Coffee Gear Addiction: The Honest Truth

In this episode, I get brutally honest about something I've been reluctant to admit: gear matters, and I love it. After spending this year going deep into the rabbit hole of coffee equipment—buying almost everything in sight, including things I told myself I'd never purchase—I'm ready to have a real conversation about the coffee gear journey. I talk about my collection of brewers, my EK43 grinder, and how the excitement of new gear sometimes overshadows the beans themselves, even though I roast my own coffee and have access to whatever I want.

But here's the thing: while I confess my gear obsession, I also share the realization that most equipment produces fundamentally similar results. Yes, there are variations in sweetness, acidity, and certain aspects of the coffee, but for the most part, a good cup is a good cup regardless of whether you're using your trusty Hario V60 or the latest variation. I challenge both myself and you to appreciate what you already have, because you have enough tools in your toolbox to reach the promised land of understanding and enjoying your coffee. By the end of this episode, you'll understand why I'm planning to use just one brewer for an entire month, and why sometimes the simplest approach leads to the deepest appreciation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:46 My Gear Confession: I Love Equipment
• 3:42 The Coffee Gear Journey: Act One
• 5:18 The Reality Check: It's All Pretty Similar
• 7:07 When Do We Stop?
• 9:13 Coffee as Life's Escape
• 11:18 You're Good Enough
• 12:27 The One Brewer Challenge

Transcript

[00:00:05] I feel that this is a little bit like a PSA announcement. I mean at the end of the day, I just want to be real and honest with you with all that I do.

[00:00:14] As you can see in front of me, I have a mic. I have audio where you can hear the audio and that's great. You can understand exactly what I'm saying.

[00:00:29] And then there is another mic, an overhead mic, a Sennheiser that I usually use for these top up type of talking head videos.

[00:00:42] I have another mic right here to the side, a wireless mic that I can use on the go. I have another mic that's right behind me. It's a condenser mic. I like it a lot. It's hidden behind a curtain.

[00:01:03] So I'll pop it up here and there whenever I do different videos for whatever reason.

[00:01:28] On my desk there's another mic. I'm going to be honest with you because as much as I say gear doesn't matter, gear does matter.

[00:01:51] I believe by me doing these YouTube videos, podcasts kind of things, it's giving me a chance and opportunity to get better at my craft, meaning that I've studied mics, I've looked at mics.

[00:02:07] I got the mics. I have the mics that I have for whatever reason. I have headphones to help me throughout this whole process.

[00:02:15] I was just listening to myself just now to make sure the audio is fine. The picture looks really good.

[00:02:21] I love to come on here and tell you gear doesn't matter as much as we think it does. It does matter. We care. We care a lot.

[00:02:34] And it always started not so much with the Hario V60 but it started with the French press for me, the Mr. Coffee machine, then the French press and the Chemex and the Hario V60 and then paper filters. And I will say this year I've really gone deep into that rabbit hole of buying almost everything in sight, things that I've told myself I wasn't going to buy and I bought it anyway.

[00:03:02] Some things I really do like, some things that I think is just a waste. I've talked about it on this channel and I will continue to talk about it as we go through our journey together or not.

[00:03:16] I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want to be—I guess what I'm saying is that I like gear. I love it.

[00:03:49] It speaks to me. It gives me that excitement whenever I'm doing something over and over again. It's more exciting to an extent than the beans.

[00:04:01] I don't know if I'm jaded just because I roast my own coffee. I can get whatever coffee I want. I could roast in so many different ways.

[00:04:11] So that part doesn't really excite me as much as getting a new piece of gear. I don't know why that is. Probably marketing, probably because of what we hear online.

[00:04:22] What we see and something that we want. As much as I complain to my daughter about her FOMO, I believe I have it too.

[00:04:32] And again, I think it's been just amplified even more so with having this channel, having a voice, and just talking about things I'm interested in—coffee.

[00:04:43] I don't want to be left behind. I don't want to give you something where it's just like, okay, it's just a Hario V60 recipe.

[00:04:53] But in truth, as I have gone down this rabbit hole of getting this brewer, that brewer, this whatever, it's all the same.

[00:05:04] Are there variations in it? Yes. There are variations. Sometimes you can get a little bit more sweetness out of it, more acidity, and certain aspects of the coffee.

[00:05:16] There are variations. I'm not saying that it all tastes the same. But for the most part, it does.

[00:05:22] You have this particular coffee. This tastes good. This is a cool journey. I like it. This is cool.

[00:05:50] Let's move on. And that's how I am too. I'm not any different than who you are. I'm just on a different part of the journey.

[00:06:01] And as we keep going down this rabbit hole of getting to know each other, also, hopefully getting to master our gear, and then of course enjoying our coffees.

[00:06:15] Really what this whole thing is about. It's so easy to get mesmerized about a variation of the Hario V60 that's probably not much different than any other brewer out there.

[00:06:33] This is always the OG, right? When you do get another brewer, it's probably exaggerated just a little bit more to your liking, but it still brews a cup of coffee. Sometimes you're going to have to change that variable if you think about it in objective and sensory type of way.

[00:06:52] If you wanted to, you can get classes and courses or just continue to drink as much coffee as you want to. But I guess what I'm saying is that the journey is really defined on what we want to do.

[00:07:08] Because I'll say this. When I was younger and I was down, let's say Act 1 of this whole buying gear, and it started off with the grinders with the EK43.

[00:07:23] And once I got that grinder and started tasting my coffees, I knew that was it. Well, for the most part, that's Act 1.

[00:07:33] Again, I love gear like you do. But I guess what I'm saying here is that there has to be a point where we're going to stop.

[00:07:41] And what I mean by that is that we're going to be tired of gear up like I have back there. And yes, this is a good prop. It looks nice and all that good stuff. But there's even more gear that I've put back in my cupboard somewhere.

[00:08:01] It's going to get to the point where we're like, man, I should have done this a little differently or I should approach this differently now because I have some of the best gear out there and it doesn't have to be that much money.

[00:08:24] Look at this coffee, enjoy this coffee, figure it out with my recipe, my stubbornness of the way that I do things. I'm going to go on to the next coffee, the next thing in the world. And then once I do that, it just helps us.

[00:08:40] If we get back to the basics of coffee, of enjoying coffee and seeing it for what it is, the notes that we take along our journey is going to give us that satisfaction about life. I believe so.

[00:08:57] I believe coffee can do that for us. There's so many things happening in the world to us, about us and all that stuff. You personally, me personally and all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, it's one of those things where we're like, I just want to be in the moment.

[00:09:14] I don't want to think about it at all. I just want to be in the moment and enjoy it and forget about all the things that I have to do.

[00:09:24] And coffee does a damn good job of that. Even buying this gear, that gear, that coffee. And as we understand our palates even more and as we mature and grow, I think we're going to get to a better place where we're like, wow.

[00:09:42] Not so much of a conquering type of situation as I always say, but it's more like appreciation for something that we didn't even have to have.

[00:09:55] Because we don't have to drink coffee. Yeah, I know we say we do. Like it's ingrained, this is in our blood and it's in our stream and that's all we care about. Yeah, that's true.

[00:10:05] But we don't have to have this obsession, this drive for something. We don't have to. We could just go to work and that's it.

[00:10:26] Yeah, we can do that too. But again, that's the thing that I'm talking about. That's what makes life a little bit boring. This whole coffee thing, because our passion, our hobby, the thing that we do every day, multiple times a day.

[00:10:43] That's all that matters. That's all that matters.

[00:10:47] So as I sit here with you with my gear, the mics and the coffees behind me and all that stuff, I'm saying whatever I'm saying, whatever anybody is saying is that don't forget that you have enough.

[00:11:05] You have enough things in front of you. You have enough tools in your toolbox in order for you to actually get to the promised land of understanding and enjoying or not enjoying that coffee.

[00:11:21] You're good enough. You truly are.

[00:11:25] And as I kind of finish off, I kind of see where things are going to go for me as I go. I'm not going to be able to put out videos, audio and all that stuff. I'm wondering about what my particular next part of my journey is. I'm extremely excited about it.

[00:11:47] I have no clue what it is. I really don't know. But I think that's the cool thing about it. When you're just in it each day, you're just trying to figure it out.

[00:11:57] And as you keep doing that, it's one of those things where you're like, wow, I never knew that I was going to ever get to this place.

[00:12:06] So like I said, I have an issue too. I like to buy gear for whatever reason.

[00:12:14] And it's kind of interesting because this gear right here in front of me, this mic and this mic, all the mics all around me, they're the same. They're different, but they do one thing.

[00:12:29] And the only thing that I care about as much as I say I do with these particular instruments is that as long as it sounds good, that's what I care about.

[00:12:40] There's variations. There's different things that I like about them. There's one reason why I gravitate to one versus the other.

[00:12:48] The way it makes my voice sound and all that good stuff. The way that it's presented on the screen and all that. It's the same thing with coffee.

[00:12:57] I love the Hario V60. I don't use it that much now. I use all the other new gear that I have. I come back to it from time to time just to realize, wow, it's still magical. It's always going to be magical.

[00:13:12] I don't think there's enough things out in the world where you know this is peak. This is peak. Everything else is just slightly better or slightly more different. But at the end of the day, does it produce a good cup of coffee?

[00:13:25] Does it make it a little bit more interesting? Is it sweeter? Does this grinder that has clarity or whatever—do you really taste that in a cup?

[00:13:38] How does it amplify or make the coffee better? Those are some of the things that I'm really trying to understand more and more and more as I do this.

[00:13:42] So with that being said, I'm looking to challenge myself as I'm almost done with all this gear and all this stuff that I'm doing right now. Use one brewer for a whole month.

[00:14:09] Try it for a month. Let's see what you learn about the whole thing. See what it's all about.

[00:14:15] And as we do that and get there together or not, I think the thing that pushes us to give us that more enjoyment that we like about life.

[00:14:27] I think that's the thing that pushes the palate and coffee, which is pretty cool.

[00:14:36] So this is Okay Everyday Beans. I just wanted to give you a little bit more context about me. Are we enjoying what we're doing?

[00:14:59] So this is Okay Everyday Beans signing off. I'll talk to you later. Bye.