Hand grinders will give you better grind quality than what you pay for in a machine. If you’re looking for budget I’d say Wilfa Svart is about as low as you want to go. But it will not do espresso.
If you want espresso you’re looking at Sage Smart Grinder/Baratza Encore/Fellow Opus/Rancilio Rocky/Iberital as your starter range. I’d almost always recommend buying secondhand as plenty of people buy these then decide to upgrade a year or two later so it’s a reasonably fast moving market. Other bang for your buck option is to find an old ex-cafe mazzer/Eureka grinder (they are built like tanks) but they will be heavy as hell and not well adapted to home use/single grinding.
Ultimately think a cheap grinder will almost always be better than ground coffee if you want nice coffee flavours, so do go for whatever you can afford. But do also buy good beans because no point buying a good grinder if you’re grinding stuff that’s been roasted to charcoal and sat on a shelf for two months. I think Django coffee is great, and black cat do very reasonably priced coffee blends last I checked. Yellow Bourbon is a bit above that price point but I’ve heard very good things and there’s a forum discount because Steve is on here.
Hand grinders will give you better grind quality than what you pay for in a machine. If you’re looking for budget I’d say Wilfa Svart is about as low as you want to go. But it will not do espresso.
If you want espresso you’re looking at Sage Smart Grinder/Baratza Encore/Fellow Opus/Rancilio Rocky/Iberital as your starter range. I’d almost always recommend buying secondhand as plenty of people buy these then decide to upgrade a year or two later so it’s a reasonably fast moving market. Other bang for your buck option is to find an old ex-cafe mazzer/Eureka grinder (they are built like tanks) but they will be heavy as hell and not well adapted to home use/single grinding.
Ultimately think a cheap grinder will almost always be better than ground coffee if you want nice coffee flavours, so do go for whatever you can afford. But do also buy good beans because no point buying a good grinder if you’re grinding stuff that’s been roasted to charcoal and sat on a shelf for two months. I think Django coffee is great, and black cat do very reasonably priced coffee blends last I checked. Yellow Bourbon is a bit above that price point but I’ve heard very good things and there’s a forum discount because Steve is on here.