Coffee At Home

I am a coffee fanatic & I admit I spend wayyyy too much money at Starbucks. This past Christmas Dylan got me the best.present.ever. He got me an espresso machine & milk frother for our home. It is the best appliance and over the last couple months we’ve been really trying to learn how to use it and make fancy drinks. I think the real reason he bought this is because he got addicted to the amazing cappuccinos we had in Italy and wanted to be able to have them at home ;).

The espresso machine he got is perfect. It is simple, compact and fairly user friendly. He opted for a true espresso brewer instead of an Nespresso or other like product that uses pods/k-cups so that we could control waste, and really do it ourselves! Trust me - there is DEFINITELY a learning curve to being a barista; we have done a lot of youtubing, researching and trial and error. But I finally feel I have the hang of it and wanted to share the exact product we have, tips and tricks we have discovered and some pictures of the latte art that I am REALLY proud of, haha. This was the first time I have been “successful” at any type of art - you will probably laugh.

*my little heart - just pretend you can see it, ok ;)*

He purchased the espresso machine which has a milk frother attached, a bean grinder and some espresso beans to start us out - when we ran out of those I bought some from my favorite local coffee shop. I usually grind enough beans to fit in a small glass container and it lasts us a couple weeks. You don’t want to grind too much at one time otherwise the espresso won’t be super fresh when you go to brew it. Ideally it would probably be best to grind beans for one drink at a time- but that is inconvenient. We had to play around with the consistency of the grounds and with some research I learned they can’t be too fine or too coarse. You want the texture to resemble fine beach sand. If it is too coarse the water won’t be able to extract/brew the espresso, if it is too fine it can actually clog your filter - I know this sounds super finicky but once you figure out the perfect consistency it is worth it! The same thing applies for tempering the grounds. You can’t push down too hard, but at the same time you have to apply a bit of pressure. I do it once until they form a flat even surface and are fairly tightly packed in. I will put a picture below. Most of this was complete trial and error and you just have to do it a couple times to find the right spot.

The milk frother is pretty easy to figure out- I have found that oat milk and the Trader Joe’s coconut milk creamer froth VERY well for non-dairy options. Of course you could use regular cow’s milk too! I mainly make cappucinos for a hot beverage. Recently I have been loving brewing 1-2 shots of espresso and making iced dirty chai lattes, or just adding a shot to my cold brew for a pre night-shift boost! The options are endless but ultimately I have loved having this appliance to up my at-home coffee game and to reduce the amount I spend on starbucks :)

Hope you enjoyed this post! You can purchase the machine down below. Let me know if you have any questions.

xx M