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A College Kid's Guide to Bougie Coffee

Contents: Gear Recipes Drinks

I like coffee. A lot. A lot a lot. More than your normal college kid who has 2 group projects, 3 lab reports, and 5 homework assignments due this week. As everyone's favorite British coffee man James Hoffmann puts it, I am a Weird Coffee Person. I love brewing coffee, I love drinking coffee, I love getting up to coffee experiments. (I am also a fan of weird drinks, so when I can make a weird coffee drink, that's a two-for-one combo!)

But, here's the thing: being a coffee nerd can get expensive. There's a lot of coffee gear where you get what you pay for, and there's a lot more that isn't exactly bad, but the price is mostly hype. What if you want to spend the least you can to get to a good cup of coffee? I'm not gonna say I have the only answer, but I've found a setup that works pretty well for me. Read on, maybe it'll work for you too.

Gear

My coffee station looks like this:

That's it, nothing too fancy. I bought the Aeropress myself, got the kettle and grinder as gifts, and found the scale lying around the house. Total, it's somewhere in the ballpark of $150. I could upgrade to a full-on espresso machine, and I might do that once I have a (hopefully) high-paying engineering job. But then I'd have to upgrade my grinder too, and at that point I'm putting a whole bunch of money into upgrading my whole setup. Better to do that later, once I've hopefully got more time and money. Espresso machines are kind of a "buy once, cry once" thing.

Big Stuff

So, why the Aeropress? I like that it's incredibly versatile, compact, and brewing is very tactile but still easy enough that I can do it after I've rolled out of bed with 30 minutes 'til class. I use paper filters, but I might pick up a metal one at some point because it does alter the flavor profile. I do have an Ikea French press and it does come in handy sometimes, but I use the Aeropress for the vast majority of my brewing. Regular cups, espresso-like milk drinks, cold brew without the overnight wait, the Aeropress does it all.

An electric kettle with temperature control gives you some another variable to play with, and water temp makes a huge difference once you start exploring medium and light roasts. I personally love that mine has 5-degree increments, but one with presets would work too.
Your scale doesn't need to be too fancy, it's just a kitchen scale. I use mine for coffee just as often as I do for cooking and baking. Mine only has 1g precision, and that's plenty; I never see recipes that go down to a 0.1g level.

Finally, a grinder. Fresh coffee beans make the biggest difference, so you have to get a grinder. I think basically everyone's got this Cuisinart one. As far as I can tell, it's fine if you're not doing espresso, which works for me! I follow this grind size guide from Honest Coffee Guide though, because what the grinder has marked as "medium" is actually pretty coarse. I also only put in one dose of beans at a time and keep the rest in a fancy metal vacuum canister I got from Kavarna Cafe in Green Bay.

Little Stuff

The two other little things I have are a bowl for measuring the beans and a little spritz bottle of water to mist the beans. It's called the Ross Droplet Technique (don't know who Ross is lol), and it's actually scientifically proven to reduce the amount of static generated when grinding beans, which gives you less mess and better coffee. Pick one up whenever you pass by the travel toiletries section at any superstore, it's cheap and worth it.

I also keep some cheap, dollar-store squeeze bottles on hand for when I wanna store some fancy homemade syrups. Really helpful for getting precise amounts of syrups, and the flavor of a fresh fruit syrup (actually really easy to make!) is like nothing else.

On Beans

I guess it isn't gear, but like I said before, the number one thing you need to get right is good, fresh coffee beans. I'm blessed with Milwaukee's awesome coffee scene, so I can actually go to a local coffee shop or grocery store and just buy some good beans! At most shops, it's under 20 bucks for between 12 oz to a pound of coffee. For my fellow Milwaukeeans: Valentine Coffee and Stone Creek Coffee are my go-tos, Colectivo is meh, and Anodyne actually used to be my favorite but they're owned by a union-busting private equity corp now so fuck 'em. There's so many smaller roasteries that either are local or sell through local shops, so I could spend so much time (and money) trying all of them! Most areas have some local roasteries, so definitely do some searching online if you don't know where to start.

You can also find some decent big-box store beans once in a while. I've heard Costco occasionally has some good coffee, like their "Limited Edition Single Origin" stuff. Another one of my favorite coffee Youtubers, Morgan Eckroth, has a fantastic video where they try a whole bunch of them.