A few years ago, there was a big stir in the SF Bay Area about "poop berry coffee"...people were actually lining up to pay an outrageous price to buy a cup of it. (I can't remember how much, I just remember being incredulous.) I have four coffee grinders. A spiffy little Bodum that I bought last week at a Cost Plus sale for ten bucks, which is my current grinder (it looks nice on the counter). It's arrival has pushed my old, reliable Mr. Coffee grinder into the pantry as a back up spice grinder, waiting for the final demise of my other Mr. Coffee (newer than the other, but not as reliable apparently, as it's held together with duct tape already.) And, I have a decorative hand-cranked coffee grinder that I have never actually tried. I'm sure I would get tired of cranking before I ever came close to producing the fine powder I like to make my coffee with, if it would even be possible.

I use oatmeal in my coffee grinder. Would probably work in spice grinder as well. It soaks up the coffee bean oils very nicely.

Jeaninwa, I totally agree with you. But sometimes "they" just have us over a barrel. I probably would never have made that purchase if I hadn't had that gift card, but now that I have the item, if it ever needed to be replaced, I would look for the exact same item again. Kind of off topic, but DH and I like REALLY strong coffee and had trouble brewing it to our liking until I discovered that the beans alone did not make all the difference. I also make a very strong pot of coffee at work, but we start with already ground coffee, not beans. Yet the coffee tasted better than what I made at home. I decided that the pot made the difference and I was right. We have a DeLonghi Esclusivo at work that sprays tiny amounts of heated water at regular intervals, allowing the water to soak the grounds before actually starting to drip into the pot. I bought the exact same coffee maker for home (and paid way more than I wanted to) and IMHO, I now make the best coffee in the universe, LOL. And if it dies, I will search for that very same pot again!

Walt, yes, I did receive the Mazzer Mini burrs and made the modifications to fit them. Unfortunately, while the grind was reasonably uniform for Turkish, the speed was not; it took almost 25 minutes to grind about half a pound of freshly-roasted beans. The motor felt very weak and kept struggling. Furthermore, the chute is badly designed and a lot of ground coffee gets lodged there instead of dropping out. It may be a decent grinder for things like french press, but it cannot handle fine grinds (espresso and Turkish). Very disappointing - I had to return it. BTW, here are the original burr (left) and the much better replacement (right): The cutting edges on the KA burr are a joke. At most, they're crushing the beans instead of cutting them. OTOH, the ones on the Mazzer Mini are really sharp.