I have spent way too much time, money and effort on my coffee over the years. It's not apex level shit, but it's good enough, and that's good enough for me. Never owned an espresso machine, but received training for them as I used to pull espresso shots when I worked in a restaurant. I'll let other coffee spergs handle coffee grinders, that's probably my weakest point of info. After years of trying to min-max my coffee, I've settled into a comfortable routine with a french press. I might get fancy someday and get my own espresso machine but I'm not trying to win awards, I'm just saying what's worked for me.
1.)
On espresso machines - you absolutely get what you pay for, to a point. Don't fuck with Breville - their quality has gone downhill in recent years. While I haven't personally purchased ones, I hear great things about the
Lelit brand. James Hoffman is
an excellent resource for all things coffee and espresso**. Learn how to properly fill your portafilter, tamp, and pull a shot, and for the love of god, invest in a level and properly weighted tamper. People will get a lightweight, shitty tamper and just guess at the amount of pressure that you need to apply to the shot, when ideally your tamper's weight should be doing most of the work for you (at least on the first press, when you settle the tamper on the portafilter). Here's
how to tamp a shot.
2.)
On aeropress, chemex, french press - I know you said you hate french press coffee because of the little fiddly coffee sand at the bottom, but I guarantee you that someone just fucked up and ground the coffee too fine for the french press. Once you dial in the type of grind you need for your brew method, the french press hits the sweet spot for me as far as
a.) Producing sufficient coffee
b.) In a streamlined process
c.) That extracts properly and doesn't taste like ass.
Chemex is fine, but I hate gooseneck kettles and the reddit obsession with the ritual of the pourover. Fuck off. It also doesn't produce as much coffee as my gigantic 50oz french press. Same problems with aeropress, but I will say the aeropress flavor is amazing, if you're okay with the very small volume it provides.
3.)
Get good beans - Stumptown Roasters has my
favorite coffee beans ever, but shockingly Aldi has some organic coffee beans that are quite good. Not as good as $17 a bag coffee, but a good daily driver. Costco has decent beans too. I dunno, find something you like. I didn't go down the rabbit hole of blends/single origin because I couldn't be fucked to spend a lot of time on it. Get a sampler of beans from a few different companies, see what flavor profiles you like (caramel notes? More fruit forward?) and find something YOU think tastes good.
4.)
Use decent water - I won't belabor the point, but just make sure you're using decent, filtered water for whatever brew method you're using. The beverage you're making is almost all water, make sure it tastes good and isn't full of bullshit.
5.)
On using milk & sugar - There's literally nothing wrong with adding these to a drink, do not feel like you need to remove them. I'd say winnow down on sugar as much as possible to just take the edge of the bitterness off if you're super concerned about it, but if you have what equates to 1 tsp per cup, you're not going to die. Milk and sugar will actually prevent you from getting coffee jitters or spikes of anxiety. I used to drink all my coffee black up until six months ago, and I don't see myself going back tbh.
** But, keep in mind he's a champion barista so he goes fucking overkill on everything. The playlist I linked above is a lot of information, but it's instructive in that he calls out pretty much all the pitfalls that can get between pulling a decent shot.
