The koffeene kind of origin story:

When I grew up, filter coffee was the way to go, and I could never understand how my parents could enjoy or even drink it. Times were different back then. In my mid-20s, I started to enjoy coffee a bit more: at least with syrups in it or poured over biscuits and topped with mascarpone in a tiramisu.

I don’t think it was about enjoying the coffee, but rather the caffeine in it. Maybe some people genuinely like their standard filter coffee out of a burned supermarket roast, but I am not one of them.

But then, I had my first decent cappuccino in Italy. I didn’t know that you don’t need sugar to make up for the bitterness. I dreamt about a nice automatic coffee machine afterwards: just one button and a couple of seconds later, I could enjoy a really nice drink at home. As my budget was limited at that time, a Nespresso machine was the way to go, combined with a simple rotating milk steamer to get nice, construction site milk foam. I mean, it kind of delivered and it was okay. Still better than some cafés, but still not where I wanted it to be.

So I entered the rabbit hole during COVID. I started experimenting with refillable capsules and a lot of disappointment. A couple of days later, the first espresso machine was set up and ready to go, spending way more than initially planned. Naive as I was, I thought at least the beans would be cheaper than pre-filled capsules, and for sure there’s less waste. At least the waste part was true.

Now I had an espresso machine sitting in the kitchen and zero skills to get a decent cappuccino out of it. I don’t know how many YouTube videos I watched, but the premium subscription to avoid ads was definitely worth it. With some practice, the shots got better, the milk smoother, and the latte art attempts remained atrocious.

When buying beans directly in the stores or cafés of local roasters, I always asked, “How do I brew this?” The answer was usually quite close to the 18g in, 36g out standard recipe. I mean, it kinda works for chocolatey roasts, doesn’t it? But then I wanted to try out a light roast, and this time I didn’t get the standard reply: “Put 19g in the basket and get around 50g out. If you can, increase the temperature to 96°C.” – And I did. This was my first real “wow” moment. I could smell and taste plum. It wasn’t sour or weird at all. Just different. In a good way.

Now I can enjoy a cappuccino at home! No matter how it’s roasted, I know how to get something nice out of it. Just simple tweaks, no rocket science and I hope you will be able to do the same!