Okay it's been about a year and a half since the first “5 tips to build the ultimate home coffee station” video. So today I thought I’d share 5 MORE tips to build the ultimate home coffee station.
But first, let’s recap what I covered in that original piece.
Tip 1: What are you brewing? Consider all the different brewing methods you’ll want to incorporate into your coffee bar - from espresso to pourovers and everything in between.
Tip 2: Allocating space and the perfect coffee bar. You’ll want to measure the dimensions of your largest equipment and make sure you have a bar or sideboard that fits the depth of that item. You’ll also want ample space for all your other equipment pieces and room for your own personal workflow.
Tip 3: Workflow! You’ll want to think about how you’ll move from left to right or right to left and consider the placement of your grinder, knockbox, tamping station, etc. relative to your espresso machine itself.
Tip 4: Keep it clean. Bar mats are a great tool I use to keep my station clean. In addition to that I have this nice little brush set I buy every couple months to replace old brushes that I keep near the knockbox. And maybe most importantly, the Mocha Mondays puck screens to keep my machine’s group clean! Link to these in the description.
And Tip 5: Aesthetics and decor. Be sure to personalize and make your coffee bar, your own. I think at this point mine has this sort of signature black wall, warm edison bulbs, and walnut accents from the shelves to the sideboard to the tools I use.
Alright, so now here are 5 more tips to build the ultimate home coffee station.
Tip 6: Electricals. If you’ve got a lot of different machines like I do here, then you’ll need a way to keep those cables relatively well organized. My biggest secret to keeping cables easily accessible yet clean, is to use a massive surge protector.
I like this one from Amazon Basics and it's a 5ft or roughly 1.5m long surge protector that I actually keep mounted to the wall behind my coffee bar.
This way I can keep the cables close to the machines, and I don’t have to deal with trying to figure out which cable is for which machine versus a traditional surge protector where it might just be one big mess.
Tip 7: Lighting. Now this is a weird one, and probably won’t apply to the majority of you. But, I take a lot of pictures and videos of this corner. Yet, it’s dark and quite hard to light nicely, especially since I have not a lot of natural light facing this way.
Right now with this setup, the best way I can light the bar is to essentially bounce my key light off the ceiling to create a soft light situation.
I’ve also very recently decided to move my light tubes off of the small wall on the side and mount them underneath my Grovemade shelves pointing downwards to create this nice soft lighting effect going down the wall.
The Edison bulbs are great, but are just very warm, which of course does lead to that signature black and warm tone look on my Instagram page, but is not necessarily a look I want in every photo and video.
Tip 8: Water! One thing to keep in mind is what kind of water filling method you use. Obviously when it comes to a coffee bar and optimal organization, a plumbed-in line would be great. But for most of us, that’s probably not an option.
For most people, you’ll likely resort to filling your machine with a pitcher.
Most water tanks on espresso machines will be on the back or top areas of the machine, so try to keep that area as clear as possible. This may be a challenge if your machine is under a kitchen cabinet.
If you have a machine like the Lelit Bianca where the water tank is movable, consider the side you’ll place it and how easily it may be to fill it up.
For the longest time, I used a Brita filter. But recently, I started using Third Wave Water, who also happens to be sponsoring this video.
Now in the past it was not a practical solution to frequently buy gallons of distilled water to refill my machine. But, I found a little hack that has made this process a bit easier.
So I’ve added a 5-gallon water jug to my setup and got this simple little device off Amazon for like $14. Now, I just fill a huge cup like this cinema popcorn cup with my Third Wave Water and use that to fill my machines.
Not only is the process easy, but it also gives me the best mineral solution for espresso. And this 5-gallon jug lasts a very long time before needing to get a refill.
Tip 9: Storage! So my coffee bar, while seemingly organized, isn’t that organized. And that’s because I have a lot of coffee stuff. There are plenty of different methods for organizing your coffee stuff from shelves to pegboards to drawers.
Personally, I think the more that can be hidden, the better as it creates a cleaner look. So in my sideboard I have all my cups in this top drawer, some extra items like pitchers and saucers and tools in the second drawer, and I’ve been keeping all my old coffee bean bags from this past year in this bottom drawer - just for fun.
The right side is where I am currently storing the 5-gallon water jug and the left side is for just about everything else.
I think pegboards could also be a great storage option to utilize wall space, and there are plenty of cool pegboard accessories that can be 3D printed specifically for that purpose.
Tip 10: Smart Plugs and Devices! This has been my quote unquote hack for never having to wait for my machine to warm up in the morning.
I use these Kasa smart plugs that I can program with my phone and Google assistant. I have it set to turn on about an hour before I’m out of bed and to also auto turn off about 2 hours into the morning to save electricity.
I also use smart edison bulbs and LED strips that I have programmed to also turn on and off with the Google assistant.
And those are 5 more tips to help you design the ultimate home coffee station. If you have any other tips, be sure to let me know in the comment section down below.
I hope you enjoyed this video, don’t forget to leave a like and subscribe if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you in the next one.