After lurking around this forum for several months I've been convinced to dive into the world of being a home barista. Last night my wife and I officially decided to take a plunge on the Crossland CC1 and Baratza Vario grinder from SeattleCoffeeGear.com. I hope we chose wisely!

In addition to the espresso machine and grinder, we also purchased a bottomless portafilter, metal tamper, frothing pitcher, espresso cups, and latte cups. Everything should arrive in around a week and then the real fun begins!

Hi!

One thing that really helped me get started was to take lessons. I took about ~12h of barista training on professionnal machines and I really feel like it helped put things in perspective. Good luck!

-Mat

Welcome and enjoy your journey!

You're gonna love it! Congrats!

Are there any recommendations on where to purchase espresso beans? I know my local grocery store carries coffee beans from "The Roasterie", which is a local coffee roaster here in KC. I've heard other forum members talk about their favorite blends etc... but I'm unsure where to buy them from.

I'm happy to listen to any advise on what espresso blend to purchase as a beginner and where to buy it from.

I think you will enjoy your purchases. Those machines are hard to beat in that price range.

There is a long thread of our favorite roasters

List of our Favorite Roasters

but you may argue it is too long. There are a lot of great roasters out there. If you want a shorter list, the sponsors tend to be good bets. Here is a link to them in the top right under commerce...

/resources.html

but even if you get it down to one, say Counter Culture to name one I like that is close tome, you still need to decide if you prefer their lighter roast, medium, darker,... Do you want it in milk or straight up... Blend or single origin...

I wouldn't buy your local roastery's beans from a grocery store unless they have the roasting date on the bags.

Turnover at grocery stores tends to be a lower compared to the roastery or a third wave coffee shop, so you might be getting beans that are 2, 3, 4 weeks post roast.

Can you buy your local roaster's beans from the roastery?

+1.
If there IS a roast date, it needs to be less than 5 days before you purchase them. A roast date is WHEN the beans were roasted, NOT when they "are good until..."

I just got a CC1 a week ago, and here is one of the things that tripped me up:

If you turn it on and let it heat up, it will be ready for espresso in just a few minutes. However, if you pull your shot, then switch to steaming, it will take about 5 minutes for it to be ready to steam, and your espresso shot will be cold.

The CC1 is meant to be put on a timer. You just need a cheap "heavy duty" timer that can handle 15 Amps. These are only about $10. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005MM ... UTF8&psc=1

Set it so that it comes on about 30 minutes before you want to make espresso in the morning. Once you do that, it will only take about 5-10 seconds to switch from espresso to be ready to steam. It will also allow the grouphead and some of the other parts to get nice and warm.

When you start, try to stick with one bean blend from one roaster for a little bit. Every blend will behave differently and require different doses, temperatures, grind setting, extraction percentage, etc... It can be taxing for someone new the art. Get yourself 3 pounds of coffee from a good roaster to start with. It may sound like a lot of coffee but you will probably blow through that the first week you have the machine just dialing it in and figuring out how to use it. When I get a new machine for testing I can burn though 5 pounds of coffee just learning how the machine behaves and how to get the most out of the machine. Once you can pull a consistent shot then branch out to other brand/blends.