You love a good shot of espresso—the aroma, the rich, sweet taste on the tongue, the mood-lifting surge of caffeine through your veins—just thinking about it can send you to the nearest café for a fix. You’ve grown tired, however, of the varying quality of espressos out there. You don’t want a double-shot handed to you in an eight ounce paper cup, bereft of crema and bitter from an improperly kept machine. You want to make your own, and you want to do it right.

The good news is that everything you need to pull a delicious espresso in your own home is available. All you need to keep in mind are a few tips to help you make the tastiest espresso possible. Once you have the equipment and mastered the routine, you’ll be pulling as many shots a day as you like, each as satisfying as the last, and you’ll never need to sip a poorly drawn, bitter shot again.

The Machine

The money you put into a quality machine now will pay off in years of great espressos. Preferably, you should buy a pump-driven machine designed for home use, but built to last. Ask some espresso-drinking friends what they own, and do some online research. Companies such as Whole Latte Love or 1st in Coffee offer a variety of quality machines. The better home machines start at four hundred dollars and go as high as several thousand dollars; but you’ll likely find that, as long as you don’t need a machine for commercial use, one in the lower end of the price range will suit your needs just fine. You can also find used and refurbished machines if you’re on a budget. I own a Rancilio Silva, which runs about five hundred dollars, and has lasted six years so far.

The Grinder

Get one. In other words, if you want to make the tastiest espresso possible, don’t use pre-ground espresso beans. Nothing can replace the fuller, sweeter flavor you get when you grind your own beans. Purchase a grinder which has an adjustable setting; you’ll want to experiment with how coarse or fine your grind needs to be for your particular machine and preference. Your grinder may have a tamp attached (the mechanism which presses the ground beans into the filter) or the tamp may come separately. Either way works fine. Mine is a Rancilio Rocky "burr" grinder, which evenly grinds the beans between two plates.