Home Coffee Got Better Than the Cafe. The Cleanup Still Has Not.

Do you like coffee? I really do.

In Korea, it is surprisingly hard to find someone who says they do not drink coffee. One cup after waking up, one after arriving at work, one after lunch. Some people drink it to wake up, some out of habit, and some because holding something in their hand makes the day feel easier. I was mostly in that group. On heavy days, I would drink four or five cups.

That does not mean I was always interested in coffee gear. For a long time, coffee was not complicated for me. Usually I bought it at a cafe. When I made coffee at home, I boiled water, hung a drip bag, poured slowly, drank it, and that was enough. A single electric kettle was enough. I bought a Fellow Stagg EKG 600 ml in matte black because I liked the idea of controlling the temperature by one-degree increments, and for a few years that felt plenty.

Even now, I think it was a good starting point. Setting the water temperature, pouring slowly, and making a drip bag with a little more care made the coffee feel better. And it looked good. At the time, that was enough. I did not think I needed more equipment.

Then I bought a HARIO drip stand set, WDS-1006-WN. That was one step beyond the drip bag. Fold the paper filter, grind beans, bloom, pay attention to the stream of water. It sounds grand, but I was mostly copying what I had seen on YouTube. I cannot say I clearly understood the taste from the beginning. I simply liked the feeling of making coffee with my own hands, and the smell spreading through the house.

YouTube played a part too. I began watching coffee channels that covered cafe tours, specialty coffee, bean recommendations, and extraction recipes. At first they were just background videos. Then curiosity grew. What is acidity? What is sweetness? What is a clean cup? I still cannot say I know all of those terms precisely. But at some point, coffee stopped being something I drank without thinking.

I had no idea it would go this far. Not then.

I bought a used BALMUDA The Brew

Then someone I know mentioned BALMUDA The Brew. “Among the coffee products I bought, this is the one I use with the most satisfaction,” he said. It was a little expensive, but pretty, stable, and convenient in the morning. I had never disliked BALMUDA products. The brand sometimes feels like it sells atmosphere before function, but I do not mind that atmosphere.

While we were still talking, I opened a local resale marketplace and bought the best-looking listing I could find. I picked it up that evening for about $215. Looking back, that was the first turning point where the equipment started to multiply.

BALMUDA The Brew was satisfying. It was more consistent than my hand brewing, and the coffee tasted better than I expected. In the morning, putting in beans and water, then pressing a button, was comfortable. Hand brewing has its own fun, but on lazy days, a machine that does the job well is the best. There are many lazy days.

At that point I was slowly stepping into the world of coffee. Not quite enough to call it a hobby, but calling it a gear obsession would also have felt unfair.

If it had stopped there, I probably would not be writing this.

Rancilio Silvia Pro X: a price like that changes things

I did not originally plan to buy this. After watching more coffee videos, my eyes had started wandering toward equipment like La Marzocco. Then one day I found out that the Rancilio Silvia Pro X had been heavily discounted. The usual price was around $1,625, but it was available for about $925. A 43 percent discount. Even if you did not know much about the Silvia Pro X, that kind of price weakens the mind. Especially if you are already slightly interested in coffee.

An espresso machine is a different world from a drip machine. There is milk steaming, portafilters, tamping accessories, grind size sensitivity, extraction time. From there, coffee at home begins to feel less like making a drink and more like bringing a small cafe into the house.

Then the reasoning begins. I drink coffee often anyway. If I think about what I spend outside, maybe this makes sense long term. If I make better coffee at home, that is good. If I am doing it, I should do it properly. I asked AI more than once whether the purchase could be reasonable. Humans are very good at building reasons when they want to buy something. AI is, unfortunately, quite good at helping.

So I bought it. Once the Silvia Pro X came in, I realized how much I did not know. Coffee suddenly became work. In the best sense, I could make coffee at home that tasted genuinely good. In the annoying sense, I had to store beans, grind, dose, tamp, extract, steam, wipe, throw things away, and wipe again. A single cup requires more hands than expected.

Still, the taste is really good. That is the problem. If it were only annoying, I could stop. But when it tastes good, I do it again. Some days the coffee feels better than a cafe’s. Not always. If the grind is off, the beans are not right, or the milk steaming fails, reality returns quickly. In the beginning, I threw away much more coffee than I drank. But one good cup has a strong pull.

I bought the machine, then somehow had two grinders

This is the problem with entering coffee. I thought buying the espresso machine would be the end. It was not. People keep saying the grinder matters more than the machine. I heard that too. If you are going to spend, spend on the grinder. A small difference in grind can change the taste completely. The same beans can taste bitter one day, hollow the next, and suddenly good another day.

I first noticed the Silvia Pro X discount while looking at a Silvia Pro X and Mahlkonig X54 set priced around $1,235. I was satisfied with the X54, but around then the newer X64SD also caught my eye. If you ask why I needed two grinders, I also feel a little blank. Once the buying instinct woke up, good-looking equipment started entering the house. I can say they have different purposes. One is a more general home grinder that works well when making several cups, and the other is better suited for single dosing. But the logic of coffee gear usually sounds like this: “The use cases are different.”

By this point I was not always sure whether I was drinking coffee or touching equipment. I opened a bag of beans, changed the grind, checked how many seconds the shot ran, and thought about the taste. Before, I simply drank coffee. Now I kept evaluating it. I still do not know whether that is a good change or a tiring one. More than anything, there are moments when I wonder whether I am even tasting well. That stage arrives faster than expected.

I also bought things like a Pesado bottomless portafilter and a Pesado x AD Coffee self-leveling spring tamper. With a bottomless portafilter, you immediately see when the extraction is wrong. If coffee sprays everywhere, your heart sprays with it. When it flows beautifully, you feel oddly proud. Honestly, this is fun to watch even before it is about taste.

And then there was Fellow Aiden

It would have been nice if things ended there. They did not. There was Fellow Aiden. At first I saw it around $390. It was pretty and I was curious, but I already had BALMUDA The Brew, the Silvia Pro X, and grinders. There was no strong reason to buy another coffee maker.

Then one day, on 29CM, a Korean lifestyle commerce platform, the price dropped into the $260 range. That is difficult. When a Fellow Aiden that used to sit around $390 becomes about $260, can you really not buy it?

Actually, you can. A normal person can simply not buy it. If you already have three ways to make coffee, there are not many reasons to add another automatic coffee maker.

Fellow Aiden probably deserves its own long note later. The product itself has many interesting points, and there is plenty to compare with BALMUDA The Brew. Both are automatic drip machines, but they feel different. BALMUDA The Brew feels right at home, while Fellow Aiden may be better suited for the office. I really will write that separately later.

The coffee is better than the cafe. The cleanup is still annoying.

As the equipment multiplied, I drank too much coffee for about the first month. When you buy new gear, you have to test it. Change beans, change grind size, heat milk, make iced drinks, try automatic drip. Before long, there is too much coffee in a day. The body notices first. Sleep gets weird, or the eyelids twitch. So I reduced it for a while.

These days I am back to about one cup a day. That feels right. Not careless, but not overly conscious either. My hands have learned a little too. Some days I let the automatic machine handle it. Some days I pull espresso. Some days I am too lazy and do nothing. Having more coffee gear does not make me diligent every day. Still, I now bring coffee I brewed myself to work more often than I buy it outside.

Many times, coffee made at home tastes better to me than coffee from a cafe. I use beans I like, adjust it to my taste, and control the amount. But the cleanup is still annoying. No matter how good the equipment gets, that does not change much. Grounds appear, water spills, the steam wand needs wiping, the portafilter needs washing. Still, compared with the beginning, the process has become much simpler.

So the phrase “home cafe” is half romance and half dishwashing. It looks pretty in photos, and when a cup comes out well, it feels good. Behind it, there is always a wet cloth, coffee residue, and things waiting to be cleaned.

A home cafe is half romance and half dishwashing. Still, tomorrow morning’s cup is something to look forward to.

Even if I went back, I would probably buy several of these again. The Fellow Stagg EKG is still good. BALMUDA The Brew was satisfying at the used price. The Silvia Pro X takes work, but it is fun. The Mahlkonig grinders each have a role and help me make coffee I enjoy.

This is less a gear review than a first attempt to lay out the things I have collected. Later, I want to write separately about why BALMUDA The Brew feels satisfying, what the Silvia Pro X is like in Korea where it is not especially common, how I use the X54 and X64SD, and what Fellow Aiden does well.

In the first note I wrote after reopening this blog, I said I regretted not having records that future me could open again. Coffee gear is the same. I bought it, used it, enjoyed it, found it annoying, and still liked it.

The coffee is better than the cafe. The cleanup is still annoying. Even so, I am looking forward to tomorrow morning’s coffee.