What triggered it
Sticker shock from daily coffee runs and a fascination with espresso workflow videos.
Goal
Make cafe-quality milk drinks at home without turning every morning into a 30-minute ritual.
What I did
Compared entry-level machines, bought a used grinder, tracked recipes, and dialed in a small set of beans that behaved consistently.
Summary notes
The grinder mattered. Most of the accessory purchases did not.
Lessons learned
- Buy the grinder first if espresso is the goal.
- One bean you understand beats a sampler pack when learning.
Mistakes and dead ends
- Overspent on accessories after watching workflow content.
- Tried to optimize every variable before learning taste benchmarks.