I'm pondering getting a coffee machine at home. 400 EUR is not a sizable investment and one I'd have forgotten about it 3 months but I'm getting cold feet when it gets to committing.
Americano coffee definitely picks me up and is a full net positive for me. But that's only if I drink 2-3 times a week. Not sure how it's going to be if I start getting it every day.
Caffeine makes me feel like I'm overclocked, but Adderall lets me run tasks async. The latter is so much more preferable for dealing with the demands of life.
Medicate at 4pm, then I know I can effortlessly interleave chores, family time, social obligations, and my own creative pursuits. Otherwise I'd spend my evenings on the couch stuck trying to offload unsolved problems of the workday.
Vigorous exercise accomplishes the same thing, but I can't always make that happen "as-needed".
I just need something like the Americano every now and then really.
I agree on vigorous exercise completely. My last two jobs have been (well, the current one still is) hugely demanding and that led to me dropping a lot of exercise. Still trying to understand why and to undo that because I gained back 5kg (sigh).
Tried Earl Grey too. It's actually awesome but I must be careful; easy to go above a certain dose that just tires me and makes me crash.
One thing I'll try before considering the coffee machine really seriously: theacrine pills. I'll give them 2-3 weeks and will make a decision.
My stimulant of choice now is low-dose nicotine patches which I feel is extremely underrated, and demonised because of the effects of smoking and vaping. Mind you: I am an ex-smoker and I am quite aware of how strong the addiction can be, yet pure nicotine is the most mellow stimulant there is.
It's been 2 years now since I replaced my ADHD medication with nicotine and I haven't felt the need to increase the dosage. It's cheaper, lasts MUCH longer, doesn't cause anxiety and it doesn't push you around like amphetamine.
YMMV.
Highly unlikely that 2-3 times a week will last though - either religiously stick to once a week or be open to drinking it daily.
What's good about the aero-press and the French press btw? I am only just trying to understand the landscape.
Americano means nothing - its just diluted strong coffee (eg espresso, moka pot). You probably need to learn how much actual coffee your body can handle.
I handle very little, so have a 1 cup moka pot which takes 9-10g of ground coffee. And that's pushing my upper limit. My body can usually handle better a very unsatisfying 6-7g brewed. I need to find some good decaf... (though I have a line on Laurina coffee, which has half as much caffeine. Hopefully I can get some soon).
French press is just a really easy way to get a great cup of coffee. You don't even need one - you could just make cowboy coffee (grounds in hot water) and carefully decant it out at after 5-10 min. Look up James Hoffman french press method. His aeropress series is good too.
You also need to learn that all of this stuff that everyone says is just drug addict self-talk coping. You only actually get a boost at first, and then your body adapts and is in caffeine deficit and is just trying to get back to baseline with more coffee.
The healthiest way to do any of this would be to try as you said (but likely unsuccessfully) to limit your coffee intake to 2-3 days a week, so that you might actually get a kick rather than just sustain your addiction. Once a week as a special occasion might be more successful. It should be treated as a healthy person treats alcohol...
I'm not even joking with all this drug addict talk.
How big is your moka pot? A "4 cup" Bialetti takes around 16-18g of coffee, which isn't a lot.
No matter how dilute your end product is, the amount of caffeine consumed will roughly be about the same. But I guess diluting it means you take longer to consume all that caffeine.
The moka pot would be better if you have easy access to cooking facilities (the stainless versions are also easier to clean, and work on induction).
The AeroPress would be better if you only have access to hot water.
It's too concentrated.
Get an Aeropress, or Hario Switch, or Clever dripper. A kettle and some filters. For beans buy from roasters that do light/meduim roasts, and print a recent roasting date on the package/website. The only expensive item should be a grinder, look at 1zpresso Q/Air/X or Kingrinder K6 if you want to limit price.
What I am mostly looking for is some sort of an easy access to a diluted coffee like the Americano, really. I am OK with buying 1-2kg of beans because I am fairly sure that's going to last me 3-6 months. Cleaning the machine I've done in offices -- 3 minute job.
But any more commitment just sounds tiring. I am not a coffee connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. But light caffeine doses absolutely do help me in very measurable ways. I need easy access to that.
Buying a coffee machine is not a big commitment obviously, I am just afraid I'll deem the experiment unsuccessful in a month and then I'll have a nice machine lying around doing nothing that I can't easily sell.
This style, pour over machine that grinds itself, but uses all water you put in, so it's not fully automatic.
It's automatic enough, but also very cheap. Maybe even ⅒ of a price of a fancy espresso machine. And you can add "too much" water (than the setting you set) to make lighter coffee.
But I have to agree with others: for my diluted espresso desires, I used (and still have) an Aeropress for years and it's simply fantastic. Low cost, almost zero maintenance, good results. Very similar output to an americano though lower on crema.
For a similar coffee with more manual work, get a Chemex
I have a very nice grinder: a solis caffissima digital coffee grinder. It is available under a different brand name in the US I think.
I make filter coffee with a very basic earthenware filter holder with melitta high quality yet very normal filters and sometimes I mix it up with an aeropress which offers a different type of taste because of the low acidity way of making coffee. I just drip the coffee into a nice thermos so I can make 4 cups in one go and just pour from the thermos.
My coffee is much nicer than I get in most places, both professional and at homes and it doesn’t cost me a lot in effort, money and, very importantly, workspace footprint.
Espresso machines require a lot of space and maintenance and trouble to make.
Having said all this, I am quite intrigued about all the stories about the negative effects of coffee. I just thought it was about influencing sleep, but I had never thought about the memory and mood effects. I will study this some more in the coming months.
