A poor mans cup

My BF BIL (Thats Best Friend Brother in law. BF are also his initials). He has a knack for over doing it a bit. Pictured above is his home espresso/cappuccino center. Its one step below the full blown restaurant style machine, referred to as ProSumer (Professional Consumer model in case you need me to hit you over the head with it). It makes great I mean knock your socks off great cappuccino and espresso. Its plumbed into the water supply and the motor in the grinder next to it could power a small lawn mower.  He has a tamper which puts exactly 30 lbs of force on the grinds in the filter basket and a thermometer in the milk frothing jug. As well as insulated glass shot glass so you dont burn your hands when lifting an aromatic frothy shot into your mouth. He has his beans delivered express overnight from some far off town in Ohio or somewhere in the middle west. Only certain roasters will do. After visiting him for a week a developed a taste for the aromatic and tasty blends only capable of being brewed by such a contraption. So being the poor guy with 2 kids and a wife in college, I contrapted my own version of the home espresso experience which I will attempt to explain.

First I resurrected my old espresso maker from our dungeon.  The water goes into a little bucket which I fill at the sink. My grinder motor threatens to stall on every grind of the bean. I press the beans into the filter basket with my perscription medicine pill bottle (Lid is the perfect diameter, its also quite interesting as BF's wife is a pharmacist). I froth the milk in the cup I am going to drink out of, using experience and guesswork to know when it is hot enough. I dispense the espresso into these little porcelain cup my wife bought and I buy my beans at a wholesale club. Makes a pretty good cup if you do it right. Took me about 10 cups to get the process down and get that perfect draw of crema every espresso enthusiast craves. There you go a poor mans espresso experience. Next week a poor mans roller skiing experience!