Buying a grinder, French press and bags of beans is not very expensive. Maybe $0.25 a cup depending on the quality of beans you get, plus an initial investment of ~$50 for equipment.
Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only option.
> Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only option.
The price per ounce of coffee on those drinks has got to be astronomical!
I didn't drink coffee when I first moved to New Mexico, but after trying to local piñon coffee I'm a convert--luckily, I can get a 5 lb bag of the beans at Costco for about $30!
I managed to get myself hooked on some of our local small-batch roasters. I've specifically been buying Trifecta beans lately, and while the price of $10-15/lb isn't too bad, the need to purchase pastries and one of their unique espresso drinks every time I stop by for a pound of beans certainly isn't doing my wallet any favors.
I've been debating picking up some Piñon from Costco sometime soon to save a few bucks, but have a question about that - do you find that whatever they add to the beans can gum up your grinder?
Where does one find good dark roast beans? The on-line descriptions of flavor are not very helpful. I guess what I need is a sampler: a few ounces each of a bunch of beans. Alternatively, I'll listen to advice on good dark roast beans.
Not knowing the coffee culture of your particular locale, I’ll just offer some generic suggestions:
* Try out a few local coffee shops - and I mean local artisan coffee shops, that sell hipster shit like pour-overs and espresso con pano. They tend to actually care about what they sell, rather than some other coffee shops that just sell diner-style coffee and pastries for people to grab on the way to work.
* Get to know the baristas/roaster(s)/owner(s), and try out their different coffee options. I know of several local places that offer (at least) dark and light roast drip coffee options, sometimes with several different pour-over options (my current favorite probably offers about a dozen different bean options, give or take).
* See if they sell beans or can point you in the direction of where they buy beans.
As far as I know, oily beans are what you want for a good, full-city (very dark) roast. The article you linked is definitely an opinion piece - I’ve never met a roaster who didn’t think a dark roast, or at least a very dark roast, should be roasted to “first crack”, though most are opposed to “second crack” (what Starbucks does, and it’s essentially burning the beans).
Having worked at a few cafes in my day, you’d be amazed at the profit margins on coffee. It costs pennies for the typical cafe to sell a cup of black coffee at ~$2.50.
The margins are good, but from my experience (which was a long time ago tbf), a lot more profit came from food. A small cafe isn’t doing badly to sell 200-300 coffees a day. Even if you’re selling 300 at $4, that’s only $1200 in revenue. Margins on food aren’t as good, but you’d be hoping to make 3x-4x revenue on food compared to coffee. Keeping in mind that a even a small cafe would likely be running at least a couple grand in expenses per day (with the biggest being rent and payroll).
Exactly, every hobby or indulgence has extremes. I'm happy with my ~$200 in coffee equipment and $5-10/lb coffee. But, plenty of other people spend thousands on equipment and buy $20-30+/lb coffee.
All things considered, coffee is a fairly cheap hobby. At the extreme end you’ve got espresso machines and personal roasters, of course, but for the average coffee connoisseur, excellent equipment is attainable for a few hundred dollars.
>but for the average coffee connoisseur, excellent equipment is attainable for a few hundred dollars.
I think this is generally true of most hobbies (jokingly it's what I use to define a hobby, something that you can, but don't have spend at least 1000 USD on).
To pick one I recently started on you can get started brewing beer for under 100 dollars. You can get perfectly acceptable, even excellent beer using basic equipment. Then, if you want you can go out and spend thousands of dollars on pressure transfer equipment, kegging tools, stainless steel fermenters and etc.
> Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only option.
That's only a fashion statement, which, like all other fashion statements, don't go for any quality or smart/educated choice but pure social signaling.
Nobody with any functional taste buds in places like Italy goes to Starbucks. Only those desperately lost and having herd mentality, similar to folks in France eating in McDonald (and there are tons of those).
/rant
Btw if kitchen hob is available, I consider Italian press (aka Moka pot) superior to French press, and more efficient in extracting flavors and potency (so also more economical in long run). Prices tend to be similar.
Spending $5 on a blended pseudo coffee drink at Starbucks is not the only option.