The beginner's guide to over­complicating coffee

I worked as a barista for years, including Costa, Caffe Nero, and high end independent coffee shops that get mentioned in guidebooks. What do I drink today? &#x27;Barista style&#x27; fine ground instant coffee from Lidl.<p>I also worked in a ton of bars. Ask any good cocktail bartender what their drink of choice is and nine times out of ten they&#x27;ll say a bottle of beer.<p>If you&#x27;ve had to spend a good chunk of your life fannying around with this marlarkey to make a living, more often than not you want nothing to do with it. Is it better than the instant coffee? Yeah. Is it worth the money, maintenance and hassle? Probably not unless you&#x27;re loaded. If ever there was an indicator of a privileged existence, fucking about with coffee is it.<p>Yes, I know I need to stop being grumpy. I&#x27;m trying to work on it.

As a coffee lover, I&#x27;ve spent decades and thousands of dollars on expensive equipment in the search for the perfect cup.<p>And at the end of it all, I found that all I needed was a $40 AeroPress, $50 Chestnut C2 hand grinder, and some good quality beans.

To set my non-coffee-snob bona fides, I exclusively drink decaf (I&#x27;ve avoided caffeine for almost 10 years now).<p>The reactions this post is getting are kind of odd. A typical home coffee brewing setup is going to offer you just a couple of variables --- a set-it-and-forget-it grind size, water temperature, and the dose of grounds you use for whatever amount of coffee you brew.<p>It is not especially weird or &quot;gourmet&quot; to be interested in what the right values are for each of those variables. You figure out the right grind size and dial it into your grinder; you figure out the right temperature and hit that button on your kettle; you figure out the right dose and either weigh or scoop-measure that much grounds. Mostly what I&#x27;m describing is the simple act of brewing a cup of coffee.

Not to get all nerdy, but there&#x27;s a couple missing variables: water temperature and evenness of extraction. Water temperature is pretty easy. For light roasts brew hot, almost boiling. For dark, brew a little cooler, maybe 88-90 degrees. Evenness is really the key. Now depending on your method you can do all sorts of rituals whether it&#x27;s using some super thin needles to rake your coffee in your portafilter to remove clumps (WDT) or pouring careful concentric circles into your V60. But the easiest answer is to eliminate the variable by brewing with immersion. I&#x27;m a huge fan of the Hario Switch, but you could just as easily use an Aeropress, a Clever brewer or a good old french press. If you do immersion, steep for a reasonable amount of time (2 minutes on a Switch works well) and adjust the grind according to your taste buds (too bitter -&gt; grind coarser, too sour -&gt; grind finer), you&#x27;ll be in the ballpark of good coffee very quickly.

While it&#x27;s certainly possible to overcomplicate things, I find that brewing a good cup of coffee in the morning is a pleasant ritual. Some amount of complexity is actually fun, although it&#x27;s a different amount for different people. In that sense coffee is no different than hifi, wine, chocolate, weed, or any other sensory-driven hobby.

I spent $700 on a decent semi-automatic espresso machine and burr grinder, learned how to make espresso correctly, and spend $15-20&#x2F;12oz bag of beans. This translates to well below $1&#x2F;16g of espresso. Cost of milk if my wife or I want it is negligible per drink. Considering that espresso drinks are at $4-5 for decent quality, this invest repaid itself very rapidly since we make 2-4 drinks per day between the two of us.<p>At this point, my routine is pretty much dialed in (pardon the pun), and is quite <i>uncomplicated</i>. Everything is on autopilot. I’m not operating at a very high level. A small amount of effort initially was all it took to get very good results. If I ever feel the need to get deeper into this hobby, the option is always there, and it will probably be there. As a hobby it’s a nice one, because there are lots of little ways to tinker. I could get a bottomless porta filter and play with that. If I really wanted to be spendy, I could get a manual espresso maker.<p>I haven’t worked as a barista before. I think maybe working as a barista causes you to have an unhealthy and sort of extreme relationship with coffee. If you are deciding whether to get deeper into coffee or not, as a non-barista, I can say that has been a lot of fun and a good way to save money.

One thing I find interesting, though a bit annoying in practice is that coffee from the same materials and with the same process still can vary quite a bit. I&#x27;ve been using an Aeropress for some months now, and even if I keep all the major variable the same, it still tastes different.<p>I don&#x27;t trust my senses here entirely, and as it&#x27;s not blind I can easily fool myself. But the amount of agitation and differences in pouring might affect the taste here sometimes. Though my impression is that this is not always noticeable, but if I&#x27;m on the border of the coffee becoming bitter or sour it gets noticeably variable between preparations.<p>The other part that I&#x27;m quite sure of is that the temperature you drink at affects taste a lot more than I thought. If I drink the coffee too hot it tastes bitter, and it noticeably improves at lower temperatures (which is different from what I remember from cheap, pre-ground coffee, which tends to taste really bitter when it gets colder).

The author of the article should consider getting a Flair “classic” espresso machine:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flairespresso.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;espresso-makers&#x2F;flair-classic&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flairespresso.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;espresso-makers&#x2F;flair-cla...</a><p>For an incremental $165, their setup could be very competitive with a multi-thousand dollar espresso setup. The trick is to get a pair of kitchen tongs, and heat the stainless steel cylinder in the pour over kettle with the water for the espresso. (The tongs are needed to remove the cylinder from the hot water. I’ve found 208F is ideal across many different types of espresso beans.)<p>I think the baratza grinder they use will be passable for espresso (I blew the money I saved on the espresso machine on a nicer grinder.)<p>Other than cost, this setup has an additional benefit over conventional machines: Most have a boiler that contains brass parts, which adds lead to the water. This doesn’t matter in coffee shops, since there is high water flow through the machine. However, for home use, the water sits in the boiler for roughly a month, leaching a ton of lead per shot of espresso.<p>Of course, I’m hoping they take my advice and publish the results. I don’t own a brix refractometer.

Want to taste coffee? Switch to light roasts. Want coffee flavored drink? Do whatever, mixing it with cream and sugar and flavor will make all the prep in the world pointless.<p>For real though, light roasts and a couple different beans and you&#x27;ll really be able to taste the differences. I&#x27;m not talking subtle either. There will be some you hate, some you love and some that make you go &quot;wait! That&#x27;s coffee?&quot;

I have begun appreciating not having an espresso setup at home. Cortado is my drink of choice, and it is mighty-hard to make it for cheap at home. Aero press is a good backup for lazy days.<p>But, there is something about the ritual out going to a streetside cafe in the morning. It pushes you to step out if you work exclusively from home; gets you that essential morning sun and serves as a social third-place for those lonely days. It also serves as a great lubricant to do secondary chores on your way back. It costs money ofc, but as far as activities that facilitate those specific things, a semi-regular cafe visit is a fairly cheap &#x27;indulgence&#x27; to have.<p>I feel bad for Americans who live in neighborhoods where everything is a drive away, and chain cafes like Starbucks are the only type of establishment that can survive. As much as I crib about Seattle, it pulls off prison-cell-sized espresso-cafe-on-the-corner pretty well.

After buying a decent espresso machine (or whichever method you prefer) and grinder, the thing that will improve your coffee immeasurably is home roasting (like I started to do 15 years ago, and never looked back)<p>It is not difficult (although I occasionally over- or underroast a batch) and great fun. Green beans keep for a long time (at least a year) so it is easy to buy in bulk, which is cheaper. Also, I&#x27;m never out of coffee....

The entirety of this thread is people talking about their espresso machines and grinders, or else contrarians talking about their instant coffee.<p>Am I really the only one speaking up here who simply enjoys &quot;Mr. Coffee&quot;-style drip coffee from a paper filter? This used to be so ubiquitous. Today, when I go to the local grocery store there is more space dedicated to plastic K-cup nonsense than to regular normal ground coffee.<p>Not only is it easier, it&#x27;s just <i>better</i>. I feel like the Simpsons principal in the &quot;the kids are wrong&quot; meme, I just don&#x27;t understand normal drip coffee falling out of style.

Far and away the best cups of coffee I&#x27;ve had were when I worked in a kind of industrial-mixed-use-complex with a high-quality roaster in one of the buildings. If you came in before starting work in the morning they&#x27;d have just finished a roast and would prepare coffee from the still-hot beans. Incomparable.

I love coffee, though apparently all the wrong kinds. I like Starbucks dark roast. And around the house, it&#x27;s all instant, all the time, either Walmart or Cafe Bustelo instant espresso. Half and half, no sugar, maybe sugar-free chocolate syrup (I&#x27;m diabetic). At work, we have a remarkably good machine that puts out a variety of coffees. No overcomplication for me.

There is a lot of desire for an amazing cup of coffee, and this desire pays for a LOT of ritual and effort, which is reflected in the kinds of information you can find out there for making coffee well.<p>If you’re okay with “just” a really good cup of coffee and your real desire is consistency with a strong secondary criterion for efficiency, there’s less information out there (probably because this type of person has less desire to make blog posts about their “just” really decent coffee).<p>The process for this efficient, consistent, “just” really good coffee is pretty simple, though.<p>The efficiency and consistency criteria require brewed, not espresso (espresso requires expensive equipment just to get started, and requires relatively high effort for consistency - that’s what you pay a good barista for).<p>The quality criterion requires you to “grind to order”, as ground coffee oxidizes quickly and that tastes bad - buy whole roasted beans that you like the taste of in small airtight bags (whole coffee beans are still slightly perishable).<p>The consistency criterion requires a consistent grind, which means a high quality grinder, specifically the “burr set”. With hand grinders you are paying for just the burr set, while electric grinders you are paying for other things too, so pick a good hand grinder (James Hoffman has extensive reviews of hand grinders and his style is likely very palatable for tech people). This is the only part you should invest in research.<p>The consistency criterion also requires a robust brewing process without too many pitfalls or rituals, which is immersion brewing. A Haribo Switch or any French press is the answer here. You should mis-use the French press, though: do not plunge, just let it steep and settle, then bring the strainer down to just above the liquid and gently pour out most of the liquid.<p>Doing it this way means you don’t have to worry about water temperature, blooming, puck prep, channelling, clogging, or any other of the myriad ways in which a cup of coffee might go awry.

V60 brewing is great but my best and most consistent results have been from a recipe shared by a friend which uses an Aeropress and freshly roasted (&lt;2 weeks old) single origin light roast beans.<p>Here’s the method as shared to me 0) pre warm your mug and rinse your aeropress filter 1) course grind - more than normal aeropress, more like v60+ grind - 35g of you fav and fresh light roast coffee bean into aeropress. On a Comandante C40 hand grinder, this is about 25-28 clicks out. 2) pour 150g of 85c water into aeropress 3) stir for 10 seconds 4) put aeropress end and filter on 5) wait 1:00 6) press coffee into mug, aim to finish at ~1:30 mark 7) pour 100-150g of 85c water into your mug, diluting to taste enjoy a very flavourful coffee

One step upstream from this, you can also overcomplicate your supply of coffee with an absurd IoT device: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bottomless.com&#x2F;coffee&#x2F;index.html">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bottomless.com&#x2F;coffee&#x2F;index.html</a>

Inventing and using a pour over technique that is so convoluted that even you yourself mess it up every time you make a coffee is one way to humble yourself daily.

With respect to the original investigator in the 2006 linked blog post, isn’t it rather obvious that a way to measure the total-dissolved-solids value, where those solids affect the way light refracts in water, is to use a refractometer?<p>I would guess that different solids cause different amounts of refraction. Most beekeepers have a telescope refractometer that’s calibrated for checking water content in honey. (Wet honey bad, dry honey good.)<p>You’d probably be able to use it for salt content too, for example, but if you brew coffee then put honey and salt in it, one measure of refraction obviously isn’t going to help you pick apart how much of each substance you have. (The original refraction post talks about this — sugar in your coffee will taint your refraction reading’s ability to proxy for TDS because now it’s measuring coffee+sugar. Although you could of course weigh how much sugar you put in the coffee. A handy technique if you have a cheap refractometer calibrated to a specific range into which the additional sugar can place you, and the deviation from which you can use to measure how strong your coffee is.)

I have an italian manual espresso maker. I used it twice. Loved the concept, hated using it.<p>I have a moka pot. When I get an envie for coffee, I will brew about 2-3 pots a morning. Makes a great cafe cubano.<p>But in South Louisiana down River Road, you grow up drinking coffee. I started drinking coffee with condensed milk from the time I was old enough to hold a cup. Also, a proper New Orleans style cafe au lait is second to none when it comes to coffee with milk preparation.<p>So I&#x27;ve conquered coffee. Sure, there might be better technical applications out there where you can taste all the fruity nonsense of the beans, but coffee has never been about that for me and I&#x27;ve never wanted to demand much more of it. I suppose if I were a multimillionaire I&#x27;d get a cool grinder and cool espresso machine with all the bars or whatever, where it would inevitably collect dust because I&#x27;m not a fan of routines for routine&#x27;s sake. I like high quality espresso... just a shame that I feel like I have to drink 8 shots to feel like I&#x27;m actually drinking coffee.

Robin Williams said that cocaine was God&#x27;s way of telling you that you have too damned much money.<p>He should have read this thread first! ;)

Just use a Moka pot. You can&#x27;t go wrong, unless there&#x27;s a meltdown and everyone in the house burns to death.

Coffee is a fun hobby. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. If it is, that’s OK, too. If you feel a strong need to decide whether other people are “right” when they seem more enthusiastic about coffee prep than you, and whether you might be “missing something”, consider chilling out. You’ll be happier.

Not sure I agree with the “pizza cognition theory” being applied to coffee.<p>The coffee I started drinking in the 80s was very firmly first wave stuff. Instant Maxwell House kind of stuff. I now very much enjoy and prefer the fruitiness of third wave coffee. Maybe that’s James Hoffman’s fault.

Needs more process control data (full Design of Experiment) to prevent Poor Over Complicating Coffee.<p>One of the key aspects of Peets&#x2F;Starbucks&#x2F;Dunkin&#x27; is that they roast the bean within an inch of their lives. That produces an extremely CONSISTENT coffee flavor. It&#x27;s process control.

I&#x27;m surprised no one is talking about mocha pots here. I love my aeropress but I also love the flavor of my mocha pot. If there are any Italians reading this, I would love to hear what coffee people drink.

I&#x27;ve never used a bripe, but I assume it&#x27;s firmly a novelty contraption and doesn&#x27;t offer any competition in terms of making good coffee. Anyone with personal experience can confirm&#x2F;deny?

Very easy method for good coffee with an okay grinder: use a Hario switch or similar immersion brewer. Very forgiving. Heat water to roughly 200f and add water first in a 16:1 ratio. Add beans on top and let sit however long. Maybe like 5+ minutes. If the coffee is astringent grind corser. If it seems weak either up the ratio to 1:15 or 1:14 or grind finer. Very easy, repeatable, good, almost as quick as a drip.<p>Water is very important to a cup of coffee. It is mostly water. I would suggest you make your own or use a brand of bottled water.

I take slight issue with a few things here: 1) grind settings will change for different coffees, roasts and ages (time since roast), 2) liking strong coffee and light roasts is a contradiction, the author likes dark coffee and that’s ok, 3) the 3 “waves” are not really so distinct as suggested - light roasts are not new and dark roasts are not old, and blends are favored over single origin by large coffee producers because they can be more consistent than single origin.

Aeropress a month in. It is the most overhyped ridiculous nonsense. Uninteresting. Flabby. No body.<p>Everything else is better. Nothing beats espresso. French press is my daily go to. In every possible way aeropress is over complicated compared to French press.<p>It is possible to get ok coffee with an aeropress. Make it more like French press. Courser grind. Longer steep time.<p>I guess the pour over fans are ok with aeropress because it&#x27;s simultaneously inferior and over complicated. And yet is familiar by being excessively filtered.

The author&#x27;s right in that this is truly a beginner&#x27;s guide as it neglects to mention that optimizing TDS and extraction is a process that is not only contingent on the brewing method and equipment, but also the coffee being brewed. You&#x27;re going to be doing this for <i>every bag</i> you brew. It doesn&#x27;t stop.<p>The more advanced guide will have you dialing in brew temp, preheating, pour schedule, recipe, water treatment &amp;c. It really doesn&#x27;t stop.

My preferred process is water heated to 190ºF, a pourover cone, and medium-fine ground beans (medium-dark roast). I use 35 grams of coffee to about 500ml water.<p>I hate &#x27;bright&#x27; coffee with a sour taste, which is what I generally associate with Stumptown. The Aeropress is great, except that I like to have a bigger cup of coffee to start the day. The Aeropress comes with on trips and when I need a pick-me-up mid-afternoon.

I&#x27;m always amused whenever I see these type of coffee posts. All too similar. If you really want to try something different, I recommend trying out different water filters and using commercial machines. I still use an espresso machine, chemex, and grinder but now have a &quot;daily&quot; setup of commercial beans, Bunn CWT15-3, and Mocamaster that&#x27;s served me faithfully for almost a decade now.

&quot;I don’t need you to tell me how f**n’ good my coffee is, okay? I’m the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping, she buys s*t. I buy the gourmet expensive stuff ’cause when I drink it, I wanna taste it. But you know what’s on my mind right now? It ain’t the coffee in my kitchen. It’s the dead ** in my garage.&quot; - Jimmy, Pulp Fiction

As a coffee latecomer, I&#x27;ve spent little time and way less than a thousand dollars equipment in the search for the perfect cup.<p>And at the end of it all, I found that a used jura on craigslist makes everyone go &quot;wtf have I been diong&quot; and when travelign I just dropship an aeropress and a bag of grond beans to the friend I&#x27;m visiting. but the jura is better.

The article is remarkably self-aware on all this, but everything surrounding gourmet coffee is so insufferable. Talking about coffee varieties, roasting, grinding still makes some sense, but these microgram-level scales, calling a stupid plastic funnel &quot;the Hario® v60&quot; and the other one the AeroPress™ (1) sometimes make me want to give up coffee, just to avoid having a common experience with those people. I can make coffee in a hundred different ways, one of which is putting the damn sieve on top of the cup and pouring hot water on it. The other: mix a spoonful of coffee and a cup of water and boil the damn thing. All the ways come out perfectly fine. How many layers of complexity can you add to something so simple.<p>(1) yeah, that one&#x27;s more like a syringe than a funnel.

I drink medium roast Maxwell House or Tim Hortons and brew it in a pretty old (60&#x27;s era) West Bend 9 cup percolator.<p>I put 1c of coffee in, and as cold of water as I can get, then plug it in.<p>The key to good, is to drink it within a half an hour of brewing completion, unless you unplug it and wait.<p>When I make coffee for folks, they love it, rave how its the best coffee they&#x27;ve had.

Isn&#x27;t it interesting that caffeine is the only drug fully approved and even encouraged by the society today?

I dislike most the these espresso machines with touchscreen or dialing knobs on autopilot. This is disgusting coffee no matter the beans.<p>Imho drip coffee makers in office kitchens would be nicer.

We have a Delonghi Eletta which automates everything, but the real secret are the high quality beans. I discovered Cafe Richard , Florio mix, it&#x27;s fantastic.<p>Amazing cup after cup of excellent coffee

Just watch <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;@jameshoffmann">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;@jameshoffmann</a> and you will be overcomplicating your coffee in no time :-)

If anyone else hates lukewarm coffee, the Espro P7 Stainless 32 oz is both fantastic and painless. It sits on my desk between 5am and 11am before it starts to cool. It&#x27;s such a pleasure.

Meh, just join any good coffee forum and see how far the rabbit hole goes. Here, I will start you off...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;home-barista.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;home-barista.com</a><p>Good luck.

I use an Aeropress at work, but at home, Trader Joe&#x27;s Joe Light Roast Ground Coffee 100% Arabica Ground in our drip coffee maker is just fine.<p>And it retails for $4.99 &#x2F; 14oz!

There&#x27;s an easy way to make almost any cup of coffee taste incredible: dump a packet of Swiss Miss into the cup. I&#x27;m never going back.

Too much fuss for making a lot of coffee per day . . . I&#x27;m happy with my $30 electric grinder and $220 SCAA-certified drip machine.

I got to the point of adding mineral packets to distilled water for reproducibility. Slurry temperature, bloom size. It’s a sickness.

I think Folgers classic roast is pretty dang good.

other people here who love coffee but feel like it&#x27;s impacting them mentally detrimental in some way and hence decided to either ditch caffeine altogether or switch to a milder source like green tea?<p>my impression is that avoiding caffeine intake of +30mg (rough estimate) helps me stay calmer and more collected. but i miss the buzz ... the mental fireworks.

Picked two out of 6 tests wrong. That&#x27;s one pick away from 50&#x2F;50 in a 1 in three random selection test.<p>Methinks he overcomplicated his story!

Isn’t this true for every field - wine, front end development, highly scalable fault tolerant systems blah blah blah and so forth…

If I disclose my coffee preparation method, I will get canceled, eternally shamed and downvoted into oblivion. Now guess it.

is there a way to microdose caffeine? I&#x27;m kind of hyper-reactive and suffer anxiety and can&#x27;t focus when I&#x27;m in the office, I usually don&#x27;t drink coffee - having a hard time letting go of milk - but when in the office it&#x27;s too convenient to just drink latte-macchiato.

My portafilter machine, a bean grinder, and some good espresso beans are all it takes for me.

My advice for always good coffee after years inside the rabbit hole: use a French Press.

Perfect cup of coffee is in the mind. Sometimes it&#x27;s perfect, sometimes not

Is there a &quot;good enough&quot; guide to making an espresso?

The perfect coffee is the one I make myself.