Starbucks was not seeking to buy indie cred, nor was it trying to undermine the bragging rights of small artisan coffee roasters when it acquired the manufacturer of their $11,000 dream machine. I suspect CEO Howard Schultz viewed the Clover single-cup brewer, which he’s already installed in a limited number of Starbucks stores, as one way to restore the passion and theatre of the Starbucks coffee experience (see his memo.) If so, he might have been better served by turning to Japan and the low-tech, high-drama brewer that helped inspire the Clover. It’s called a vacuum pot and home versions retail for under $50 in the US and under £50 in the UK.

Resembling some glass apparatus in a mad scientist’s lab, the vacuum pot (aka coffee siphon) consists of a lower glass globe for the water, an upper glass chamber for the coffee grounds and a filter-topped siphon tube to connect them. As the vac pot heats over a spirit lamp, the water climbs first in temperature and then in its globe, the steam pressure pushing it up through the siphon and into the upper chamber to steep the grounds. When the heat is removed from under the vac pot, the pressure drops and the brewed coffee is sucked back down into the lower chamber, leaving the spent grounds trapped in the filter.  In the old coffee shops of Tokyo and Kyoto it is a great show dramatised by the artistry and, in particular, the stirring technique of the meticulous barista.

The Clover technology borrows from the vac pot brewing process, using a vacuum to ensure complete extraction and no waste. And like the press pot, another low-tech brewer esteemed by coffee aficionados, the Clover allows the barista to control the amount of time the ground coffee stays in contact with the water. It may in fact be the best machine in the world for brewing a single cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the performance has been mechanised, too. The brew chamber is made of steel, which is cold and not transparent. There’s very little theatre.

Then there is the issue of price. Even were Starbucks willing to sell you a Clover, $11,000 is a lot to pay for a coffee brewer. You can purchase a first-rate Hario Syphon brewer in the UK for £68 from Square Mile Coffee Roasters and in the US for $90 from Caffé Vita.