts prefer a 12-hour brew. The project raised more than its goal on Kickstarter; Folker says that when the product is ready for mass production, it should sell at a price of $400 AUD, or just over $300 USD.

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