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Making Good Coffee

When did you first get into coffee?

It took me a long time to start liking coffee. I didnt like tea or coffee up until I was around 22.

I started drinking flat whites, basically becuase I had no idea what I would like and I had watched a guy called Steve Booker on youtube (link below) who was really into them. Overtime, I started to not really like the milky taste of them, so I moved to drinking black americanos pretty quickly after that.

I started my first job after uni in 2018. This involved a lot of driving and visiting pubs clubs and restaurants around Scotland and severeal meetings per day. Most days I could have had 4 or 5 black americanos and got quite used to the bitterness and started to notice when one was particularly watery, weak or dull tasting.

It’s worth noting that I wasn’t sleeping very well during this time, with hindsight I realise it might have been the excessive americanos…

Svensk Kaffe?

A couple of years later I travelled to Sweden pretty regularly and developed a taste for strong filter coffee. I was really impressed by how much coffee the Scandinavians could handle and loved that they used a coffee and a cake as a way to pause during the day (“Fika”). There are loads of cool coffee spots in Stockholm but Bröd och Salt was my favourite chain.

After returning home, I had developed a taste for non-instant coffee so decided to up my coffee game. After a quick trip to Ikea, picked up a 1L cafetiere and i’ve never looked back.

How did you choose your first coffee?

Most FMCG brands make “customer profiles” that group consumers together based on the way they shop.

Some examples of customer profiles could be concerned about quality, they want to know the product their buying was specially selected above other alternatives.

Or loves to try new things, these types of customers will be love to be the first to know about new flavours and recipes and will try everything once.

At this stage of my life I probably fit into the extremely price concious profile. I was looking for the best £/100g that I could find. Which led me to trying a number of the pre-ground coffees available at Lidl.

My favourite to this day is their decaf ground coffee – really delicious!

Do you grind your own beans?

It was only in 2024 that I took the plunge to start grinding my own beans. This is where I got hooked on the process and realised I could make really interesting a great tasting coffee at home.

More on my current set up in the next post –

If you enjoyed this then please check out the rest of our blog where we review coffee shops, bakeries and cafes across Scotland. We are on the hunt to find the best Americano across the country…

Links to topics mentioned above –

Steve Booker – https://youtu.be/VUl4gxCWAQA?si=OH5Kdw5GcqP5D0CI

Bröd och Salt – https://brodsalt.se/?srsltid=AfmBOorMKLXac73NlGW5W6M_TLiX10jSeOGO2-i4ZgL2J1DvNjOSuAuy

Ikea cafetiere – https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/upphetta-coffee-tea-maker-glass-stainless-steel-60241389/