Things I'm into

Pick one to see what I have had. A dot underneath means it is in rotation right now.

Blue TokaiArakuStarbucksNescafé

Vienna Roast

Dark

Deep and smoky without going bitter. The weekday default.

French Roast

Dark

Heaviest of the lot. Holds up to milk better than anything else here.

Dhak Blend

Medium-dark

Rounder than the Vienna, less smoke. A good middle ground.

Basankhan Estate

Medium-dark · Chikmagalur

Cleaner and lighter than I usually go for. Interesting once.

Not sure what to buyPick a roast, see what to brew with itA slider from light to dark. Each one tells you how it tastes and which methods suit it, including the ones to avoid.

How I got here. Each one solved the problem the last one left me with.

1. Started here

   

   Wacaco Nanopresso

   Hand pump

   My first piece of gear, with a very basic grinder next to it. You pump it by hand and it makes a genuinely decent shot, which is what got me curious about how much further this could go.

   Something's Brewing

2. The upgrade

   

   Flair Pro 2

   Lever press

   You pull the arm down and your own weight pushes water through the puck, so you feel the pressure build instead of trusting a pump. James Hoffmann's point was that this gets you espresso close to a machine costing many times more, and he was right.

   Benki Brewing Tools

3. The real bottleneck

   

   1Zpresso JX-Pro

   Hand grinder

   Once the press was good, the grinder was the weak link. Conical burrs and a stepped dial that actually holds its setting, so espresso and pour over are a known number of clicks apart rather than a guess.

   1Zpresso

4. Weekdays now

   

   Budan

   Semi-automatic

   Underneath it is the CRM3605, a chassis sold worldwide under a dozen names, which means 58mm parts are everywhere and the thing is genuinely repairable. The manual workflow is lovely and it is also fifteen minutes I do not have on a Tuesday.

   Something's Brewing

5. Weekends

   

   Kalita Wave 185

   Pour over

   Flat-bottomed pour over. Saturday mornings I go back to doing all of it by hand, heating the apparatus included, because the slow version is the part I actually enjoy.

   Benki Brewing Tools

The rest of the desk. No shopping links on this one, on purpose.

• PersonalMacBook Air, M4Everything on this site was built on it, the portrait engine included. Silent, and it never gets warm enough to notice.
• WorkMacBook Pro, M4The office machine. Same keyboard, more fans.
• PhoneOnePlus Nord CE4Does the job. I am not precious about phones.

Two, and I rotate between them. I am not a collector.

• Cool WaterDavidoff

  Older than I am and still the one I reach for. Mint and citrus over something salty. It is not subtle and it is not trying to be.

• AftershaveFraganote

  A Delhi house making fragrance for Indian weather, which turns out to matter more than I expected. Lemon up front, cedarwood and sage underneath. Sits close to the skin rather than announcing itself down a corridor.

Links I come back to. Every one carries a reason, or it does not go in.

• James Hoffmann

  Where I learnt most of what I know about coffee. Watch the espresso and grinder videos before buying anything.