Yeah, I'll hold off buying anything and have a look at the forums. I think that I need to improve my knowledge a bit!!!
I've just bought a new Nespresso Vertuo machine as they are £80 at the moment, my other one lasted two years and technically still works but thinks it needs to de-scale and even though I've done it 4 times it still thinks it needs it and will stop allowing coffee to be made. The machine is crap from the perspective of capsule purchase as you have to buy there ones because they are barcoded for size etc, but equally brilliant from the perspecive of the 'big' capsules providing a travel mug size cup of proper coffee rather than trying to stretch out small capsules or put multiples through it. In terms of 'real' coffee, I like a drop of Blue Mountain, whittards generally is where I get it but it's SUPER expensive, I mean massively, so it's a special occasion coffee
You don't need to spend loads in all honesty - if you are willing to put in manual effort then hand grinders with burrs are available for £20-40 or for not much more than this you can get a reasonable burr grinder - certainly one that will give more consistantly ground coffee than a cheap blade one. eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GPMH...aWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1 My 'setup' from start to finish involves roasting green beans with either a popcorn roaster (cost about £15 in Lidl years ago) or a more expensive version I was bought a couple of years ago that cost about £100 - it's drawback is that it is really only suitable for batches of 400grams or so. I source greens from various places, at present coffeelink are doing free delivery for over £10 orders and I am buying 1kg bags for about £10. Grinder is a Starbucks-branded burr grinder, equivalant costs about £40 these days. This has been modded to give a finer grind which now means that it's grind range is fine and even finer but that's ok by me as espresso is my #1 priority. I do chance bags of roasted beans in the shops - some work , some don't eg 1kg bag of Lidl Italian ones (Arabica / Robusta blend) worked well whereas Aldi and Costco San Fransisco-branded ones did not work in the Gaggia - these are used in my V60. Espresso machine is a Gaggia Classica - now about 15 years old. My Gaggia seemed pretty fussy but the I determined that the secret seemed to be good fresh beans, finely ground - the requirement for freshness led me to roasting my own (also my father's side of the family were involved in the coffee and tea trade in the past and I spent time in their roastery). I'd say that if I mark my espresso out of 10 then they pretty much never drop below 6 and sometimes 8 or 9. If I dare to buy one in a cafe then very rarely in the UK is it above about 6. My own maybe lacks depth or something but in comparison to the ones I buy they are superior without question. I'd love to invest in a better setup but don't have the spare cash for it!
So, what is the point of roasting your own beans? Do you think that you get better coffee than you get from the many artisan roasters? Is it taste, because you can grind the beans very soon after roasting? Or is it cost?
Roasting your own beans means you can set how far you roast them, so you don't burn them like the chain shops do. Nobody ever made 'good' coffee with a popcorn maker - palatable perhaps. Ditto for supermarket beans. You want beans from a roaster, about a week after they've been roasted.
I buy my beans from Monsoon Coffee. They do lots of fairs and supply many coffee shops and shops. I assume that they know what they are doing. When I told them that a batch of coffee that I made wasn't very good they helped me to solve the problem and seemed to be genuinely interested in helping me.
Any advice on a machine that can do beans to cappuccino properly with minimal effort, fuss and maintenance?
The benefit I gained from roasting my own beans was that in doing small batches they were always sufficiently fresh. There have been times in the past when a 450g bag of beans could last a few weeks and by the end of the bag they could have been roasted 3+ weeks prior to that and I just found that there was a noticeable reduction in espresso quality. A few years ago I would only have a coffee at the weekend so was just not making really regular use of my Gaggia - at the moment I am actually using it daily but I still like the whole process of making espresso with beans I've roasted myself. Yes, a popcorn popper is not the best machine - I previously had a better home roaster, an iRoast 2, but it failed after a few years use and I've not been in a position to replace it.
I’ve had my Jura j9 10 years with one major service & it should be good for another 5 before the next one - makes 3 cups a day no fuss we love it
If you drink Speciality coffee (SCA cupping score above 80 points), you'd be wasting your time to try and do it on budget machinery. It'd be like running a Ducati on Mega Dodo Rubber Corporation tyres.
Yeah, don't do bean to cup and make coffee a new hobby Jura make some good bean to cup machines, but even then you're not going to get the best out of a coffee compared with even a semi-automatic like a Sage Oracle (in which case you'd be better going for a separate grinder and machine anyway).
Must say I have had some disgusting coffee in Spain usually in the middle of nowhere below Madrid in redneck land as I call it, if you don’t speak any Spanish you are struggling and the coffee is strong and vile but also had some nice coffee in Spain...must say I am predominantly tea drinker now and this from someone who could not drive past a costa coffee sign but the thought of it makes feel sick now...Yorkshire tea really is king.
Just saw that Gaggia have launched a new fully automatic. Might be worth checking out. https://www.gaggia.com/the-ultimate-barista-experience-at-home-cadorna/
[Cant beat Rave coffee, you get 50% off your first order I went to for the single origin light roast and its the best coffee ive had by far. I use an aero press
There's a lot more to coffee than most people know. The body that sets the price of coffee worldwide is the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). Yes, that's an American spelling. They have 'Q graders' who have to pass 22 exams to be able to assign 'cupping' scores to a bean. That score then sets the price that a grower can charge (i.e. it determines the quality). These people are equivalents to 'Masters of Wine' and there's (relatively) not a lot of them. They go around the world, visiting growers, setting standards and drinking a lot of coffee. There are two categories of beans: commodity (used by Costa, Starbucks, Cafe Nero, supermarkets, pods, etc.) and Speciality (generally independent coffee shops and aficionados). Within those, it breaks down by score: 90-100 - Outstanding - Specialty 85-99.99 - Excellent - Specialty 80-84.99 - Very Good - Specialty < 80.0 - Below Specialty Quality - Not Specialty There are five types of coffee drinker (please note I'm not assigning any value (worth) judgements to these groups - they are what they are): a) the instant coffee brigade (including the pod machine users) b) the home machine owner (typically espresso machines sub £300) c) the pro-sumer/dedicated hobbyist (who buys high-end equipment (often second hand) for home use, knows how to use it and what and why it does it, specifically). This group will make a better coffee than 80% of people who work in coffee shops d) the professional barista (often not even as good as the pro-sumer at making coffee) e) the expert FWIW, I'm in group C and have spent many years getting there, having read tons on the subject. And I'm still learning every day. Upshot - a coffee is not just a coffee. As long as you like what you're drinking, that's all that really matters. But please don't think you can make an objectively 'good' coffee on cheap equipment with little knowledge. EDIT: By coffee, I mean espresso. Pour-overs are an entirely different thing.
Nice write up Mac, I’d be in C too, my Jura Z8 was purchased after a lot of research, had a separate grinder and more “manual” machine previously which produced great coffee but was a bit of a faff! Jura is a decent machine, takes some of the faff / fun and dedication out of making the perfect expresso but does a good job. The down side being that at the touch of a button theirs a coffee to hand, I don’t sleep much
