90% of 'improving' your average setup is just grinding the beans right before you use them
Roast level is also a big deal. Dark roasts have a much wider sweet spot on the grinding dial. The beans are brittle so they tend to shatter and produce a lot of fines. As long as you don’t grind too fine that the machine chokes during the shot, you’re going to be able to find the sweet spot.
The lighter you go in roast, the more challenging everything becomes. Lighter roasts are less brittle so the grinder tends to cut rather than shatter. This often allows you to grind way finer on the dial. It also makes the coffee much more difficult to extract, requiring higher temperatures and a narrow grind sweet spot. Loads of people complain of sour, weak extractions with no body. This is where you can get into spending loads of money on a high-end flat burr grinder and a pressure profiling machine with PID temperature controls (and even temperature profiling during the shot).
Light roasted single origin coffee beans can smell absolutely amazing, so people know there is potential there for unbelievably good coffee. All of the disappointment in the cup is what leads to the big spending (or giving up and going back to darker roasts).
Roast level is also a big deal. Dark roasts have a much wider sweet spot on the grinding dial. The beans are brittle so they tend to shatter and produce a lot of fines. As long as you don’t grind too fine that the machine chokes during the shot, you’re going to be able to find the sweet spot.
The lighter you go in roast, the more challenging everything becomes. Lighter roasts are less brittle so the grinder tends to cut rather than shatter. This often allows you to grind way finer on the dial. It also makes the coffee much more difficult to extract, requiring higher temperatures and a narrow grind sweet spot. Loads of people complain of sour, weak extractions with no body. This is where you can get into spending loads of money on a high-end flat burr grinder and a pressure profiling machine with PID temperature controls (and even temperature profiling during the shot).
Light roasted single origin coffee beans can smell absolutely amazing, so people know there is potential there for unbelievably good coffee. All of the disappointment in the cup is what leads to the big spending (or giving up and going back to darker roasts).