dark roast ethiopian coffee ( fine grind)
Wahey, coffee! I love the stuff. We grind locally sold coffee beans in a Krups grinder and stick 'em in a French press. My in-laws use a Nespresso machine with various pods, they taste amazing and I tend to guzzle them when I can. If we’re going for instant coffee we have Douwe Egberts as we find the taste to be the cleanest of the instants. Back when I was dating a half Italian we would drink coffee from a Bialetti Moka stovetop, and it had to be Lavazza Rossa. My friend’s partner is French and they have coffee brewed via paper filters.
Coffee is such a satisfying cultural experience. 
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just reading the description is giving me palpitations and anxiety
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A little birthday gift for myself… ended up going for it over the flair just because it seems like slightly less work. I haven’t tried taking off the pressure valve yet to see if I can dial in true espresso but with the valve on its definitely easy and the results are much better to me than my old moka pot, feels like some proper americanos I’m making.
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I hadn’t heard of it before. What are you using to grind?
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My girlfriends godparents had upgraded grinders and gave us a rancilio rocky, which feels like overkill after I looked up the cost but it seems to get pretty consistent grind.
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Good solid grinder, that will help a lot!
I feel like enjoying coffee gets a bad wrap 
It’s really simple and enjoyable imo. My principles:
- If you can grind beans fresh, do it.
- To drip, first let beans compress with a little water (like sand does when it’s wet), then just slowly pour evenly until the froth/bubbles start thinning or breaking up.
You can try tons of different beans (cheap or pricey), make coffee strong or weak, find your preference.
My caffeine path went something like this:
- Didn’t drink coffee in college, at all. Maybe some tea now and then, but basically no caffeine.
- Got into tea at first job. Drank way too much because it was so easy to do so, and I was drinking shitty black tea
- Discovered espresso, which hits you in the face like a brick in terms of flavor. easy to have just one espresso a day
- Over time, got more and more into good teas - greens, oolongs and eventually puerh
- Also got a SuperAutomatic espresso machine. That broke after 5 years or so. Coffee was meh by my standards now, but I enjoyed it back then
- Focused on tea at home because I lived in Seattle where there was GREAT espresso everywhere
- Moved to SF. Water here in shit. I’d almost literally prefer to eat shit than drink California tap water. Also, they are super into drip coffee here, and that tastes like ass too. Sorry Philz.
- First job here had a big professional espresso machine in the kitchen, and my counterpart on another team was the Espresso Dude, so I learned everything I could from him and became Coffee Guy #2
- Quit that job, focused on working from home in Silicon Valley, where the coffee is even worse than SF (Blue Bottle is as good as it gets. Not awful, but it’s no Cafe Ladro)
- Finally bit the bullet and bought the Flair & Breville grinder
So my path was slow and methodical. Strongly driven by my own preferences and local conditions. Drink what you like. Prepare it as you like. Buy it from people who know how to make it well before you try to make it yourself.
Also, a good Oolong is really amazing. Oolong is my go-to tea when traveling. Easy to find in Asia, and I bring my own when traveling in the Americas or Europe. I sometimes brew it gong-fu style at home, but often just toss some leaves in a disposable bag and do a few infusions in a tall double wall glass.
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If you’re in LA and want the best roast you’ll ever taste, find yourself a bag of Trystero. Dude is legit!
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The best coffe I’ve ever hard was at TiGeorge’s Cafe, served by TiGeorge himself. Sadly there was a fire, and TiGeorge is busy doing other things now.
If you think Cali water is shit then you definitely need to try AZ water. You’ll piss a kidney stone in a week!
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My coffee gear:
Toddy system
Hario buono
Hario v60
Hario 600ml range server
Melitta 2 cup
Chemex 3 cup
Technivorm Moccamaster
Bialetti mokapot 3 cup
Bodum French press
Aero press
Phin
Baratza Encore
Porlex tall hand grinder
Greater goods coffee scale
I also have a wholesale relationship with a coffee roaster in Austin so I can buy 5lb bags of Ethiopian natural for about $60
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I suspect that SoCal buys much of its water from AZ, NorCal Oregon & Nevada. SoCal water is worse than NorCal, definitely.
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Freshly ground The Premium Coffee® - Hoy te mereces un buen café. only for me. I go off caffeine regularly for a few weeks every now and again to avoid getting too addicted.
Cheapest coffee and cigarettes for breakfast.
This is the way
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I’m still thinking of a
because 95% of the time I use a Moka pot on the stove, and I’d appreciate the symmetry.
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I’ve been going crazy for Nespresso pods. So many varieties! Sure they’re casual-level coffee but man they taste so good.
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Yeah the design on that one is pretty amazing, probably the biggest stopping point for me was the cost. I suppose it is still cheap compared to a regular espresso machine. That and I do like the idea of pulling back to back shots more easily. That said the bar 9 is like a little work of art.
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My wife and I are nespresso fans. I’m a bit of a coffee snob, but we’ve found that on the price/performance curve they hit the sweet spot. As much as I love a good aeropress, there’s nothing quite like stumbling out of bed, putting in a pod, pushing a button, and having something reasonable come out. I save the aeropress or the French press for afternoons when I’m conscious.
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