Make Your Espresso Drinks at Home

There are many articles about saving money by making your own coffee at home. But they’re about making drip coffee. What if you prefer the more sophisticated, cafe espresso drinks, which require more skill to make? Isn’t that why you spend the extra $3 – $4 a day to buy it from Starbucks?

How much does your daily latte or mocha cost you? $3 – $4 a day? $21 – $28 a week? $84 – $112 a month? What if you made your espresso drinks at home or even at work?

You don’t even need an expensive espresso machine! In fact, I’ll admit, I’m afraid of the espresso machine, especially the frothing feature. It’s loud and screaming hot. You can burn yourself if you’re not careful. And it takes a lot of skill to use it.

The way I make espresso drinks at home is fairly easy.

The 3 tools you need to make espresso drinks:

• Coffee grinder

• Moka pot (cheaper aluminum version) or stainless steel version

• Aeroccino Nespresso frother or a saucepan and a whisk

2 skills to master to make any espresso drink:

1. Make espresso in a moka pot. See the link for step by step instructions. There is even an electric plug-in version of the moka pot that will allow you to make espresso at work! Note: With a brand new moka pot, be sure to season it first by brewing espresso in it 7 times. A few times, I reused the ground espresso beans because I was lazy. It doesn’t matter. After the 7th brew, you’ll “taste” the difference.
2. Steam milk

• In a pan – heat milk over medium heat while whisking, remove from heat before the milk starts boiling and foaming up

or

• using the Aeroccino Nespresso Frother – This product heats and froths milk at the same time. It plugs into any outlet. Add milk up to the line and push the button. The frother stops automatically after about a minute. It’s really fast and really simple! Choose from 2 attachments, one for steaming and light froth and the other attachment for thick, creamy froth. The Aeroccino frother froths way better than any frothing wand. This product requires a small investment of about $100, but it’s worth it in the long run. You can use it to steam and froth milk at work as well as make hot cocoa or chai latte. I’ve had mine for over 3 years.

It will be a small investment at first for some of these products, but if you’re making your own espresso drinks 5 – 7 days a week, you’ll recoup that in a month or two.

Espresso Drink Recipes