Very few businesses have an aspect of (what seems at first, to be) magic about them. Making great speciality coffee is not magic but it can certainly seem like it for anyone trying to make good coffee at home.
The turning point for me came on a visit to California when I had a coffee with a friend at Urth Café in Santa-Monica. That coffee just blew me away – it was incredible, and I’d not experienced anything like it before. Right there and then, I made up my mind to crack the magic – I wanted that amazing, incredible coffee every day at home. The picture at the top of today’s blog is the magic – not generated by artificial intelligence or some photoshopped image, but the coffee in that cup is the actual magic that caused me start GetMeCoffee Ltd.
At this stage you might be asking if it’s possible for ordinary people like you and me to make the magic at home? Absolutely it’s possible, and that’s what GetMeCoffee is about. You don’t need to spend thousands of pounds. Our role is to help you get the right equipment and the right coffee beans. We can help you find the good quality low cost equipment to start, and as your confidence grows you can, if you wish, get more sophisticated as your interest and skills become more advanced.
If you are starting from scratch, a budget for the initial set-up of about £300 is a good place to start (that’s perhaps three month’s-worth of takeaway coffees from any high street chain coffee store). If you regularly purchase coffee in takeaways and want to save some money then read our blog The REAL cost of coffee at home vs cafe or takeaway and you will see it’s possible to save significant £’s by making great coffee yourself.
To make the magic coffee at home the critical components are:
Buy the best coffee you can. We recommend certified organic coffee, as that makes your choice so much easier – in general, organic coffee reliably tastes better than coffee that is not certified organic. Further reading here.
Get a good manual espresso machine. We recommend avoiding expensive bean to cup machines if you want the best coffee at home. There are many other coffee brewing methods, but most speciality coffee shops and cafes use an espresso machine to make the base coffee shots and to foam the milk.
We recommend get yourself a grinder right from the start. However, if your budget is tight, you can start out buying ground coffee, which will make still make excellent coffee, but takes more care regarding keeping it fresh. If you buy pre-ground coffee you don’t need a grinder. If you choose to buy a grinder it needs to be capable of grinding for espresso (that’s a very fine grind) right from the start.
Read our brew guides, along with the espresso machine manufacturer’s instructions, to get clarity on how to make your coffee.
