I have some of those too. Problem is they’re nowhere near as efficient at cooling as ice cubes are and never cool my drink enough. It’s the melting (phase change) process that does the majority of the cooling with ice cubes, which you miss out on with these solid blocks.

I forget the exact maths, but a quick googling reckons it takes something like 84kJ to change the temperature of 1kg of liquid water by 20K, but changing the temperature of the same amount of ice from 0K ice to 20K water takes nearly 420kJ, or roughly 5 times more energy, which is why they’re so much better at cooling drinks…

Then in a lot of places (check your local tenancy laws to be sure), you’re legally allowed to get someone in yourself to do it (or do it yourself) and deduct the expense from rent payment.

I do enjoy my tea… I think it might be my next rabbit hole to go down. I just got back from a business trip to China, and was gifted a few different black and green teas, loose and bagged. Really enjoying them so far.

I really want one of their…uh… Tea tables(?), which has a tap and temperature controlled kettle and drain built in. I’d drink so much tea…

I might not be able to tolerate the type of coffee that happens to be available to me at some random gas station or cafe along the way. That hasn’t been a problem for me yet, but how about you?

Not really been an issue for me either. I’d say I notice more now when a coffee is slightly under/over extracted, but I’d probably have noticed it tasted 'weird" before and just not known what was wrong. That said, I’ve found it to be very rare. A lot of places just use quite forgiving dark roasts that are a LOT easier to make than more lightly roasted beans.

Sage Barista Pro. Really happy with it to be fair.

It goes on sale fairly often so you could save £100 or more on the price I quoted.

I’m still learning myself, but it’s potentially because the machines are already warmed up and the grinder is “dialled in” for the beans on offer. One very important aspect (among other things such as temperature, pressure etc) with espresso is the grind size, which will need adjusting between different bean types and roasts. Everything else being equal, a grind that’s too coarse will let the water through too quickly and give you an under-extracted “sour” tasting coffee, whereas too fine and the water moves too slowly and you end up overextracting (and/or choking the machine) and it gets very astringent and bitter tasting; not pleasant at all.

Alternatively, they could be using a pressurised portafilter, which give much more consistent results, but do take away some control and limit the end result. If it’s a high end machine though it’s probably an unpressured filter basket.

Edit: Also the roast makes a big difference to how difficult it is to pull a good tasting espresso. Many restaurants/ chains use fairly dark roasted beans which are generally a lot more forgiving than lighter roasts. At least that’s been my experience.

Sage Barista Pro. Definitely an entry level machine, but I’m very happy with it… I’m not invested enough to go for a dual boiler or higher end machine quite yet - They start to get very big and very expensive very quickly, and I have limited space.

I genuinely almost did!

Not branched out into different brewing methods yet though. I’ve already claimed enough kitchen surface space, my GF will kill me!

Coffee.

I blame James Hoffman entirely.

Within a year I went from:

Drinking instant coffee at home, but really enjoying “proper coffee”

To

Buying a cafetiere (~£15) + preground coffee

To

Buying a Nespresso (~£60 on offer) + pods

To

Buying a budget espresso machine (~£120) + preground coffee

To

Wasting my money on a cheap manual coffee grinder (~£50) + beans

To

Immediately replacing it with an entry level Sage grinder (~£170)

To

Buying an entry Level “proper” espresso machine (~£700)

It took me a good 2-3 weeks of practicing and dialling in before pulling a good shot of coffee that I’d actually want to drink, but by that point it was also about learning a new skill, learning how different aspects of the process affect the end result and learning how to make all sorts of different espresso-based drinks.

My girlfriend thought I was nuts at first, but a year or so later even she agrees it was worth the investment. I still for the life of me can’t get the hang of latte art though.

The problem is now though that I’m a waaaay more critical of coffee from coffee shops, because I spent a long time making bad coffee whilst learning!

I just got back from a business trip to China also. The high proportion of EVs, particularly in the southern cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen really stood out to me, and many of them (particularly from BYD) looked really, really nice. They seemed less prominent in the more northern part of the country (e.g. Shenyang, Beijing), but even there I’d say they’re more common than in the UK.

It was a real eye opener

Until you end up like me; spending more time messing with the emulator than playing, just to see how good you can get stuff looking and what other cool stuff they can do.

To be fair, Elden Rings difficulty slider is the same as any other RPG… going off and doing other stuff for a bit until you’re OP for the part giving you trouble.

Also summoning people (or even the seamless coop mod that allows coop all the time everywhere) that’s also an effective difficulty slider.