The $30 starter setup
Skip the machine, buy a scale — 5 min
Here is the whole starter kit: a pocket scale that reads to 0.1 g (about $12), a small french press (about $15, and you may already own one), and the freshest bag of whole beans your nearest roaster sells. That last item breaks the $30 budget — deliberately. The beans are the only part of the kit the cup can actually taste.
No machine. No gooseneck. No thermometer. Hot water and four minutes will outbrew most countertop machines once the inputs are weighed.
Interactive
250 g of water is fixed. Drag the dose and watch the cup change strength.
Try it in the Blend app
Why a scale before anything else: brewing is a ratio, and volume lies. A level scoop of dense light-roast beans can weigh a third more than the same scoop of puffed-up dark roast. Guess the dose and every other decision — grind, temperature, time — is built on sand.
Weigh the coffee, weigh the water, and suddenly a bad cup means something: it points at a variable you can actually turn. That is the entire trick of this course.
Note
Density is the culprit: roasting puffs beans like popcorn, so darker roasts take up more space per gram. Between two bags, one scoop can swing your ratio by 30% — invisible until a scale makes it visible.
Brew it with a guided timer.
Blend counts the pour, times every step, and saves what you change. Free on iOS and Android.