Espresso Making preferences

Personally here drink one cup of coffee every morning.  It is one 16oz cup of strong coffee.
 
How to CT folks make their coffee and what do they use?
 
My favorite coffee was using my x mother in laws "big machine" expresso coffee maker in her bed and breakfast place in the EU many years ago.  I would do three cups for my cup of morning coffee.  It was large and had numerous pressure gauges; well old too.
 
Over the years and present in the kitchen.  I like that dark roast coffee.
 
1 - stand drip coffee maker with paper basket - I utilize 6 scoops for my one 16 oz cup
 
2 - french press where I have to heat up water and grind my beans - time consuming
 
3 - Expresso maker - kind of big and need to do three cups for my one cup - time consuming
 
4 - lately tried one of these (it was in one of the kitchen cabinets). 
 

 
I like the flavor so purchased a larger one cuz the little one only made close to 8ozs of coffee.

I have a La Spaziale S1 espresso machine and pull shots every morning for my latte.  I make better espresso shots, latte's, cap's and Americano's than any local coffee house.  I roasted my own coffee for many years until I found a local roaster that I like and now I just use theirs.
 
It takes a good 10-15 minutes to fully get to operating temperature, so years ago I added a port on the back that I have wired into my HAI OPII system.  I have both macro buttons as well as a schedule set to turn it on and off.  When I get up in the morning it's all hot and ready to go.
 
 

Thank-you Jon.
 
La Spaziale S1 is a very nice looking espresso maker.  Looks to be a commercial style maker.
 

 
Testing a bit this morning using 5 scoops of ground coffee for my 16 oz cup which is one personal serving with the newer larger style espresso maker.
 
Its a manual effort putting it on the stove to make.
 
We have a Krups combo espresso / coffee maker (went back into the box a year ago or so).    Not even close to the La Spaziale S1 one for residential use.

I like a good cup of coffee, and every now and then splurge on a local roaster near here:
 
http://www.pvroasters.com/premiumroasts.html
 
Their premium 100% Kona is to die for, but it's very addicting, so I just usually get the cheaper ones!
 
I'm also going to order (for the Holidays) coffee from Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans (with and without chicory as it is an acquired taste).  It's been over 30 years since I had some (used to live down there).
 
When I was in the Bahamas, I had some great coffee the waiter named "Don Halloway", but I've never been able to find it anywhere!  I often wondered if maybe that was the actual name of the guy making it there!

Thank-you BSR. 
 
Yup remember now way back visiting my great aunt in the EU; she would always give me chicory or a chicory blend. 
 
This is though when I was young and never had coffee at the time though.
 
In latin america I've seen just hot milk with a tablespoon of instant coffee.  I didn't really like the flavor of this sort of blend for coffee.
 
Visiting my x mother in law in France I would run the machine for multiple cups of expresso to make my coffee way before she would open for business in the morning.
 
The habit I have of having one cup of coffee per day has never changed over the years.   I just want it stronger these days.
 
One day while working in the UK (large office) they ran out of cream for tea in the afternoon.  Wierd as it caused major turmoil in the office; with folks just wandering around the office with tea cups and no cream literally bringing the office to a standstill (petroleum / gas and oil company).
 
Recalling now a visit to New Orleans in the 1970's.  I remember talking with a very old person French.  It was a bit like listening to French from the 1800's with little change in dialect.  Well I guess similiar to talking to an old southern person and hearing old english when they speak.   Well listening to these older folks I was much in awe and almost like a trip back a couple of hundred years in time.

pete_c said:

Thank-you Jon.
 
La Spaziale S1 is a very nice looking espresso maker.  Looks to be a commercial style maker.
 

La Spaziale S1.jpg
 
Testing a bit this morning using 5 scoops of ground coffee for my 16 oz cup which is one personal serving with the newer larger style espresso maker.
 
Its a manual effort putting it on the stove to make.
 
We have a Krups combo espresso / coffee maker (went back into the box a year ago or so).  It makes about 4 ozs of an espresso cup of coffee per serving.   Not even close to the La Spaziale S1 one for residential use.

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You can't use normal ground coffee in an espresso machine.  You must have a very fine grind to create a restricted flow.

Latest toy is a Jura S9 super-automatic.  It automatically grinds the beans and foams the milk.    It's on-sale this month via Costco for $1499 (which is considerably less than the MSRP of $2,200).  If you're in the market for one this is a GREAT deal on a terrific machine.  I picked mine up refurb (woot.com) for $1k and it's been in daily use for over a month with no issues.  
 
The drip machine is a Bunn Phase Brew HT, which is one of the few machines that will actually make HOT coffee.  It has a thermal carafe that keeps it that way for upwards of 2 hours.  
 
The super goes through a good bit more bean than cups made through the Bunn.  But you can't beat the one-button-press operation.  It's got dedicated buttons for one espresso, two espressi, one coffee, two coffee, cappuccino and latte macchiato.  That latter being the most common drink around here.  Each one is configurable for strength and amount of water.  It has a built-in clock and I've programmed it to wake up at 6:30.  It automatically turns itself off after 2 hours of being idle (also configurable).  It comes up to temp pretty quick, worst-case is about 7 minutes from dead cold.
 
Every now and then I'll do a french press, a stove-top moka pot or a turkish (in an ibrik).  Can't beat a good cup of turkish-style now and then.  The press I usually reserve for the rare times I get some really good (genuine) Kona or Blue Mountain beans.  Lately I've been pleased with some Illy and Lavazza beans (amazon's pretty competitively priced for these).  

JonW said:

You can't use normal ground coffee in an espresso machine.  You must have a very fine grind to create a restricted flow.

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True, to a certain extent.  Yes, you cannot use pre-ground drip coffee grind.  Not unless the packaging specifically calls out it being usable in an espresso machine.  NOT just an espresso roast (which contrary to popular notions, does NOT have to be blackened).
 
There's a lot of factors involved that it's not just 'a very fine grind'.  Depends a lot on the amount of oil on the beans too.  Make it too fine and you'll choke the portafilter (the espresso machine basket).  Make it too loose and the water won't be held back long enough to get a good infusion.  This can be caused by a grind that's not fine enough or not packing the basket properly.  
 
It's.... as they say... complicated.  
 
Which is why it took me several years to settle on the Jura machine.  It's got the right combination of wife-friendly lack of complexity (completely hands-off) and decent serviceability.  As the rule goes, good, fast, cheap... pick two.  It wasn't cheap, but it makes great coffee, quickly.

wkearney99 said:

True, to a certain extent.  Yes, you cannot use pre-ground drip coffee grind.  Not unless the packaging specifically calls out it being usable in an espresso machine.  NOT just an espresso roast (which contrary to popular notions, does NOT have to be blackened).
 
There's a lot of factors involved that it's not just 'a very fine grind'.  Depends a lot on the amount of oil on the beans too.  Make it too fine and you'll choke the portafilter (the espresso machine basket).  Make it too loose and the water won't be held back long enough to get a good infusion.  This can be caused by a grind that's not fine enough or not packing the basket properly.  
 
It's.... as they say... complicated.  

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LOL... True that!
 
I time my shots for 25 seconds.  I'm very consistent with my tamping of the grounds, so I adjust the grind to hit that target.  I find that I make small adjustments for things like bean variety, age of the beans or even the weather!  It's really just a small adjustment up or down every other week or so, so it's really not an issue to dial it in.

JonW said:

LOL... True that!
 
...so it's really not an issue to dial it in.

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Yes, for those of us that really get into the details, the mechanics of making truly wonderful coffee drinks are worth the efforts.  For our wives, however, not so much.  

I read through most all of this... thinking about how I use Keureg K-cups B)

Yeah, you guys sound like you need your own personal barista.
 
Back to the Basics Backpacking coffee: bring 1 quart of water to a boil, pour over grinds in a Melitta #6 filter cone into a vintage aluminum coffee pot.  Serve in insulated mugs (not sierra cups).
 
Enjoy view.
 

Pfft, I'll trade an over-priced, finicky automatic coffee maker over having staff any day of the week.  Machine drama is far less stress-inducing.
 
For the simple approach I've read a lot folks are happy with the results from an Aeropress.  Yes, from the same company that invented the Aerobie frisbee.

Wow.  Thanks guys!  Very enlightening.
 
Noticing that my mostly mechanical efforts (playing some) doing the do what / with what before savoring the results appears to have accelerated a bit now in a quest of sorts.
 
Ahh....WAF is high ...was shown a cabinet in the kitchen (that I didn't know of) boxes of little multipacks of a variety of expresso roasts.

The downside to the cups (Keurig, Nestle, etc) is you're beholden to the packaging provider.  That and their choices on the range of brews available.  But for a lot of folks those aren't big issues.  Just upgrading from shitty drip maker Folgers is a HUGE step up.  
 
Me, I don't like the idea of all that wasted energy for the packaging.  Making it, shipping it, throwing it away.. that just seems excessively wasteful to me.