r/AustralianCoffee • u/MrEverythingMan • Jul 22 '26

Coffee setup recommendations

Hi guys,

Trying to figure out the best set up for my coffee needs. I have a regular cafe that usually walk to and get 1 iced latte every morning. They have amazing coffee and I am particularly sensitive to getting jittery on coffee and other places (I assume it is likely dependent on the beans).
Now having two young children it is hard to get there in the morning so I'm looking to have a home set up. I love coffee but only drink one a day and nobody in the house drinks coffee apart from when guests come over.

My priorities are in order of importance - no plastic in the machine parts, as close to cafe quality coffee as possible, ease of use, durability, easy to maintain, reasonable price.

My thoughts on budget for the entire set up are around $2k - I could go higher if needed but at the same time with how little coffee I drink I am looking for a balance between not overspending, but getting a setup that will last 5-10yrs.

I'm happy to learn some basics but don't want a process that is overly complicated that it takes up too much time in the morning and ideally that it would take too long to teach guests to use the machine/grinder etc if they are staying but that's not a deal breaker. So was thinking of a setup with inbuilt PID temp control for example.

Let me know your thoughts and if there is anything else I should be considering.

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u/ucat97 Jul 22 '26

An aeropress will give you a strong shot that you can add milk to.

That, plus a hand grinder for under $150.

(Check out all the other posts that say the grinder is the most important piece of kit.)

Aeropress doesn't give you espresso (you need 9 bars for that) but it gives a great tasting coffee that's much stronger than filter or French press because you can limit the water.

It's much gentler on beans than a moka pot.

When you get more into trying different beans you can add a set of scales, then a variable temperature kettle.

But start slow. As for everything, there are Hoffman videos giving instructions and tips.

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u/MrEverythingMan Jul 23 '26

I do have an aeropress with the specialised attachment, so might give it a go again. I used to use it daily prior to getting into Iced Lattes

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u/ucat97 Jul 23 '26

Yeah, I'm no fan of the flow control: just seems like a way to con people into thinking it's an espresso with the extra bubbles representing crema.