This is the thread for things you would like to see in the community. This can be suggestions from community picture to weekly/monthly threads.

There will be a Meta thread on the 1st of every month and it will stay until the next month.

What would you like to see?

In this thread you can share what new coffee, equipment, techniques etc. you have tried this week.

What have you enjoyed and what didn't you like? Have you learned anything new?

This is mostly meant to be a guide for beginners who want to start getting into the world of weird coffee people without (hopefully) being too pretentious or intimidating, while also showing where you can take this hobby if you want to take it more serious. Please note this is not an ultimate guide to maximize the potential of your coffee through ultra high end equipment and precise technique but rather a friendly intro point to build off of. I’ll try to cover a variety of brewers and some good general info, and would happily take pointers to improve this.

::: spoiler Disclaimers

1. This guide will reference specific models at times. Please know that I’m not saying it’s necessarily the absolute best for every situation, or the only good option. Your specific setup may benefit from another option. However, I feel like if I omit models entirely that could make things more confusing, so including some will hopefully help give you a starting place to look, even if you ultimately decide on something else in the end.
2. The recipes I include are not specifically stolen from anywhere in particular, nor are they necessarily made up on my own. I’m sure every recipe I include has been written out by someone else before. If you recognize one, let me know and I’ll credit them. I do not take credit for any recipes or brew methods I write about.
3. All recipe guides will be assuming you’re grinding your coffee fresh with a burr grinder, and that you’re using a coffee scale and a timer. While not strictly necessary, the grinder will massively improve the taste in your cup, and the scale/timer will help make brewing easier and more consistent. This will all be better explained below. If you don’t want to invest in a burr grinder and coffee scale right away, try my French press or moka pot techniques first. They’re the most forgiving without those tools. :::

::: spoiler General information Depending on your brew method(s) of choice, your equipment needed will of course vary, but as a general rule of thumb, the grinder you use is the most important thing to focus your budget (and research) on. It may sound counterintuitive to newbies but it really is the biggest factor in brewing. The advice I first heard for espresso is your grinder should at least be as much money as your machine, but ideally cost more than the rest of your equipment combined. You’ll likely be better off with a grinder double the price of your machine rather than a machine double the price of your grinder. Grinder tech is changing constantly though and prices are going down for decent new releases, so that advice may change in the future, but the idea remains the same. The grinder should be the biggest focus here. Of course with other brew methods, where the brewer is substantially cheaper, your grinder should probably be several times the cost of the rest of your setup, but you get the idea.

Another area I see a lot of people miss at the start is the ingredients going in. Coffee is made up of two ingredients, coffee beans and water. To start with the beans, there’s no equipment out there that exists that will turn old stale coffee into fantastic cups. If the idea of spending $25 for a 300g bag of coffee sounds terrible to you, you may want to adjust your expectations for your end result. You can absolutely still get decent coffee with good equipment and cheaper beans, depending on your taste preferences, but if you want something better than what you’ll find at any cafe, buying high quality beans is incredibly important. It’s like buying a hexclad frying pan to cook a bad cut of steak. It doesn’t matter how expensive that pan is, it’s not going to turn that budget steak into wagyu. If you’re okay with properly cooked cheap steak, that’s great, no shame in that, but you have to have tampered expectations for the final result.
The second part is water. For filter coffee, your drink is 98% water. Even in espresso it’s over 90% water. If the water you’re using tastes bad on its own, it’s not going to make fantastic coffee. Coffee water is a surprisingly deep rabbit hole, and definitely not necessary when you’re starting out, but you may want to get a Brita filter or something if your tap water isn’t great. You can delve into the coffee water rabbit hole later, but if you’re curious, look up Third Wave Water. There’s other brands too but that’s the big brand one and will at least give you something to research before diving into all the options available. :::

::: spoiler Basic equipment necessary As mentioned above, a burr grinder and a coffee scale are to be assumed for all the following brew methods. To explain those further,

Burr grinder - there’s two types of coffee grinders out there, burr and blade. A blade grinder has a spinning blade at the bottom of a cup that spins and cuts the beans. These make for decent spice grinders but are way too inconsistent for coffee. A burr grinder uses two cutting disks, or burrs, that spin right next to each other to cut the beans. These are adjustable and significantly more consistent. You can get metal burrs (recommended) or ceramic burrs, sometimes called false burrs. If you don’t have a grinder, don’t buy a blade grinder. If you have a blade grinder, use it for spices but upgrade to a metal burr grinder. If you aren’t doing espresso (hand grinding for espresso really isn’t fun and can get a bit painful), a hand grinder is a great way to get really good burrs at a decent price. Check out Timemore, 1Zpresso (pronounced easy-presso), and KINGrinder for brands on the budget end. I personally use a Timemore S3 for hand grinding, for what it’s worth. If you don’t want to hand grind, or if you’re doing espresso, you’ll want to get an electric grinder. Make sure if you’re doing espresso that your grinder is espresso-capable as many aren’t. For strictly filter coffee, the Barazza Encore is the standard recommendation at the lower end of decent electric burr grinders. For espresso, they have a version called the Encore ESP that is also very highly recommended. It’s a bit more expensive, but that’s par for the course for espresso unfortunately.

Coffee scale: a good coffee scale will be accurate to 0.1g and have a timer built in. While not strictly necessary, and any kitchen scale will do, coffee scales are going to give you a more enjoyable and consistent experience. I personally use a Timemore Black Mirror Mini. :::

::: spoiler French press I’d like to start with this one as it’s the easiest to learn and also probably the cheapest to get good results with. Lots of people are turned off by the French press because they experienced it as a gritty coffee but my method solves that and gets you a really nice cup every time.

Price to start: low
Price to get serious: medium
Skill floor: low
Skill ceiling: low

Equipment needed: kettle or pot, French press, basket paper filters (optional)

Really all you need is a way to boil water and a french press. It’s probably the easiest thing in the world. I’d highly recommend getting some standard basket filters though, it’ll make cleanup way easier and no grit in your coffee.

Recipe:
Grind at a coarse setting. Look up your grinder for the french press range, but it’ll likely be close to the coarsest end for your grinder. Dump grounds in the bottom of the French press. Add 16x the weight in water as you did grounds (example 320g water for 20g coffee). Set a timer for 4 minutes. After timer goes off, stir the coffee. Wait another minute or so. Place a basket filter over the mesh filter of the french press, then place the filter in the press with the lid on and slowly press down. It should take at least a minute to press all the way down. Just let the weight of your hand push it down basically. When it’s all the way down, pour out into your mug and you’re good to go. Super easy, a touch slow but not too bad, delicious coffee, easy cleanup, no grit. Definitely my recommendation if you have absolutely zero coffee equipment and aren’t sure if you want to try the hobby or not. If you’re a complete beginner, you can use pre-ground coffee and a kitchen scale if you want. :::

::: spoiler Pour over Probably the most popular way to brew specialty coffee, pour over is where you pour hot water over top of your grounds, which rest in a filter, to then drip into a mug or carafe.

Price to start out: low
Price to get serious: medium
Skill floor: medium-low
Skill ceiling: high

Equipment needed: kettle, dripper, cone filters

To start out, any kettle will do (you can even use a pot on the stove if you really want), but if you get serious about it you’ll eventually be looking for a gooseneck kettle, optionally one that is temperature-controlled if you really want to take it seriously. The gooseneck pouring spout makes it far easier to pour at a slow, controlled, steady rate, and the temp control can be especially good if you’re using darker roasts, as those tend to brew better with slightly cooler water (around 85-90°C). But it’s not necessary. If you’re looking for a really good, high end, expensive kettle, the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro is highly recommended, and what I personally use. I love it. It isn’t cheap though, and totally unnecessary when starting out. Seriously, just use any kettle at first, don’t worry about it.

For dripper, the industry standard is the Hario V60, most commonly in the 02 size. Look up any pour over recipe online and it’s a safe bet they’re assuming a V60 unless otherwise stated. It’s not the absolute easiest to use but it’s not insanely challenging either. There’s actually a better recommendation from me, the Hario Switch, which is, in my opinion, the superior pour over dripper, but that’ll get its own section after this. There’s tons of other drippers out there, but I’d honestly recommend sticking with a V60 (or Switch) and trying others later. There’s just so much support and suggestions around the V60.

For grind size, you’ll want to be around a medium grind. Lots of grinders will have a range written either on the grinder itself or the manual that’ll tell you the ideal range for pour over on that particular grinder, or you can look up your particular model on this grind chart to give you some idea, and you can play with grind size from there.

Recipe:
I started writing out a recipe but then I realized that honestly, it’s probably easiest to just watch this video which will do a far better job explaining it than I could. :::

::: spoiler Hario Switch The Switch is just a V60 with a stopper at the bottom but it completely opens up a world of possibilities and allows you to put in however much effort you want to and get great results with ease. You can keep the switch open and it behaves identical to a V60, you can close the switch, add your grounds and water, let it immerse for a couple minutes, then open to drain for the easiest pour over recipe ever, or do a combination of open and closed for some really interesting results. It’s where I’d recommend people start, personally.

Price to start: low
Price to get serious: medium
Skill floor: low
Skill ceiling: high

Equipment needed: kettle or pot, Hario Switch

Recipe:
You can just copy the V60 recipe above, and get the same results, or you can do a full immersion brew like I mentioned above for a really easy brew, but I thought I’d share my daily recipe with the Switch as it’s quite easy still and doesn’t require much more effort.

Keep in mind this is a general structure and is easy to play with for different quantities of coffee. I won’t bother using time stamps as that’ll depend on how much you’re using.

Grind size: medium, same as V60  

Ratio: 16:1 (for example 240g water : 15g grounds)  

Start with the switch open and pour water up to 3x the weight of the coffee (so for example, 45g water for 15g coffee)  

When the bed starts to dry, pour up to 10x the weight of coffee (so for example, add 105g to reach 150g water for 15g coffee)  

When the bed starts to dry again, close the switch and make your final pour up to 16x the weight of coffee (so for example, add 90g to reach 240g water for 15g coffee)  

Let the grounds immerse for 45 seconds, then open the switch, swirl, and let drawdown

Maybe a touch complicated for a beginners guide but it’s still overall not super complicated and I think definitely worth the extra effort. :::

::: spoiler Moka pot Sometimes called a stovetop brewer or even stovetop espresso, though it isn’t true espresso. I have a soft spot for the moka pot as it was what got me into this hobby. A lot of people have bad experiences with it as it can be a bit finicky and definitely has its own distinct taste, but I happen to love that myself. This was my main first coffee of the day until I got my espresso machine, and it really is still one of my favourites.

Price to start: low
Price to get serious: medium-low
Skill floor: low
Skill ceiling: medium

Equipment needed: moka pot

If you’re not too sure what size moka pot to get, I’d recommend getting a 3-cup if it’s for one, or a 6-cup for two. I personally find the 3-cup to be easier to work with, but you can get good results with any size.

Recipe:
There’s a bit of a debate over whether to use hot water or cold water in the base. Hot water will start the brew faster, but cold water will start the brew at a lower temperature which may taste better. Play with both and see which you prefer.

For grind size, you’ll want to be between espresso and filter, around medium-fine.

Add your water to the bottom portion, filling to just below the safety valve. If you find your brew is consistently bitter, fill to 1cm below the valve or use cold water. If it’s sour, fill right up to just below the valve or use hot water. When you add your grounds, it should fill the basket right up to the top. It’s more of a volumetric fill than a weighted one, but 3-cup is often around 15-18g, 6-cup is obviously double that. If you’re willing to try it, use an AeroPress filter as well as the metal filter. I find it gets better results, and will eliminate any grit in the final cup. Screw the moka pot together tightly, and place it on your stove at around medium heat. Keep the lid open. When liquid starts to come out, reduce heat if you’re on gas or take the pot half off the heat if you’re on electric. If the coffee starts to come out really fast, remove from heat entirely until it almost stops flowing, then place it back on until it goes too fast, rinse and repeat. This is called temp surfing. Once the brew starts to sputter and mostly produce bubbles, remove from heat. If you’re dividing it into multiple cups, stir the coffee first before portioning it out. When it’s time to clean up, just use water, absolutely no soap anywhere. Dry it off well too, especially the aluminum models.

Moka can be a bit frustrating because there’s not many variables to play with, so it’s harder to fine tune. At the same time, that makes it a touch easier to first get into, because there’s less to worry about. :::

::: spoiler Espresso This is definitely the hardest one for me to write about, because of just how deep this one goes. Espresso has some of the absolute coolest gadgets and techniques, and also some of the absolute worst gatekeep-y people out there. It’s my favourite way to have coffee, and I’m constantly learning, but it’s a lot to get into. I’ll do my best to keep it simple, but if you’re looking to just dip your toes into coffee and aren’t sure which method to try out, maybe skip this one for now. It’s absolutely worth the effort, but it’ll be the most frustrating if you aren’t dedicated and the most likely to turn you off from this hobby. It’s sort of like Dark Souls in a way. If you’re careful and take your time to learn everything and do your research properly, you’re going to have an immensely satisfying experience, but if you just waltz in and see what happens you’re going to have a bad time. With that being said, hopefully this guide helps you out if you do want to try it.

Price to start: medium-high
Price to get serious: extremely high
Skill floor: medium-high
Skill ceiling: high

The biggest thing before you can even get into espresso is having to buy everything. Everything for espresso is unfortunately expensive. Espresso machines are not cheap, grinders capable of espresso are usually more expensive than their non-espresso counterparts, and you’ll likely want at least a couple additional tools to make things a bit easier, which will also cost money of course. Here’s what I’d personally recommend for different budgets:

Machine:
Fortunately budget machines have come a long way recently and there’s some decent options available now. If you don’t want to spend much money but still want an electric pump machine, check out the DeLonghi Stilosa. There’s obviously going to be some compromise at that price, but it’s mostly superficial (plastic exterior, buttons don’t feel great to use, etc) and the internals are surprisingly decent for the price. If you’re wanting a manual espresso machine, I’ve heard good things about the Flair Neo but I don’t have any experience personally. It’s something else to look into though. For the next price up, in electric pump check out the Breville/Sage Bambino. For manual, if you can find it, the Cafelat Robot. If not, the Flair 58. At a bit more money, I personally use a Gaggia Classic Pro and love it. Highly moddable if you’re into that, but also really good stock too. For anything higher end, I’m honestly not too sure, that’s not something I have much experience with. I’ve heard good things about the Decent DE1 though. And at the very high end, La Marzocco Linea Mini is sort of a standard for the luxury price point.

Grinder:
On the lower end you’ll likely have to be careful to choose a grinder that’s capable of espresso, as there’s lots that can’t go that fine. The standard recommendation is the Barazza Encore ESP (make sure it’s the ESP version as the regular Encore can’t do espresso). The Fellow Opus is also mentioned a lot too. This is an area I’m currently looking to invest in myself so I don’t have a ton of hands on experience yet but I have been doing research on. If you want a flat burr grinder (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it for now), DF54 is great value for money and what I’m currently leaning towards buying myself. For a bit higher end, look at the Niche Zero or Option-O Lagum Casa. For high end, check out Zerno Z1 or Option-O P80 or P100. For ultra high end, take a look at Weber Workshops EG-1. (Don’t actually check it out unless you’re swimming in cash. It is astronomically expensive). There’s tons and tons of other options at all price points of course but these are some starting points for different price ranges.

Additional tools:
I’d highly recommend picking up an espresso dosing funnel and a WDT. The funnel makes it a lot easier to prep your coffee puck without making a mess on your counter, and the WDT breaks up clumps and helps with an even distribution. They’re both relatively cheap, though expensive high end versions exist for both. You’ll also need some sort of tamper. Your machine should come with one, but it’ll probably be a cheap plastic one that probably sucks. I personally use a Normcore self levelling tamp, as it makes sure even pressure is applied to the whole puck. Espresso is brewed at very high pressures so even slight inconsistencies in your coffee puck can have a large impact on the final shot. Like I mentioned before, it’s not an easy brew method to learn.

To actually make espresso, start by turning on the machine. Most machines will need to preheat for a certain amount of time. Some are longer than others, you’ll have to look up how long your machine takes. Mine takes about 10 minutes, but some are ready in 3 seconds. It really depends on how they’re heating the water. While it preheats, you’ll grind your beans really quite fine. Most people make the mistake of grinding too coarse when they start. Look up the espresso range for your grinder, but in most cases it’ll probably be the first 10-20 clicks on the finest end of the adjustment scale. A standard modern espresso double shot is around 18g but your tastes may be different. It’s a good place to start though. Once you have your grounds, put them in your portafilter basket. If you have a funnel and WDT, place the funnel on top, then use the WDT to distribute the grounds evenly. Once you’re happy with it, give the basket a little tap, either with your finger or on the counter, to settle the grounds, then remove the funnel, and tamp. When you’re tamping, just press down until it no longer feels squishy. The old rule of thumb was 30lbs of force, I’m not sure if that’s still relevant or not but it’s a decent starting point. Don’t worry about tamping too hard. It’s a pretty binary thing, either you’ve tamped hard enough or you haven’t. You’re basically just trying to squeeze out as much air as you can and compress that puck as much as possible. Once your puck is sufficiently prepped, tighten the portafilter to your espresso machine, place a scale and espresso cup under the basket, and run the pump. Ideally, you’re looking for coffee to slowly come out around 7-9 seconds after the pump comes on, and you should be hitting around double your weight out as you had grounds in around 25-30 seconds, with a flow rate of around 2g/s, but those are just benchmarks. You may find you prefer something a bit different, but that’s a good place to start. If you find the water is just gushing out, grind finer next time. If the machine chokes and nothing comes out at all, grind coarser next time. With espresso though you really should be making very small adjustments each time. Another tip if your machine is choking, you don’t need to throw out your puck and start over, usually turning the pump off, letting the grounds saturate a bit from the first failed attempt, and then running it again over wet grounds will allow it to come out after. It won’t be a fantastic shot but at least you can still have something to drink without throwing it away.

There’s tons of additional stuff I could’ve added but I’m really trying to make it as basic as possible without missing anything important. Espresso just really is a challenging and complicated brew and does require lots of practice and fine tuning to get something good. But hopefully this guide will help get you there. :::

I haven’t covered every brewer out there, just the ones I’m familiar with enough to write about. If you’re reading this and are experienced with another brewer I didn’t mention, please give me your guide and I’ll include it in this post. If you have any issues with anything I’ve written out, pass along your criticism and I’ll look into editing this post.

I’m visiting my parents today and they don’t have an espresso machine, so my only option for strong coffee is moka pot. I gave this Italian flag version to my mom a few months back after she tried moka pot at my place and really liked it.

I haven’t made moka for myself since I got an espresso machine, but it’s nice to come back to again. It’s gotta be my second favourite way to actually make coffee, only behind manual espresso, though the end result I’d prefer a pour over to moka (but espresso is still my favourite).

This picture is obviously after I finished making my coffee, I didn’t have the mug on heat or anything. Only realized how it looked after I took the picture and cleaned up.

I live in a hard water area. Until now, I've been using a standard water filter like Brita, which has worked fine, but I could never achieve the clarity I was looking for in my coffee.

So last week, I dipped my toe in the world of water recipes. I got myself a zero water filter, read up about remineralisation and made a few litres of coffee brewing water.

I wasn't sure what to expect or if it would make a difference, but man was I surprised! The difference is insane. It was the missing piece to tasty coffee that I had been searching for for so long. Needless to say, I'm sold now and theres no going back for me.

What concerns me us how much of a pain in the ass it is. I have to have a bottle for the mineral water concentrate, a filter jug for the distillation and another jug for the remineralised water. I don't know if I want all that hassle every day for the rest of my life.

So the question now is how can I streamline this?

I live in a rented city apartment, so space is limited and I can't make any big changes like under-sink ro installations. I have looked at countertop ro units, but they're very pricey

Is there anyone else here who makes their own water? How do you manage this? Any advice for someone who is just starting out?

I hope you're happy, Burntwits and everyone else who demanded it.

Anyways that cup was made following Burntwits French press guide; measured 33 g of ground, about 528 g of water. Though, I did make a slight modification to the original instructions, which was to boil the water first. The guide didn't say to do that, just add the water in, figured it might be better boiled though.

Then I added hella milk and sugar. Oh, yeah, switched to milk and sugar instead of creamer, mostly because the good creamer with ingredient list size like 5 are hells expensive. It... came out really good actually. I feel like better than my evil machine, though I don't know if that's because of the ratios of sugar and milk or not. I feel like I poured about the same amount of milk and sugar though. Hm.

Either way this saves way more counter space in exchange for slightly longer and more care needed, but if the coffee is consistently better, and less space needed... hm. I think yall might've been on to something. Also I can't tell if the press machine is made of glass or a really clear really thick plastic.

Potentially heretical, I know. I just want to drink coffee all day…

My current coffee setup. Here’s what’s shown, from left to right:

“It’s always tea time” Alice in Wonderland themed kettle decoration/sign. My wife bought it for a party or something I think years ago, now it’s hanging out with the coffee gear as we don’t drink much tea.

Two-tiered shelf for smaller coffee equipment:
Top shelf:

• White bar towels.
• Coffee Water. Half the price of Third Wave Water so I thought I’d give it a try. It does the job.
• Hario Switch. Just a glass V60 with a stopper on the bottom but way more fun and better results than a standard V60.
• Timemore Black Mirror Mini. Just barely poking out is my scale.
• Not visible: coffee dosing tray.

Bottom shelf:

• Bialetti Moka Express 3-cup moka pot. This is what got me into this hobby. It doesn’t get used much anymore but it holds a special place in my heart.
• Clear plastic bag holding V60 papers. Barely visible, but that’s what’s in it.
• Clear resealable plastic bag holding Robot filters. Same deal, barely visible, but that’s what it’s holding.
• Timemore Chestnut S3. My first grinder and a great little hand grinder. I still use it for pour overs. Not great for espresso though.
• White cleaning brush. This is for my electric flat burr grinder, to clean the exit chute.
  Note visible: AeroPress filters for the moka pot, stopper for preheating the Robot, 54mm dosing funnel for the moka pot, tamper for the Robot.

Gaggia Classic Pro. This was my first espresso machine and I still love it. It doesn’t get used as much anymore but I still use it for darker roasts, milk drinks, americanos Canadianos, and when we have people over. On top of the GCP is:

• WDT tool
• magnetic 58mm dosing funnel
• Milk pitcher
• Self-leveling 58mm tamper

Fellow Stagg EKG Pro. The best kettle I’ve ever used. It looks great, lots of features, and pours really nicely. It gives me tons of control (both pouring control, and also temperature control, being accurate to 0.5°C).

DF54 V4. This is the newest addition, and I’m totally in love with it. It’s a great electric flat burr grinder. The shop I got it from offers two different burrs, either the stock burrs or their own custom red titanium burrs that are basically imitation SSPs. The nicer burrs are only $30 more than the stock ones so I went with that. I don’t have the stock burrs to compare it to, but I’m very happy with my purchase. This thing is weighty (11lbs) and works great. If you saw my post when I first got it, I mentioned it grinds slow, but that’s actually improved with time. It’s now giving me 18g espresso in around 10-15 seconds. There’s also zero retention thanks to the improvements in V4 so I’m super happy about that.

Cafelat Robot. This manual espresso maker is incredible. I can easily get the best espresso of my life every single morning even when I’m half asleep. It does such a consistently good job, even if you don’t nail your grind size. If I lost all my coffee equipment and had to start from scratch, this would be the first thing I’d buy again. It’s the best coffee purchase I’ve ever made, easily.

There’s other coffee stuff not pictured, such as a 6-cup moka pot, a french press, and obviously bags of coffee and mugs and stuff, but this is the equipment I use on a somewhat regular basis.

If I had to get rid of most of it and only keep the minimum, I’d easily choose to just keep the Fellow Stagg, DF54, and Robot. The rest gets used too but those three are my core coffee drinking equipment. I’d like to keep the Switch too, mostly for my coffee thermos, but I could go without if needed. I could always do Canadianos for my commute to work I suppose.

I have the day off today so I thought I’d enjoy the sunrise a bit. Caught it a bit late in this photo but it’s nice to have natural sunlight in the mornings (usually I’m at work when it’s still dark out).

Every try milk now does more of what I want than before.

I’ve mentioned it a couple times on here already but I’ve been having a ton of fun with soup (unpressurized espresso), specifically with Pilot’s Ana Sora beans which are super strawberry forward. Hence I’ve been calling it strawberry soup. It’s probably my favourite coffee ever and is really easy to make and super forgiving on the Cafelat Robot.

I’m curious what you all like the most. It can be your current favourite, something you used to have that you miss, whatever. I want to hear what c/coffee thinks is the cream of the (coffee) crop.

In this thread you can share what new coffee, equipment, techniques etc. you have tried this week.

What have you enjoyed and what didn't you like? Have you learned anything new?

I’m looking for drip coffee makers suggestions for guests. I have 3-5 people who will be coming + want something that will be easy for them to use, brew a solid cup of coffee. And then store easily for a year or two.

Coffee beans are one of the most confusing items to purchase, so over the past several weeks, I bought 20+ different kinds of coffee at different price points, visited a local roaster, tried roasting my own beans at home and tested a bunch of types of coffee in order to understand the flavor and price differences of coffee beans.

A deep dive into coffee and what the different roasts and brews are supposed to be doing. Be an informed snob.

James Hoffmann and Lucia Solis are organizing a live event around the world for tasting coffee beans produced using 4 different fermentation processes.

More info in James's video: Taste Coffee With Me For The Last Time / James Hoffmann / YouTube

I managed to get a tasting kit and is came in the mail today! This wasn't easy, it sold out very quickly.

Since I had to pay a substantial amount for shipping from afar, I got myself an extra bag from the roster to try out.

After burning away my entire weekend trying to get this together and also juggle life, I've finally got my machine back together. First glass was at least drinkable, just need to tune it a bit more I think.

The rest of the scale parts just finished printing. Need to get it all assembled and calibrated, but I'm happy to use my Acaia Lunar until then.

I received a defective touch screen, half the screen doesn't respond to touch. Still waiting to hear back from the supplier on if they'll send me a replacement. Thankfully, the web interface works perfectly fine for now.

Also, please ignore the stack of dirty dishes and unkempt counter. I was really going crazy trying to get this thing figured at some points. I should have just done custom wiring harness. It would have been so much simpler.

Had an old acquaintance tell me he always put cheese in coffee, I don't remember if he added creamer or not. Apparently he said it was a puertorriqueño thing? Was I being gaslit or is this an actual thing?

In this thread you can share what new coffee, equipment, techniques etc. you have tried this week.

What have you enjoyed and what didn't you like? Have you learned anything new?