Pour over from ceramic, no plastic. Rinse it before and warm it up a little with the hot water.

Electric grinder with flat (not conical) burrs. Buy one were the burrs can be changed - you don't want to buy a dozen grinders to experiment - you want an arsenal of a dozen burrs depending on occasion, mood, beans.

Yes, that means the cost ratio of ginder to coffee machine (ceramic v60) is 300x. Three hundred is the perfect adequate ratio of how much more important the grinder is.

Light roast beans. There is no taste left in dark burnt stuff. Enjoy the nuance. But knowing the story of the beans is important as well.

Tap water is fine if it's not too hard and not chlorinated. Play around with the temperature, it does in fact change the taste.

Mocha Pot - technically not espresso, just really-really strong coffee. It can pass as espresso substitute to make latte, cappuccino, americano, etc. Requires espresso grind tho.

I’m partial to my Moccamaster at home and my Aeropress on the road.

Don’t sleep on the Aeropress! Its portable and makes fantastic coffee, one cup at time!

I've been a cold brew maxi ever since my first cup in Seattle nearly 10 years ago.

I can make all my coffee for the week in one go. It's less acidic and has more of the volatile subtle flavors preserved.

Drip with gold filter. I've done cold press, french press and aero press. Personally I like the ease and quantity with a good drip coffee maker. If it's a really good bean, I will bust out the french press. IE a good Sumatra. But for my day to day, and I drink a lot of coffee, my ninja 12 cup with gold filter.

People are going to think I'm crazy but here me out:

Instant cold brew crystals--doused with hot water until it melts and then topped off with cold filtered water (both from an instant hot/cold filtered faucet).

This is how I drink my coffee, black, daily.

I got here through a journey.

We have an espresso machine, good beans, etc--my wife still likes it done espresso style but honestly, she can't tell when I make the instant as her latte base. I've tried every single method: aeropress, french press, chemex pour over, etc--I even own a turkish coffee ibrik (which is nice sometimes)...

What I've learned is that only two things matter:

Other than that, the fancy $3,000 espresso machines are maybe adding 0.5% to the end result of the product.

When my wife (who is much more of a coffee addict than I am) started asking about coffee sourcing, inflation, and climate change as part of my emergency prep plan, I started reading up and realized that coffee is a fairly fragile plant that will get more expensive as time goes on.

I researched getting my own coffee plants and growing it myself, but that would be way more work than I was willing to put in (more of a novelty than a real way to get enough coffee beans). I started thinking about buying it in bulk and vacuum packing it and freezing beans, but once beans are roasted, the shelf life goes down significantly. High quality coffee roasters like Stumptown demand that distributors throw away beans after 3 days from the roasting date because the quality drops off a cliff--this is why Stumptown coffee is so damn tasty.

Unroasted beans have a 2 year shelf life. So I started roasting my own beans at home with a Fresh Roast SR800, which is awesome and allows me to get beans to just the right roast. You can also buy bulk unroasted (green) beans, which I always have on my pantry shelf.

But then I realized that there is a huge variety of suppliers now making high quality instant coffee that ships in glass containers (better than plastic) and has a much longer shelf life. I've been stocking up on all different kinds and experimenting and now I have many years worth of instant coffee in my garage, ready to handle a major disaster--and since I drink it basically room temperature (call me a heathen) my requirements for making it drinkable are easily met in any situation.

Chew beans with teeth. Pour boiling water directly in mouth. Never break eye contact.

I'll admit it, I drink instant with a ton of milk in it. About half milk. Easy-peasy, and it's good enough for me. Cheap and no cleanup.

If you like the process of making coffee, have the time in the morning, and are keen to get nerdy with it, espresso with a good machine and grinder is awesome.

Probably budget at least $2500 or so for both machines. Though it's been a while since I've priced that stuff out. My set up is 10 years old and still pumping out awesome beverages.

I like the pour over method. I have enjoyed french press in the past. And an aeropress. All pretty good. I like pour over because it is easy to clean up and I don't have to use disposable filters.