4 essential coffee upgrades to get out of bed for

Published Aug 22, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT Tim has been covering technology for almost 20 years, in that time spanning a broad range of topics from security to product reviews. He is especially focused on the Apple ecosystem, productivity, and consumer advice. Over the years Tim has written thousands of articles, reviews, and round-ups in addition to producing video content and original photography. A graduate of journalism, he found his footing as a freelancer with a laptop and loves how he is able to work from practically anywhere. Now a Senior Editor for iPhone, Mac, and Smart Home at How-To Geek, Tim still loves to write. He can also be found crafting round-ups and productivity posts for the Zapier blog. Earlier in his career Tim spent nearly a decade as a writer and eventually Apple section editor for MakeUseOf. Tim currently lives in Brisbane, Australia. Outside of work he loves to hike and work out, play video games, and spend quality time with his wonderful partner and two cats Inka and Roger. The one thing that makes it easier for me to get up at 6 am for a training session or video call with someone on the other side of the world is the guarantee that my first cup of coffee will be a good one. Here are four things you should upgrade to make your mornings taste better, in order of importance. The coffee you’re brewing It sounds obvious I love coffee, so I follow a lot of content creators on YouTube and always find myself reading coffee message boards and subreddits. One thing that quickly becomes apparent is how much the community is obsessed with equipment, gadgets, and toys. These discussions frequently overshadow what is arguably the most important thing you can spend your money on: the coffee itself. Specialty coffee has come a long way since the early 2000s when it started to take hold. This term is used to differentiate high-quality coffee from the commercial-grade stuff you’ll find in supermarkets, chain cafés, and instant or pod machines. While there’s nothing wrong with that coffee, specialty coffee simply tastes better. Higher quality means a higher cost, but I’d argue that this is money well spent on a daily ritual that you enjoy. It’s still cheaper than whisky or cigarettes, and far healthier (especially at breakfast). Specialty beans usually come from a single point of origin, or even a single estate. They’re roasted in small batches by roasters who take coffee very seriously. The sky is the limit when it comes to how much you pay, but even the cheapest specialty Arabica beans are a big step above the Robusta that’s commonly used in supermarket blends. You can buy these online, at local cafés, or directly from a local roaster. Aim for fresh beans with a roast date printed somewhere on the packet. They’ll usually taste best between two weeks after that date, with a window of around two months for best results. If you’re feeling a bit lost, you can use the tasting notes on the pack or ask a barista to guide you in the right direction for whatever brew method you’re using. The grinder you’re using Any grinder is better than no grinder Credit: Tim Brookes / How-To Geek If you’re buying beans pre-ground or asking your local cafe to grind beans for you before you take them home, you’re missing out. The delicate taste and aroma of the coffee bean are locked up tightly and only released once ground. When ground coffee is exposed to the air, it begins to degrade within a matter of minutes. The best upgrade you can make beyond coffee is a grinder. Aim for a burr grinder, not a blade grinder, since burr grinders allow you to set the grind size. Hand grinders offer the best bang for your buck here, with brands like KINGrinder offering excellent results from around $30. For an electric grinder, you only need something like a Baratza Encore ($150) to get decent results when brewing for filter, AeroPress, French press, Moka pot, and other non-espresso brew methods. For espresso, grounds need to be fine and consistent, and that means spending something like $200 on a Baratza Encore ESP instead. The water that makes up most of your cup Water makes up most of your coffee Credit: Tim Brookes / How-To Geek Total dissolved solids, or TDS for short, is a measure of how much actual coffee bean is dissolved in your cup. For filter, this rarely exceeds 1.4%, while espresso manages higher at around 10%. That means the vast majority of the final product is water. Bad water is something that many of us deal with, especially if you live in a city. I live in a subtropical climate, and the water quality seems to degrade as the temperature rises. The best solution is to install a reverse osmosis filter system and maintain it, but this is prohibitively expensive for many of us. The next-best solution is to make your own water at home. You can do this by buying distilled water, adding minerals back into the water using a product like Third Wave Water, and then brewing in small batches to get the most out of it. Cheap filtration jugs might seem like a good idea, and they can aid in cleaning up the taste a little, but they do nothing to filter out many of the undesirable compounds that are affecting your morning cup. Your brewing technique You probably already know what you like Credit: Tim Brookes / How-To Geek Focusing on technique last might seem counter-intuitive, but there’s a good chance you already know what you like. You know how you take your coffee, and you’re repeating the same recipe day in and day out because that’s what you enjoy. With that in mind, it’s never a bad idea to experiment. You’ll find all manner of recipes on the internet from coffee heavyweights like James Hoffman, Scott Rao, and Lance Hedrick. I’m particularly fond of James Hoffman’s V60 recipes, and he’s gone to extreme lengths to figure out recipes for a vast range of brewers. Ultimately, you can do a lot by researching your brew method of choice to see how you might be able to improve on what you’re already doing. Usually, you won’t need to spend a penny to do this. Beyond coffee influencers, Reddit is full of first-hand accounts and recipes you can try, even for the most basic of brewers and methods. If you are feeling like taking human error out of the equation entirely, you could invest in a machine like the Technivorm Moccamaster or Fellow Aiden to brew for you, but this is an expensive way to go. The less you spend on gear, the more you can spend on coffee. That said, if you want to spend big time on gear, there are some interesting ways in which coffee is going high-tech.