I’ve never been a hardcore coffee fan.
Sure, I liked the readymade Nescafé that’s pretty popular on our side of the world. I also indulged myself in fancy (read expensive) coffees at proper coffee shops every once in a while. But that was about it.
Until a friend and colleague got me into the elaborate world of coffee. (Which, I think, is payback for getting him into the world of photography and camera gear!)
The world of coffee enthusiasts is big and complicated for anyone looking in. Not only are there many, many different types of coffees, but there are endless ways of making them.
For example, hardcore coffee enthusiasts care about their coffee being at the perfect temperature, and yes, there are tools to ensure water is heated (and held) at a preset temperature.
I didn’t mind upgrading my coffee experience from stale Nescafé. But, knowing myself, I doubted I’d enjoy doing more than necessary.
So, my friend gifted me an Aeropress Go, which offers a quick and easy way to make some nice coffee.
The trouble was, I didn’t have a grinder. Or a scale, for that matter. I could buy ground coffee from coffee shops, but it didn’t feel as fresh as grinding beans and making coffee.
So, I got myself a grinder from 1zpresso.
This is the K-Plus model. With the solid build quality and premium materials, it impressed me enough that I didn’t want to make it dirty by grinding coffee with it. 😂 It sat for a couple of days until I finally used it today.
I also bought a scale. While it’s possible to guesstimate, the proper balance of coffee and water is important in ensuring the coffee tastes better and not just bitter.
The scale is called TIMEMORE Mirror Basic Plus. It’s a tad bigger than I expected, but the smaller one my friend has is also pretty fancier. (It has Bluetooth and does a lot of fancy stuff.) So, despite the bigger size, the simpler scale is perfect for me.
I’m also pretty impressed by its sensitivity. You can literally blow air into it, and it’ll detect how much your breath weighs!
Anyway, having procrastinated for a solid week before getting the coffee gear out to film making a coffee, I finally made the video.
As you can guess, I’m not a coffee expert. In fact, there’s a mistake on camera (which largely happened due to my focus being on the camera and not on the coffee). Can you guess what it is?
A few nerdy notes:
The video was shot on my favorite camera, Canon EOS R5, with the amazing RF 24-105mm F/4L.
I edited the full 4K video with DaVinci Resolve on a 13-inch MacBook Air with M2.
The MacBook Air performs well, but I didn’t expect to be able to flawlessly edit on a 4K timeline. Granted, there aren’t special effects to slow the editing process down, but I’m happy that I can cut and edit blazing fast without seeing any frame drops.
Here’s a list of the coffee gear you see in this video:
Hope you enjoyed the video!