Equipment (The Perfect Place to Start)
Choosing your equipment is the perfect place to start for it will help you make important decisions. After all you don't buy ink for a printer before you buy one do you? No, how would you know what brand, ink type ect. to get?
Coffee Maker or Espresso Machine?
First Question here is have you every been to a coffee house? If so did you every order anything beyond the basic coffee? Latte, Cappuccino, Shots?
So maybe you want to learn to make an espresso. Do you really have time to? Sure, the brew time is quicker than drip, but do you have time to foam the milk, ect? Chances are no, you just want to grab you coffee and go or your half a sleep and you stumble down the stairs to get your wake up cup. There a many different Coffee Makers available to you, if you like to wake up to the smell of coffee there are programmable machines that allow you to basically set an alarm to the machine, resulting in the smell of coffee in the morning stead of a buzzer. You might still want to set that alarm clock near you bed though.
Buying Coffee
Now that you have your machine, you probably wondered down the coffee aisle, see the bags of coffee and the clear containers that say dark roast, light roast, whole bean, and ground. You're ready to run the other way. Okay take a deep breathe and keep reading. If money is an issue or confusion is, I recommend just going and buying a SMALL jar of Folgers coffee and trying that. Making sure it is not the instant kind. For the braver ones let's talk about, whole bean versus ground. To make coffee you have to have ground beans. You could buy the whole bean yourself and then grind it. But, were talking about beginners in the coffee world here, make it easy on yourself buy that little pre ground bag of coffee and forget the head ache this time. Not to mention around $20 dollars for that grinder. As you pick up that little bag of coffee and look at the others ones next to it you see the words light roast, dark roast ect. NOW WHAT? What this basically means is the temperature the beans were roasted at how long. The longer and higher the darker the roast. I have a feeling now that you're putting back that light roast in your hands and going to pick up that dark roast. STOP!
Why are you picking up the dark roast? Most likely because of some commercials you've seen on television, giving you the consumer the idea that darker roasts are superior to lighter roast. Now personal taste comes into play. The dark the roast the stronger, the more sugar and cream you'll probably want. They call it rich flavor, I call it over powering. The lighter you go the more confidence a roaster is showing in the quality of the bean. All the different not trying to cover up the flavor of the bean, with roasting. Coffee is a lot like wine; no I don't mean addiction, even though that is true. I'm talking about the different notes of flavor you find in coffee. Especially in the lighter roasts. So when it comes to picking your roast level, and brand it's going to take trial and error. Don't abandon hope, you're sure to learn what you like and don't like pretty quickly.
A Coffee Grinder
Once you find out what you like and don't like you might just want to go ahead and buy that coffee grinder. Unless you can get to the store every three or so days, your pre-ground coffee is going to go stale. Grinding your own coffee can save you money in the long run to. I recommend a burr grinder, but those can get pretty pricey pretty quick, but if you're thinking anytime in the near future of doing espresso get the burr grinder, other wise that grinder that is one sale at Wal-Mart will do just fine. Especially since where talking beginner here. For around $15.00 you can get a good easy to use grinder.
Now Go Home Follow Your Coffee Makers Instructions and Start Learning All about The Wonderful World of Coffee.
