Kitchen

Home Coffee That Got Serious

We started with a jar of instant and a mug the previous tenant left behind. Within a month we were spending twelve pounds a week at the café downstairs, and one of us said, out loud, that we could learn to do this at home. We already owned a plastic dripper from a supermarket. What we didn't own was anything that made it work. This scene follows that shift in the order it happened — the first bag of whole beans and nothing to grind them with, the kettle that poured where we aimed it, the scale that turned guessing into a recipe, and the small things that stopped the counter looking like a crime scene. None of this is espresso-machine money; it's the hand-pour setup most home brewers actually use. Expect to spend between $90 and $230 for a complete morning ritual.