Best Gold, Brass and Copper Coffee Makers

This family covers three different things that photograph almost identically: solid copper, copper plating over another metal, and gold or rose-gold anodising that contains no copper at all. They behave completely differently in a kitchen.

On a cezve, copper is engineering

Turkish coffee pots are copper because copper moves heat faster and more evenly than steel, which is what lets the foam rise without the coffee boiling. That is the one place in coffee where this finish is doing a job rather than making a point, and it is why a copper cezve is normally lined with tin on the inside - bare copper reacts with what is in it.

Solid copper tarnishes, and that is normal

Left alone, copper darkens through orange to brown and eventually to a near-black patina. Nothing is wrong when this happens; it is the metal doing what metal does. Restoring the shine takes a mild acid, and a lemon half with salt works as well as anything sold for it. If you want the shine permanently and effortlessly, buy plated or anodised rather than solid.

Plated and anodised finishes are wear items

A copper-plated kettle or a rose-gold grinder carries a thin decorative layer over steel or aluminium. It will not tarnish, and it will wear through at the points that get handled - the handle, the lid, the rim. Abrasive cleaners take it off quickly. Treat these as a finish with a service life rather than as a material.