For coffee all you need is a good burr grinder at home. Ground coffee start losing 50% of its flavor compounds within a few minutes of it being ground. Look in to the Breville 870XL. Its not cheap at about $700, but this is what a lot of baristas have at home and I have been using it for years. Its got a built in grinder so you don't need much else. Please never f it up by putting bad beans in it though.
You can get the barista express for as little as 400 if you wait for sales. It's the least expensive machine I recommend. That being said, my setup is slightly more expensive than that.
I have a Rocket Giotto with a Eureka Mignon grinder. I also have a double boiler La Spaziale mini vivaldi II that I'm refurbishing. I got it from a small coffee shop that was going out of business for a song.
I'm no connoisseur of hot coffee, nor expresso, so rely on the barista to pick. But, come Summer, cold-brewed Iced Coffee I know much more ... Some Houston places are really good at it, but most all used same blend each day. One mom-n-pop in Boulder put up a Kyoto Drip contraption (looks like a chemistry experiment, not cold-brew, but open air), and that was a game-changer. They'd do all their coffees in that, and have 2-4 available at any given time. There are three single-source that are extraordinary. The rest I found to be not worth the price versus their regular cold brew option. This Summer, I'm finally going to Break Bad and set up a Kyoto Drip system
If you ever make it into Denver, stop by Corvus on Broadway for a cold brew, best in the city imo, crazy smooth fresh out of the tap, usually a few different variations on hand as well.
I did have a burr grinder. I didn't buy it. It probably wasn't the best. The main thing I think was the fines that came along from grinding. Hot water, I suspect, leaches everything from them because of their high surface area to volume ratio including the less tasty compounds. Choosing a decent coffee that was professionally ground and sifted, so every grain was consistent really seemed to help with taste and consistency. For my daily purposes and those living around me, ground is fine. It'd be cool to find an espresso bar with a lot of different beans available to try out before investing in my own kit.
Houston is really good at it...almost everywhere. A lot of that is freshness due to demand. But also they've been doing/perfecting cold brew for decades ... whereas it seems newer-ish here ... and I had to shop around to find who actually did it, much less who did it well. some of the "who does it well" is also based upon demand. Houston cafes made it fresh every day, because they had to. Here, until recently, iced coffee wasn't as requested as in Houston, so you never know how fresh it is. my one tip for Boulder: There's a place here in Boulder that only makes Kyoto Drip, so they price it as if it's regular cold brew, to compete with all the other cold brews around town. I'll regret the moment they realize how wildly underpriced they are, and raise their price. Best Kyoto Drip was a mom-n-pop place called The Cup -- mixed-metaphor from avid NHL Fans. Kyoto Drip >> Cold Brew >> Brewed “Iced” Coffee
I lean more towards Thai, although I go for Vietnamese from time to time. OK, I should have used the past tense there, since nothing close to us that does either cuisine is really worth the trouble of getting delivery (probably cold as a glacier when it got here), most being north of what is now Lady Bird Lake, and I can’t bring myself to order food from a restaurant yet, regardless. Same with Chinese. There is a dearth of good Chinese in SW Austin, or maybe I’m just picky. Anyway, Mikol, what I was going to say is that when I was able to eat at my favorite Thai place, I’d always get Thai iced coffee. Sometimes Thai iced tea just to mix it up. I have a sweet tooth myself that I try to keep under control. It ain’t easy! I think there isn’t a lot of difference between Thai and Vietnamese iced coffee, although there’s a huge difference when it comes to the cuisine. Thank goodness, variety truly being the spice of life, with food (and coffee, and tea) being at least one of those spices. ;-)
I'm sure this will be disappointing given my handle. I'm not very discerning. I have a Breville at home (not my idea) so I'm drinking Americanos now as the closest thing to real American Folgers instant coffee. I can appreciate when the coffee is good, but I'm also not much deterred when the coffee is bad. I take sugar and cream; don't care if I ruin the carefully roasted beans' perfect balance or whatever.
Not extremely picky at all. But prefer a dark roast (more mellow compared to a light roast). Used to ONLY do BLACK. But now I prefer to add a little non-dairy, nut-based Nutpod creamer - hazelnut or french vanilla. I prefer volume over caffeine quick fix. I want to enjoy a few cups over a period of time, not jack my heart rate up with a shot.
i too own the La spaziale mini. I’ve had mine for five years. Usually order beans from local shops in Washington, anchorhead coffee, Olympia coffee, slate. Nationally I like 1000 faces, panther, stumptown, heart.
My mother used to go through several cans of Folgers a month. At least it seemed that way, and she liked it black. When I was very young and didn't want to walk to school (the grade school was literally at the far end of my street and I always walked, unless it was raining), she would sometimes give me a diluted cup of Folgers filled with cream and a couple of teaspoonfuls of sugar. I still remember the taste of it. Weird how some things stick with you. Never saw Dad touch a cup of coffee in his life. I had the impression that he had more than his share in the Navy during WWII and became sick of it. Inhaled tea, however.
I think I've said this before but I love a good Turkish coffee. Thick as used motor oil, ridiculously sweet, and you pick out coffee grounds from your teeth all day. It's so dense it has a different intense complex flavor, like really dark chocolate vs bland milk chocolate.
