A Former SpaceX Engineer Quit Rockets To Make Plastic-Free Coffee Makers
A former SpaceX engineer just walked away from rockets to build… a coffee maker.
Not because coffee needed to be “disrupted.” Because plastic did.
JC Foster left his job in aerospace to launch Puresteel, a startup focused on something deceptively simple: making a plastic-free coffee brewer that regular people can actually afford.
What started as a personal frustration turned into a full-on product mission. Foster went looking for a coffee machine made entirely without plastic and couldn’t find one. The high-end options were thousands of dollars. The affordable ones all hid plastic somewhere in the system: valves, tubing, reservoirs. Even machines marketed as “stainless steel” still relied on polymer parts that get heated daily.
So he built the one he wanted.
3 months ago, I quit my job to chase a dream: to build an affordable, convenient, plastic-free coffee maker.
— JC Foster (@forestmanjohn) February 17, 2026
Grateful for everyone who has reserved ❤️https://t.co/jxDgAirVsd pic.twitter.com/Xgw5UNrp0Z
Puresteel’s 12-cup brewer swaps those components for medical-grade stainless steel and glass, aiming to eliminate plastic contact where hot water flows. The goal isn’t just aesthetics or durability. It’s exposure.
Studies over the last few years have linked microplastics to everything from placentas to arterial plaque to brain tissue. One cardiovascular study even associated higher microplastic levels with increased risks of heart attack and stroke. For Foster, that reframed something most of us do on autopilot every morning.
Coffee makers heat water through plastic pathways. Every day.For decades.
Puresteel is priced around $80, which puts it closer to a basic countertop appliance than a luxury gadget. That’s intentional, as Foster isn’t chasing specialty coffee culture, he’s chasing accessibility.
And maybe changing how we think about kitchen appliances in the process.
