Machine drip, or drip coffee, is the stunted form of hand drip.  Because it drips different temperature water (while it heats up) in the same spot instead of evenly throughout the coffee grounds, very often you get bitter coffee.  

Contrary to some, I believe it's okay to add milk and sugar to hand drip coffee.  Sometimes it's even preferable.  

In hand drip, it's you pouring a kettle, into a funnel filled with coffee grounds.  I won't bore you with the details in this blog, but with the right freshly roasted coffee, it's quite enjoyable; the smell of dry, then wet coffee, the aroma wafting throughout the house, the first sip, and the overwhelming complexity yet simple taste of coffee.  It really is like wine in the way that you can have a symphony of flavour, yet each flavour having its own space on your tongue.  

The variation between people's hand drip is a source of pleasure for me.  Like cooking, there is no best righteous way to cook.  There is no righteous way to skin a cat/there are more than one way to skin a cat.  

There have been attempts in the market to make hand drip into an improved machine drip.  Zojirushi, Delonghi are a few brands to do so.  But it will never dilute the sheer pleasure of doing something with your hands.  For that reason I think hand drip will stay in spite of advances in technology. 

In the next post I will outline what's needed for good coffee in the cup.