I enjoy your coffee.

Even though making coffee is one of the simplest things in the world, people are always coming up with new and more sophisticated ways to make it. People grow used to things like cappuccinos and lattes and start asking how to make them at home because we live in an evolved coffee culture where coffee is the most popular drink on the planet. Some people get into the trap of buying instant coffee shop drinks, which invariably taste inferior, rather than brewing the drinks themselves at home.

The first important thing to remember about coffee-making is that, despite the fancy labels, there is no variation of coffee-shop coffee that is particularly difficult to brew. An Americano is simply a cup of coffee with hot water on the side and milk on the side. Coffee, milk, and frothed milk are combined in a cappuccino, which is generally topped with chocolate sprinkles. A latte is a glass of milky coffee, while a mocha is the same thing but with chocolate. Coffee with frothed milk on top is known as a macchiato. Each fancy name basically refers to a combination of coffee, milk, and froth (plus, on rare occasions, chocolate), with the rest being a matter of presentation.

An espresso machine makes the coffee in each drink, and a basic espresso machine is all you actually need to get started brewing coffee at home: once you can put beans in the top and receive espresso out the bottom, there aren't many additional things you'll need. This simple reality means that if you know what you're doing, there's not much of a difference between the cheapest and most expensive coffee machines. To make your coffee stronger, simply add more espresso; to produce the various cocktails, simply use varying amounts of the various ingredients.