Same here, with one exception: drip coffee absolutely sucks, even with the best fresh ground beans and filtered water.
My weapon of choice is the Philips 4347/94 Espresso Machine. Designed by Italian engineers.
Makes amazing regular coffee.
Worth. Every. Single. Penny. Paid.
Agreed. I have one (one of the 3 series, I believe) I treated myself to a year ago and it's fantastic. Great coffee and less waste and it will have paid for itself over the pods I was buying by 2025. The only negative is the cleaning regimen and it's not really that bad.
I drink a lot of coffee every day, so I went through this whole evolutionary search process:
1. First was a Keurig fan, until I went through so many keurig pods in a day it got nauseating. Also all that plastic waste didn't sit well with me. Even tried filling a refillable keurig pod for a while, but then that got tedious with all the cleaning. The machines always start leaking eventually. And the coffee never tasted very good, even with fresh ground.
2. Then went on a search for the best drip machine. Went through many, even a few expensive ones. Never made great coffee. And the constant prep, buying filters, and cleaning sucked.
3. Bit the bullet and finally bought the Philips espresso machine. I've had it for over a year now. Best decision I ever made for coffee. Very little prep every day, but wow, makes amazing americano and espresso. Push a few buttons and done. And with bag beans I'm still coming out cheaper per cup than with drip machines.
Though at first I thought I had gotten a defective machine, because I didn't know that you are supposed to toss the first 3-4 cups it makes while it initializes and calibrates (I thought, wow, this coffee is so weak and diluted, is something wrong here? Lol). But after that it got really great. Also I agree with you about the cleaning regimen, I do a complete machine cleaning every 3-4 months. But so worth it.
My doctor told me a while ago to stop drinking coffee because... muh cholesterol and being the know-it-all I am, I refused to stop drinking coffee because how the hell does a plant-based drink cause an increase in cholesterol?!
I've personally never bought into the notion that plain black coffee would increase one's cholesterol. It certainly hasn't increased mine, and I drink roughly ~6-8 cups a day. I'm calling baloney on that.