There was no bigger advocate than me, of medium/dark roasted beans put through an espresso machine. Over the years I have had every brewed/filter machine that you can imagine, and a few you cannot, including the Trinity 3 in 1 brewer
But the mistake that I made was with beans primarily. I was content drinking blended stuff. I did try back in the days of owning a Duo of buying better quality SO beans but I could never get the methodology right.
When Dave died, I sort of lost my mojo a bit…..it was not longer fun talking about the far end of a fart coffee wise. I also realised that the coffee industry is hellbent on selling you gear that costs £thousands…….I demonstrated to myself that a machine costing £several thousand actually did not make coffee any better than I could produce on my Elizabeth. When you are in business the buzz words are gross profit and net profit. The higher the sales price of an item, the higher the gross profit, or profit before expense deduction.
Many years ago I watched an entertaining coffee series called Dangerous Grounds. The storyline was this coffee nerd trekking for days into the jungle, stumbling accross an unknown coffee plantation, picking some coffee cherries then roasting them (yes, total nonsense) on a shovel and whilst still hot brewing them in a percolator on a fire.
What this told me was that if you want to taste the coffee, you do not need an espresso machine (especially if you are a milk user) to achieve this. Brewed kit on the whole is much less of a problem to purchase. Your skill comes into play as it really is skills based hobby. Of course there is skill in espresso perparation but the industry has grown up convincing you that £ thousands have to be spent.
I stopped taking milk all the time a couple of years ago and started to really taste my coffee. I then after a long period of reflection (post Dave) decided that to really give brewed a chance I had to stop espresso hence selling my gear.
I was not being rude about espresso drinkers but if I can move on then technically so can anyone.
In case anyone wants to watch an episode of Dangerous grounds