First off: Best thread ever!

For the longest time, there has been nothing even remotely close to Starbucks in ORK, and the only thing there is now is at the airport itself. This wouldn't be a problem, save for most of the coffee shops in town are rubbish. Bewley's is the coffee equivalent of a kick in the kidneys, and despite the heritage factor, I can't bring myself to drink Tim Horton's unless it's the only thing available.

Luckily, there's a guy just around the corner from work who does restaurant supply and will talk your ear off about coffee for hours if you let him, half an hour if you don't! And I figured by the amount of coffee I'd otherwise drink, I may as well just get a good home machine and let the economics work themselves out.

He fixed me up with a Fracino Heavenly, after a lengthy history lesson about the quality of Gaggia machines in the 80s, and a guarantee that it's just as good as the Italian machines, despite being made in Birmingham. Two years on I'm basically convinced that he was right, not to mention that the machine itself is incredibly simple and on the odd time I've had issues with it he's explained how to fix it with barely more than a screwdriver and a set of pliers. Another plus being how easy it is to clean and maintain. I end up going over it every few months to give it a thorough clean, and only gone through one seal ring so far, although they last a year or so IMO. The pump may have to be changed out in a few years, but at that point I might look into a similar rotary pump rather than the vane one that's supplied. But all in all, it's a fantastic machine that I wouldn't trade for anything and WILL be moving with us, after a few upgrades to plumb it into the water line and whatever plug needs changing/adapting to wherever we move.

That said, the quality of the machine is only part of the story. The machine package came with an innova burr grinder (The Ascaso, I believe? I never remember the model) which is fantastically sensitive as far as grind goes, if a bit loud. Luckily, as I've found with the Heavenly, the grind is a pretty integral part of the process and even successive bags of the same roast from the same company may be slightly different. Usually a turn or two is enough to change the output from the machine. It's pre-divided into single-shot segments so that two pulls on the handle gives you just enough for a double, if it's set right. And it's surprisingly resilient to rocks trying to masquerade as coffee beans.

Coffee-wise, I get the Cofesa Inda wholesale from my coffee guy for about half the cost of any of the local roasters (and given their skills with coffee, their roast isn't anything special). It's not quite as dark roast as I'd like, but after pricing out a few home roasters, it's probably not worth it to change. Plus, the coffee's actually quite good, if only a bit light, especially at the beginning of a new bag. And my coffee guy goes through at least a pallet of the stuff every week, so it's always fresh when I pick it up.

Storage-wise, we picked up a couple vacuum containers recently that do a great job of keeping out the air and keeping in the taste. They really extend the lifetime of a kilo of beans (I've tried to get them in smaller bags, but to limited success). Before, you could easily tell the difference between the end of one bag and the new one, but keeping them just in a vacuum and only taking out a few days' worth at a time certainly helps. There's still a change, but it's much less than before. And the vacuum containers worked so well for coffee, we've bought a second set and store all kinds of stuff in them.