• Written by Rich McNabb • Proofread & Edited by Claude AI
A smart plug wakes my espresso machine at 4am, hours before I do. This is the story of how a jar of instant coffee, a mate in Perth, and one life-changing French press turned into a four-shots-a-day habit I still can't shake.
At 4am, while the house is dark and quiet, everyone’s still asleep, a smart plug in the kitchen automatically powers on the espresso machine, hours ahead of anyone else’s schedule. By the time I stumble down the hallway a couple of hours later, the machine has already reached the optimal temperature, waiting in the dark like an assassin, ready to deliver the perfect roundhouse.
I discovered the coffee always hits harder when the machine is fully awake and ready for the day. I’m the exact same. Every time I oversleep and rush out the door to make up for lost time, I’ll no doubt leave my phone, wallet or keys at home, then spend the day feeling like I’m behind and playing catch-up. I’d rather wake early and ease into it.
Extracting a shot only takes 25 to 30 seconds. Done right, it can set the mood for the rest of the day.
Crema, the reddish-brown foam that forms on top when done correctly, is what I’m chasing, the perfect coffee to start the day.
During the week my alarm goes off at 5:40am. I meditate for 20 minutes, then go to the kitchen to make a quad espresso. From there it’s into the home gym below the office to stretch, taking sips between exercises with noise-cancelling headphones on so I don’t wake the rest of the house, getting my head right for the day ahead.
As I type these words out, I’m fully aware of how unhinged it sounds. It’s not really the morning routine that gets people. It’s the four shots of espresso so early in the day before most people have had their first cup. That’s usually where the conversation goes quiet for a few seconds.
This isn’t really a story about automation, even though I could easily get lost down that particular rabbit hole too. It’s a story about how something so simple has escalated into an obsession.
Let’s go back to humble beginnings and where it all started. Instant coffee.
In the 2000s, Moccona launched its legendary advertising campaign to increase market share for its premium instant coffee. The campaign was so successful, sales increased by 293% over three years, fooling millions of people, myself included, into thinking Moccona was the Ferrari of instant coffee.
Not too dissimilar to being told when pouring boxed wine to tilt the plastic cup so you don’t bruise the grape. To be fair to Moccona, it was a significant upgrade on the competition at the time.
Around this time I also switched to drinking it black. I was flatting with a couple of friends from high school, and at the time we had zero standards. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d poured expired, lumpy milk into my coffee or bowl of cereal. I should have been suspicious that I found the carton all the way at the back of the fridge, yet fell victim to this so many times.
Since those best-before dates always got the better of me, I’ve become a staunch coffee purist. Sure, there was an adjustment during this no milk period, I just forced myself to like it, and now it’s been so long there’s no going back.
The three of us have grown up, got married, had kids, and remembered to always check the expiry date. Yet the state of the flat still comes up whenever we catch up with our wider group of friends.
Fast forward a few years. I put all my stuff into storage, sold my car, bought a plane ticket and went travelling overseas. I worked at a summer camp in upstate New York called Camp Lokanda, similar enough to Camp Waconda, the one Ray Stantz mentions right before the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man shows up, that people still bring it up.
Camp Lokanda was where I met my Canadian wife Ali, who was also working there as a camp counselor. I also met an Australian called Chris, the same guy who captured me on video breaking my wrist doing jumps on my mountain bike before camp had even officially started. This was when Jackass was popular, so we’d spend our downtime goofing off doing silly stunts just for us to watch.
It also meant that once camp officially started, I was working as a lifeguard with my arm in a cast. We’d also decided to grow moustaches so I was continuing to make poor life choices.
Ali and I were living in New Zealand in 2007, and Chris was back in Perth, Australia, trying to convince us to move over. Ali had a work conference in Perth, so all we had to do was buy another plane ticket, the hotel was already booked and paid for by her company.
Evo, another friend we’d met at summer camp, made the trip out west with Chris and me, so most of the trip it was the three of us filling our time hanging out while Ali sat in a conference room.
We were hanging out one day and Chris asked if we wanted coffee. I said, “Sure, that’d be awesome.” He came back after what felt like an eternity, empty-handed, and I asked, “I thought we were having coffee?” He simply replied, “We are, it’s just brewing.”
Chris returned carrying a French press and some cups. Twice as strong as anything I’d had up to this point, and it tasted phenomenal. Years later, this remains a core memory.
The woman in the Moccona commercial had been dethroned. French press is a gateway. From that day on, I was hooked.
After the trip, I was determined to recreate the experience from Perth. I went out and bought a French press and some pre-ground coffee, yet something wasn’t right. A few messages to Chris to get some insider brewing tips lifted my game slightly.
I tried a few different brands of coffee before eventually figuring out where I was going wrong. When I first cut open the bag, the first few cups would be perfect. Slowly, over the course of the week, the coffee would taste worse and lose most of its kick.
Visiting local cafes, I noticed they always ground beans fresh before making each coffee. Not knowing any better, grinding everything ahead of time had seemed like the smarter shortcut. When I asked one of the baristas, they explained freshly ground coffee makes the world of difference.
I bought a coffee grinder and started grinding on demand, and my senses got kicked into overdrive. It smelt better, looked better, and tasted like how I remembered in Perth. The new grinder meant I could experiment with different beans and grind settings.
What this also meant was another real jump in strength, though nothing was ever going to top that first cup in Perth.
I purchased an entry-level Breville coffee machine, and as with any new purchase, it came with a learning curve as I dialled everything in.
After two solid weeks of producing watered-down coffee from my new machine, I traded in my dignity and had a complete stranger talk me through what I was doing wrong. From there, things headed in the right direction, and I was consistently making great coffee.
When my Breville machine eventually died after years of loyal service, I went out and replaced it with the exact same model. For the price and quality these machines produce, they’re hard to beat.
Along with the espresso machine, the whole operation started ramping up. Four new pieces of gear arrived in what I kept telling myself was a temporary phase.
I won a stovetop moka pot at the CDP Christmas party, similar to watching a lava lamp as it starts to boil. Just remember to keep an eye on it, as it can boil over fast and with little warning.
A glass cold brew maker joined next, rewarding patience as it sits in the fridge for 24 hours, and it’s perfect in summer.
An AeroPress joined the lineup too. It’s become the first thing that goes in my luggage when travelling, a cleaner version of the French press, with fewer grounds making it past the filter and into the cup, while still getting close to the intensity of an espresso.
We even bought a Boston shaker for making espresso martinis when hosting dinner parties, which had nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with how far this had already gone.
And that’s where things stayed for a long time, and I was happy.
In 2016, I decided to get some letters behind my name and become a qualified barista, earning the City & Guilds International Award in Barista Skills through Mojo Coffee in Wellington.
I was between contracts, having just finished a complex networking dashboard project for Aviat, and thought instead of searching for my next gig straight away, this could be the perfect interlude to add some texture back into life.
There seemed to be three options. A one-day course would have been too short by the time everyone went around the group introducing themselves and making a few drinks. Two weeks seemed intense and felt like more commitment than I was prepared to make. Three days got the balance between the two extremes just right, enough to properly improve my coffee at home without making this my full-time career.
A couple of things became clear during the course. The cafe environment turned out to be far more fast-paced and far less romantic than I’d hoped, the same misplaced fantasy I’d had as a teenager imagining a job at Blockbuster would mostly involve watching free movies. I’d rather pay someone for their skills and keep coffee as a passion instead.
And second, stretching milk properly is a practised skill, one you only get good at through hours on the tools, until your hands know what to do before your head does.
That course also built the pitch for what came next.
For years I’d been telling Ali we needed to upgrade our operation. It was a hard sell given the price tag, and the fact that Ali doesn’t even drink coffee, she prefers drinking tea. Three years after getting certified, my 40th birthday rolled around and the planets finally aligned, my strongest case yet. I saw the smallest gap and seized the moment.
Carpe diem.
Ali agreed, and within minutes I was driving down to Espresso Ninja to place an order for the Rocket Mozzafiato Evoluzione R espresso machine.
Those three years weren’t wasted though. I’d spent them researching, dreaming, and speaking with local cafe owners, gathering insider knowledge from trusted professionals.
One barista told me that if he didn’t already have access to a commercial machine through work, a Rocket is what he’d buy for home, practically a commercial machine built for residential use. Those words sealed my fate.
The team at Espresso Ninja gave Ali and me a full hour of hands-on lessons on it. Within a week, the machine exposed a weakness I hadn’t seen coming or planned for in my pitch.
Sadly, my current Breville grinder wasn’t up to the task, it couldn’t grind fine enough, and the coffee was coming out weak. So that became the next unexpected upgrade.
By this stage, I was negotiating on fumes and edging toward financial ruin. Yet somehow, I managed to convince Ali this was a necessary purchase, and then we’d finally be set up.
I went with the Mazzer Mini Electronic Model B. Same approach as the Rocket, commercial grade, just built compact enough for home use.
My old espresso machine and grinder were still in great shape. I didn’t feel comfortable selling them though, not knowing how much life they had left, could be a few days or a few years. I decided to play it safe and passed them on to my neighbour, Mick, with that exact caveat: an absolute workhorse, just not sure for how much longer.
A Moccamaster for filtered coffee joined the setup last year, running quietly alongside the espresso machine. When I was in the States and heard the term “bottomless coffee,” not being a naturally gifted sports player, I saw it like a challenge worthy of accepting. Until the first sip abruptly reminds you, with a small involuntary wince, that you get what you pay for.
It’s the same nostalgia I remember from Homer’s Coffee Shop in Port Jervis, New York, where all the camp counsellors would meet for breakfast before heading out for the day. Restaurant menus in the States were more of a suggestion. Ali, who waitressed for years, says a menu is really just an inventory of what’s in the kitchen, so most places would make you whatever you wanted.
I’d always sit back and wait for Chris or Evo to order their customised version first, then lean in with a cheeky smile and say to the waitress, “Same for me, please,” knowing full well I did this to them every single time. I like to tell people I’ve been coasting through life on my cheeky smile and my ridiculous good looks, the first part is true.
Breakfast was dirt cheap even back then, which was perfect, you didn’t go to camp to make money, you went to make memories and travel.
At CDP Group, early in my career, I was the only designer on a team of thirty spread across four companies. One of those companies eventually became Mero, where that same crew still works on its business data analytics today.
Since then, I’ve worked across different companies, different sizes, different roles, yet I still regularly catch up with that same crew for coffee and the morning quiz. Some have stayed put, some have jumped around as much as I have, but sixteen years later, the coffee hasn’t stopped. It’s actually the real reason my alarm goes off at 5:40am on the days I’m working in the city.
Travelling isn’t an afterthought, it’s carefully considered and comes with its own equipment. I went with the AeroPress Go, the travel version, with a stainless steel reusable filter that packs down small. Complete with a hand grinder, so wherever we land, even beans we’ve never tried before go in fresh rather than sitting pre-ground on a shelf.
A Yeti Rambler, basically a rugged thermos, is where the ritual actually ends. Hot coffee waits after a winter surf session, TOOL’s Lateralus still ringing in my ears from the drive there, the beach is basically two songs away.
Before any trip, the whole family builds a list together, everyone throwing in ideas worth chasing for creativity and relationships, Google Maps sorting the distances, TripAdvisor covering recommendations and dietary needs. Same instinct behind the Wellington coffee spots I send visiting friends to, tried and tested from firsthand experience.
This is what I affectionately call the iPod effect, the moment you realise the real cost was never the thing itself, it was everything that came after it. Photography, music, coffee, on the surface they’re all incredibly simple, yet deceptively complex once you look closer. In their purest form, you’re capturing energy: light, sound, caffeine.
You can fall as deep into that rabbit hole as you like, though it always comes at a cost. The iPod itself was never the expensive part. Apple made its real money on the accessories, the docks, the cases, the armbands. Upgrade after upgrade, the original purchase never once suggested you’d need.
Coffee is no exception. Give me an interest with even a little depth to it, and I will find the bottom of that hole eventually, one small, entirely reasonable-sounding upgrade at a time.
It’s the same rabbit hole I fell down building custom Hi-Fi furniture for my vinyl collection, or the project that consumed a year and a half building a four-metre gallery wall for fifty album covers that could have just as easily stayed in a box.
It’s a fact: crude oil is the highest-traded commodity in the world. Coffee isn’t a distant second, it’s not even close. Regardless of what the internet keeps telling us. The claim has been debunked for decades and somehow, like the Nokia 3310, it refuses to die.
I like the myth better.
Fittingly, Mark Twain never actually said “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” either, that hasn’t stopped the internet from insisting he did for years.