How to Be Your Own Barista

All that money starts to rack up when you spend tons every morning on your Starbucks. Here are tips, tricks, and techniques to being your very own, at-home barista!

1. Buy Great Coffee Beans

Make sure you buy delicious coffee beans. You can buy espresso beans for lattes, or even a simple house blend from your favorite coffee place.

2. Tips for How to Choose the Right Roast

A lighter roast is actually going to have more caffeine content than a dark roast. This is because the longer beans are roasted, the more caffeine is burned off. A lighter roast is roasted for less amount of time, therefore, less caffeine is burned off. Also, if you do not know which bean you will like the most? Each roast has a different flavor to it. Dark roast is going to taste chocolatey and earthy. A medium roast is going to taste “balanced” and citrus and berry flavors. Light roast is going to have floral and “bright” flavors. Each of these are an acquired taste. It just depends on your palette.

3. Invest in a Coffee Grinder

You clearly need a coffee grinder to grind your favorite coffee beans. There are great ones at coffee shops or even on Amazon.

4. Tips for Different Coffee Grounds

Coffee beans can be ground for different methods of brewing. It might not taste right if you use coffee grounds that were ground for a french press in you regular coffee pot. Make sure you ground coffee, specifically what it was ground for, in order to get that good cup of coffee.

5. Tip on How to Make a Great Pot of Coffee

In a regular coffee maker, it’s said that you should use 2 tbs for every 6oz of water. Roughly that means that about ¼ cup of coffee for 6 cups of coffee. Extra tip: Use cold water when you brew coffee in your coffee pot.

6. How to Make Your Own Cold Brew

First, grind coffee and place the grounds in a large jar. Then, poor cold water over the grounds. Seal the jar and place it in your fridge for 20-24 hours. After those hours are up, strain the coffee, so that you no longer have the coffee grounds mixed with the cold brew. You can do this using a cheesecloth or something of similar material. You can drink the cold brew as is for a stronger brew, or you can add a little more cold water so it is not as concentrated.

7. Invest in a Frother

So you already have the espresso for a latte, but maybe not the luxury of owning you own espresso maker. You can easily froth your own milk with a “hand-held” aerolatte frother

8. Extra Technique: Frothing Milk Without a Handheld Frother

If you don’t want to spend any extra money, you can easily froth milk with a jar. You put some milk in a jar (preferably 2% or nonfat), shake it for 30 to 60 seconds, microwave for 30 seconds, and there yah go!

9. Tip with froth: Use a Spoon

When you are pouring the milk for your Latte or Misto, it might be hard to hold back the foam or even get some onto your drink. Simply by using a spoon, you can hold back the froth to get more milk. If you are trying to make a cappuccino, you can use the spoon to scoop more froth.

10. Use a Cocktail Shaker

Now, hear me out… I know it’s a cocktail shaker, but you can easily use it for making other drinks. If I want you want to make my own Green Tea Latte, you can just throw milk in and matcha, shake it up, and there you have an iced green tea latte!

11. Trick to Buying your Favorite Syrups

Really like vanilla syrup? Maybe even hazelnut? You can find these syrups at your local King Soopers, Walmart, etc. But! You can also go to your local Starbucks and buy syrup from them for about $12.

12. Make drip coffee

Using a cone and filter makes a great, strong cup of coffee. If you’re sick of having to drink a lot of coffee to wake up in the morning, drip is a great alternative.

13. Invest in an Espresso Maker

There are espresso makers, such as the Nespresso machine above, that give you single shots of espresso, perfect for making a latte or cappuccino.