Yeah, coffee is bad for you but we’re still going to drink it, right?
So at least let’s look at how to keep it on a budget.
No, I’m not going to start this post by running a terrifying calculation of how much getting drive thru coffee several times a week actually costs.
It’s bad. Bad for the wallet and bad for the gut.
Let’s just half this and let coffee be bad for the gut only.
Let me preface this by talking about how I drink coffee (this is the kind of paragraph you can skip without losing any essential information. It doesn’t advance the plot, it’s pure character development).
I drink coffee seasonally. Not autumn or spring but my own seasons, when I suddenly feel the irresistible urge to accomplish this daily ritual of leaving my house with my spouse for a ten minute drive of random conversation or daydreaming silence to show up in front of a speaker and let a stranger know I’ve mastered the skill of ordering on an app.
It’s the ritual of being delighted or disappointed depending on the location or the barista. The ritual of sitting inside the coffee shop on the weekends edit chapters and posts while the best and worst playlist blares.
Then inevitably, the every day ritual slacks off, days become every other day and that eventually becomes weeks. Tragically, my hard-earned stars expire and the staunch betrayal has me swear to the Atlantean gods I shall never exchange my digital money for burnt roast sloshed with oat milk ever again.
As I’m writing this, my current season hasn’t ended yet, in fact it hasn’t even dwindled. Still I have scoured the underbrush of the internet and found a used espresso machine. A Delonghi Dedica EC680R. It’s a long time coming, I’ve been wanting one for years. But I was still grappling with the fact that coffee, ultimately is bad. Especially when you drink it every day. Buying a machine would simply enable that. But as one grows older, one simply accepts that some flaws must run their course.
Now I have to figure out a few things and firstly what the f*ck is a back flush?
Come back for part 2! It will include deep cleaning the machine before use. Buying the correct accessories and first failures trying to make a good espresso shot! Should be loads of fun mishaps. And pictures. And videos.
Camille Charles is the voice behind The Minimalist Herbalist. She is an Herbal Researcher, Best-Selling Author and Consumer Advocate. You can find her distilling rose water in her instant pot, repurposing olive jars to store her cacao butter and overnight nettle infusions. She talks way too much about tinctures for womb health. When not writing or checking on her brews, she designs graphics.