Barista Tools You Need to Amp Up Your Coffee Set Up
Home is Where the Coffee Is
For those of us who love coffee, there’s nothing quite like the decadent smell of roasted beans and the familiar gurgle of espresso being freshly brewed. Many of us have to travel to our local coffee shop for a slice of heaven, but why not create your own setup right in the comfort of your own abode?
With the right set of barista tools, you can infuse your passion for coffee into your home by creating a rustic and charming home café setup. It’s a great way to give your home a personal touch and will even save you a ton of money in the long run!
6 Barista Tools to Elevate Your Home Café
Let’s take a look at some essential tools that’ll not only help to elevate the quality of your coffee, but will also look great with your home décor!
1. Espresso Tamper
Packing your coffee grounds nice and tight sounds simple, but it truly is an art form that can only be perfected with the right barista tools. A stainless steel espresso tamper combines sleek design with a good amount of heft so that you can really ensure the coffee gets packed nice and tight into the basket. Grounds that are too loosely packed result in a weak and watered-down final result, which is hardly ideal when you’re craving that perfect shot of espresso!
Have you seen our range of EspressoWorks Tampers?
2. Digital Kitchen Scale
Without the right barista tools, your coffee might turn out different each time, the ultimate exercise in frustration. An accurate digital scale will allow aspiring home baristas to perfect their signature recipes down to the minutest of grams. Achieving consistency and repeatability in your home café will help make every cup of coffee an absolute treat to enjoy.
Shop the EspressoWorks Digital Kitchen Scale
3. Coffee Grounds Knock Box
This barista tool is often overlooked, but is essential for any home café setup that aims to be kept clean and tidy. A knock box (like the EspressoWorks Espresso Grounds Knock Box) is used to store spent grounds after a shot of espresso has been extracted from a coffee machine. To get the tightly-packed coffee grounds dislodged, knock boxes often take a bit of a beating (hence their name) and need to be sturdy to a fault. Knock boxes should also be easy to clean and have an included rod to help extract any stuck coffee grounds. With this seemingly-simple barista tool, your home café will keep neat and tidy.
4. Airtight Coffee Canister
Coffee beans are to a home barista what gold and treasures are to a pirate. We always want more, but we also need somewhere to store our glorious haul. Enter the airtight coffee canister. This simple barista tool lets you store a week’s worth of coffee beans while maintaining their freshness and preventing contaminants from ruining their purity. Though coffee beans don’t necessarily go ‘bad’ for quite some time, they can lose their freshness quickly if not stored correctly. A home café simply wouldn’t be homely without great coffee, which is why it’s so important to store your beans properly.
5. Battery-Operated Milk Frother
Making the perfect cup of coffee doesn’t simply end when you’ve extracted a great shot of espresso. For those who enjoy cappuccinos and lattes, a milk frother is an essential barista tool for success. While manual and plug-in milk frothers exist, those tools are cumbersome and can get you all in a tangle. Instead, a battery-operated milk frother gives you exceptional control so you can create fluffy froth that would make the pros jealous! Best of all, since you don’t need to plug it in, you can froth milk as you multitask and get other things done – an ideal tool for those who are on tight deadlines and working from home!
6. Manual Burr Grinder
Burr grinders are the best way to ensure you achieve a consistent and delicious tasting brew. Instead of using blades, which chop coffee beans unevenly and even add heat to create an uneven taste profile, burr grinders use conical burrs that grind coffee beans evenly and without adding heat in the process. The result is wonderful, rich coffee grounds that your espresso machine will have no trouble turning into a truly delectable shot of espresso.
Don’t Tool Around
Creating a customized home café setup is a therapeutic and rewarding process that gives you the freedom to craft high-quality coffee just as you like it. However, as with most things in life, the devil is in the details. The perfect prep leads to the best results, and it’s impossible to brew great coffee without equally-great barista tools.
Once you have the right set of tools on hand, you might just find that your friends and family start asking to come around more often, especially to chat over a stellar cup of coffee!
