Advice
How to actually do it
Procedures rather than opinions. Each page covers one thing end to end, says which step matters most, and links to the gear it assumes rather than the gear we would like to sell you.
Espresso
Dialling in, channelling, and the things that actually change a shot.
- How to dial in an espresso Change one variable at a time and you get there in three shots. Change two and you never get there at all.
- How to fix channelling If a shot tastes under-extracted and over-extracted at the same time, stop adjusting the grind. Water is going around your coffee, not through it.
Brewing
Pour-over, immersion and stovetop, done properly.
- How to brew a moka pot properly Moka coffee is not inherently harsh. It is harsh when the pot sits on a flame cooking the grounds for four minutes before brewing starts.
- How to brew a pour-over The recipe is the easy part. Everything that goes wrong goes wrong in how the water arrives.
- How to store coffee properly Buying good beans and storing them badly is the most common way people waste money on coffee.
Milk
Texturing, temperature and plant milks that refuse to foam.
Maintenance
The routines that decide whether a machine reaches year ten.
- How to descale, and how often A machine does not fail suddenly from scale. It gets slowly worse for three years and then stops, and by then the deposit has been building the whole time.
- How to clean an espresso machine Coffee oils go rancid. Every shot you pull afterwards passes through them, and no grind adjustment fixes what that does to the taste.
Buying
How to spend a budget so the money lands where it changes the cup.