The Attackclan has move from the big city of Vancouver to a much smaller town. So small it doesn’t have a Starbucks or a Wendy’s. Since we’re still in Canada, it does have a hockey rink, of course.
So far we’re liking it fine, but there is one item that is very much missing. We’re now thousands of kilometers from the center of the coffee universe, and Ms. Attack is jonesing bad. There is simply no good coffee in this neck of the woods. The nearest decent espresso is about 3 hours away.
So. Making coffee at home. I’ve read the threads here about making the best coffee possible. I’m a little unwilling to buy an expensive espresso machine, unless it’s clearly the way to go.
I make coffee that I’m happy with using my french press, but Ms. Attack is not that big a fan. I’ve read about the Aeropress, but somehow making a hot drink in a plastic syringe doesn’t much appeal to me.
I’ve previously had luck making a decent cup of coffee with a moka pot, and I recently saw this beast, although it is on the price-y side.
In my experience, 95% of good coffee is the beans. Do you have a source for freshly roasted high-quality beans? If not, you’ll at best get mediocre coffee.
That said, once you have the right beans, you have some choices. Are you looking to make espresso or coffee (you mention both)?
My local coffee shop really loves the Aeropress, but they also like the Chemex. I was just chatting with them last week, and they made me a cup with the Chemex and an espresso with the Aeropress to compare; hands down, the Chemex was better. Something got lost with the Aeropress - it was nowhere near as subtle and a lot of the acids were lost. Surprising, because they seemed to like both methods.
Of course, the advantage of the Aeropress is that it makes both coffee and espresso, and honestly, even though I liked the Chemex coffee better, the Espresso from the Aeropress was impressive as it’s the only espresso I’ve ever had from something that didn’t cost many hundreds of dollars that was pretty decent.
We do have a source for beans, unfortunately it’s a “when we’re in the big city” source, so not as fresh as I’d like. If I get a situation where the coffee is good enough to warrent further tweaking, I’d consider exploring roasting my own.
Part of the problem is differences in taste. I like a strong dark roast. Ms. Attack likes a less strong coffee. There is a sweet spot where we’re both happy, but it’s not easy to hit. One benefit of an espresso maker is that I’d be making a component of a latte or whatever, so I could vary things around for my tastes versus her tastes.
My old girlfriend in college had a Chemex, so there’s to much mental bullshit associated with it for me to go there.