As a recent purchaser of a Dualit coffee machine, I'll keep an eye on this thread. We have so far tried the ESE coffee pods & whilst convenient & clean to use, they didn't seem to have the same degree of flavour as ground coffee. We have now got a coffee grinder & so will be trying some beans to grind ourselves. Matt.
Apparently you have about 30 seconds max between grinding and making, or some of the more important aromatics evaporate off. That's why you end up grinding coffee yourself.
It's also why most home coffee nuts avoid grinders with hoppers - they tend to accumulate stale grounds - and why you get such dull-tasting coffee from many cafes and restaurants. If the grounds sit around in a hopper through lack of throughput, all the interesting flavours up and off.
That, and they use cheap coffee and then leave the coffee making to a 14-year-old who actively hates espresso!
I buy my beans, whenever possible, from a stall on Norwich Market. They have a cafe as well, called The Little red Roaster and there is a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Little-Red-Roaster/23277592739 . The owner Darren really knows his stuff and sells exquisite coffee beans from all over the world. The Preuvian organic that I usually buy (and freeze in bulk) is roasted elsewhere, but he roasts the more exotic stuff himself. I've yet to find better coffee, anywhere. Period. I've sat on that market stall with visitors from the USA, Australia etc and they all say that it's the finest coffee that they've had. Most of what I now know about coffee was learnt from Darren.
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Matt.