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Do we have any coffee experts here? :)
What equipment do you recommend for home brewing? I don't mind waiting 5-10 minutes for the cup to become ready. Lots of pleasant aroma filling my home would be a bonus.
What are good reasons for taking coffee seriously?
How much subjectively experienced variety is there in terms of bean types?
Hario V60, gooseneck kettle, Baratza Encore/Capresso Infinity/OE Lido grinder. Krups blade grinder is acceptable for cheaper if you're on a budget. Brita filter or similar may be a good idea depending on the quality of your water. Freshly roasted beans--Happy Mug is a good start if there's nowhere near you.
I had my first really good cup of coffee and have spent fifteen years or so trying to recreate it at will, which is not an uncommon experience in the specialty coffee world. If you haven't had a cup that made you want to put effort into your home brewing, I don't suppose I'll be able to argue you into it, and if you have, nobody needs to argue you into it.
IMO, quite a lot. If you want to see for yourself, find a specialty coffee place near you and try a bunch of different brews. Also relevant to your second question, obviously.
This coffee venture feels frustrating so far, in the research and purchasing stages. I've spent a couple hours on research. It seems like almost everything is sub-optimal in some way, especially the budget models. And everything in terms of good equipment is expensive where I live. I can't even find a decent manual grinder for less than $60. The automatic ones worth buying cost 200+. We don't have any domestic Amazon warehouses or anything like that, and import fees are high. I've looked at second-hand listings; can't find the models I want. I may end up buying the Baratza Encore, but annoyingly it's priced at 30 bucks higher than it was a couple of months ago.
I think I do want a good burr grinder, because trying out various whole beans from around the world is a big part of the appeal of getting into coffee. As for the brewing instrument, I'll probably go for a Chemex with the glass handle. It doesn't look quite as cool as the classical one with the wooden handle, but it should prove more hassle-free. I might go for the "3 cup" version, which afaik doesn't really provide enough liquid for 3 cups, but I hope I can make coffee for two people in one operation.
But I may have hobbled myself a bit with this pour-over route. A few days ago I ordered a new electric kettle with a temperature/thermostat function, thinking that would come in handy for both tea and coffee. It doesn't have a gooseneck...! I don't think the spout is extremely unsuited, but it's not optimal. Sigh. It's the Bosch TWK7203.
Okay, I'm late to the party, so I'm going to jump in here with my reply instead of the top.
Getting into craft coffee is like getting into high end stereo equipment. Nothing is going to be optimal, but the higher-priced tiers of equipment will get you closer to your goal. Likewise, there's a wide variety in taste with various regions and beans for you to experience, especially at the lighter roasts where the individual flavor of the bean can shine. Practically speaking, unless you become a taster yourself you'll never run out of variety to try between the origin of the coffee, the process used to separate the bean from the fruit, the degree of roast in the coffee itself, etc. I tend to roast mostly African coffees and Central American coffees, but every region that can grow coffee has good things about it and good farms that produce coffee worth its premium price. Unless the roaster is an artiste, the flavors that the bean is supposed to evoke will be probably present more as suggestions than solid tastes at first, though the good ones are so damn good that you'll wonder if they added flavoring to the coffee. Regardless, the more you drink your craft coffee black, the more your palate will develop, and when you find yourself unironically talking about things like notes of stone fruit and hints of this or that spice or the type of citrus that the coffee evokes for you, you'll find that you've become a coffee connoisseur in your own right.
A Chemex is, by all accounts, a good pour-over, and your electric kettle, while not ideal, should be good enough to get you started.
However.
The freshness of the beans themselves is the most critical part of your craft coffee journey, ideally roasted within the last several days levels of fresh. I'm assuming you've already got a local craft coffee place that sells the beans that it roasts and this won't be an issue for you, but they're an absolute must if you want to travel this path. Given the assumption, you've got some good recommendations for burr grinders here already and they're the next most important piece of your potential coffee journey. With price being an issue, the good manual grinder might be the way to go for now but if you think you're going to seriously be into craft coffee, it might be a good idea to save up for a good grinder. FWIW. I've always liked Baratza grinders, and I personally use a Baratza Sette 270. That seems to be a bit of overkill to me for someone who just wants to be able to have a nice pour-over, but regardless you might be able to find refurbs on their website for cheaper. I did when I bought mine. Also, you'll want something with a one-way valve to store your fresh coffee in so that it can outgas while keeping outside air outside. A good canister or container shouldn't be too much money and will be worth the purchase.
One more thing to talk about. Inevitably, this rabbit hole includes taking the plunge and roasting green coffee beans for your own consumption. I've seen folks that have spent thousands on their roasters and espresso makers while other folks have gone with old-school methods like a popcorn popper or even just baking sheets in the oven. I started with a Fresh Roast two decades ago and have spent way too much money on better and better equipment as my earning power increased. Just something to keep in mind when planning for your next glorious level of
stereocoffee equipment. Enjoy!I've ordered a Chemex 3-cup glass handle thingy, and the corresponding filters. I've gone for this solution because reportedly it produces the richest and smoothest taste, while the handle version is easier to clean and hold. I more or less know what to do in order to use it well. Pre-soak the filter with boiled water, pre-heating the glass at the same time, then pour out the water, add 15g (for one cup) of medium coarsely ground beans, make a little hole in the middle with my finger, pour boiled water slowly and evenly over the coffee, let it 'flower' for half a minute or so, then pour the other half.
I'll be holding off on a grinder for now. As soon as I have the Chemex I'll be heading to a coffee shop and sampling some beans by buying cups of their coffe, and also buying one or two recently ground coffees they sell in bags, so that I can try out brewing it myself without having a grinder. Hopefully they have something that's been ground the same day or so.
It's not about 'saving up', it's about how much I'm willing to be ripped off my what I deem to currently be pretty damn high prices, and how much money I'm willing to put into this hobby that I'm not sure I wanna fully commit to or not. I suspect that, much like with wine tasting, there's a lot of BS and subjectivity involved, and that the flowery descriptions are partly from constructs in the creative mind of the taster, and/or coming from people with unusually sensitive noses. As you say, they are always suggestions and similarities, not solid tastes. That's my experience with wine, though my nose is mediocre. And there's probably quite a bit of caffeine addiction motivating the interests of "coffee enthusiasts". Any addict will always come up with legit sounding reasons for devoting more time and money into their drug, while recruiting others to legitimize it.
Edit: I've not held off on the grinder for long, I've now ordered a cheap-ish Krups blade grinder which seems to get the job done with pretty good reviews. :D
Then you're on your way! I do want to say that I totally understand and respect your skepticism WRT coffee tasting, but I strongly suspect that even with a mediocre palate, if you get into it in any depth you're going to find that there's enough flavor there to draw you in more deeply. The growing caffeine addiction is just bonus points! More seriously, though, regional coffee characteristics are often pretty distinct at the lower levels of roasts and are the gateway for lots of us that have taken the plunge. You'll notice the brightness of African coffees and the earthiness of Southeast Asian coffees, for example, even if you don't get every hint of lemongrass or honeyed almonds promised by a particular bean.
The other thing that I came back to say was that I'd strongly recommend that you stick with buying whole beans and let your Krups grinder do the work. As @srf0638 has said above, the Krups will be fine for pour-overs (and +1,000 for Sweet Maria's, yay!), and getting your beans pre-ground will effectively kill the advantage that you'll get from using fresh beans to begin with. Ideally, you want to grind your beans right before you begin your pour-over.
I'm aware of the importance of whole beans and grinding them fresh. That's why I'm getting a grinder, duh.
I was talking about the time when I don't have a grinder yet. I hadn't yet decided on one to get when I wrote that. And the one I have now ordered will take a while to get here. I might sample some pre-ground coffee if my Chemex gets here first. :)
Do you want to recommend some unique luxurious beans, even if they might be hard to find? Something to look out for in the future. I looked through the beans featured in a great video game, heh. (Persona 5). They've got trivia on coffee. Colombian Nariño, Hawaiiwan Kona, and Panama Esmeralda Geisha caught my interest.
Funny, of the three that you've listed I've only ever tasted Kona, though I have a Colombian Gesha and another one that I don't remember off the top of my head (don't think it was Panamanian), both waiting for me to clean my roaster and run a couple more batches through it so that I'm sure that my beans are tasting right again. Anyway, I generally steer folks away from the more expensive and rare pedigree coffees and usually recommend starting with trying some Central and South American coffees and some African coffees, but Kona and Gesha are both pedigree coffees for a reason, so if you want to start with one of those, go nuts. A good Nariño should give you an idea of what Colombian coffees can bring to the table: a nice silky body, a complex taste with hints of raw sugar sweetness. See, this is the wine talk stuff here, but I don't think you'll go wrong if you find some that's freshly roasted.
But yeah, if I'm going to name other regional coffees to try, Ethiopian is always high on my list, so if you see an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Sidama, or Guji for sale, they'd be good coffees to try. Sadly, I can't put Harar coffee on that list anymore but it's an old favorite of mine and my first, "yeah, this fresh roasted coffee thing is legit," coffee and was/is infamous for its tangible blueberry note. I've had lots of good Burundi coffees in the last several years, and have liked the coffees that I've gotten from Kenya and Tanzania as well.
Moving to Central/South America, Colombian is nice stuff as I said above, and Guatemalan coffee is another favorite of mine, Huehuetenango in particular has been a coffee region that I keep coming back to, and Antigua has been growing good coffee for hundreds of years. I could go on forever, but will say that more generally, as long as the beans and the roast are good, you're going to get a good coffee. I've also had tasty Costa Rican and Nicaraguan coffees that have worked for me, and I've had a couple of interesting Brazilian coffees as well. I think the only reason I haven't tried more Brazilian coffee is that there just haven't been many Brazilian coffees for sale when I'm buying, which is probably a me thing as much as anything else--there's a particular Christmas espresso blend that I absolutely adore and I invariably buy way too many other coffees to try when buying it so I don't tend to do any buying in the early parts of the year.
Okay, I've already geeked out for way too long on coffee. My suspicion is that you're going to find that there's something to this craft/specialty coffee business and that if you decide to keep at it you'll find plenty of different coffees that you like in your own right. Subjectivity aside, there's a definite superiority to this side of coffee that may well keep you coming back.
Sounds like a meme somehow :P
Making some notes of your remarks here. 'Preciated. I've found Yirgacheffe in a local store. Will probably buy a bag.
Are you familiar with any of the following:
Frinsa Edun (Indonesia)
Kiangoi AB, Kirinyaga (Kenya)
Magarissa Sede (Ethiopia)
Rugori (Rwanda)
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