Simplify your morning with a one-step coffee weighing cup

Eyeballs are great: I have two. I also like spoons. But if you want a consistent dose of coffee for a great espresso or pour-over, a precision scale is the slightly inconvenient only real way to go.

I still remember a time when, to weigh my coffee beans each morning, I would place a small measuring cup on a digital scale, then press a button on the scale, and then wait a second or so for the scale display to reset before pouring coffee beans in the measuring cup. Back in the sands of time—October 2024, I think it was—I didn’t consider this a terrible inconvenience. This is exactly how coffee scales work.

But maybe they don’t need to. Over the past year or so, several coffee brands have come to terms with the simple idea that the measuring cup and scale can be combined into one device. Trigger light bulbs above foreheads and blue birds on shoulders. Perhaps the most stylish of these is Subscale, new from Singaporean coffee brand Subminimal (also maker of our favorite milk frother).

The subscale is a black-on-black swing of a cup that will hold about 60 grams of coffee and whose base contains a scale accurate to a tenth of a gram. Since I’ve had it, the device hasn’t left my desk—and it’s made me enjoy my morning coffee ritual a little more.

Keep it simple

Key to the Subscale’s appeal is its stubborn simplicity. The world of craft coffee is now full of new and complex and sometimes confusing amenities. Once a humble tool, the coffee scale has become a staple for any type of coffee. The Fellow Tally Pro (8/10, WIRED recommends) will do the math for you, simultaneously outputting recommended water weights for ideal brewing ratios. With Bluetooth enabled Akaya Pearl S will track the brew time and flow rate of your water while playing music.

The subscale does none of that.

It’s a cup. It’s a light, clean, minimalist cup with a feather-sensitive scale on the bottom that measures the exact weight of what’s inside. No Bluetooth, no app, and no special learning curve. It takes up very little space on my counter and looks good there.