I'd like to revive this thread to evangelise for a while! I've decided to stop trying to kick my coffee addiction. Instead, I'll culture it.
Those of you who like coffee should, if you have some time to spare, try your hand at roasting your own beans. I use a heat-gun to roast them on my balcony and it's fun as hell! It's extremely satisfying because of the hands-on approach, the learning element, the (hopefully) delicious results... and because the house smells of freshly roasted coffee for a while after you're done
I get my beans from a Swedish company but you Americans can try
www.sweetmarias.com (for both beans and LOTS of info). I'm not sure if Brits can still use
www.hasbean.co.uk Of course, roasting whole green beans at home is only useful if you've a grinder. If you've a little money to spare, check out the Pharos manual grinder from Orphan Espresso. It is a bit of an ergonomic nightmare, but it's probably the best value high-quality manual grinder on the market. That being said, almost any decent burr grinder--even ancient second-hand coffee-mills--is likely to be a good upgrade over nothing at all or over a blade grinder. I like old grinders with flywheels, mostly because I think flywheels are cool (and I think this because I am not cool).
Roasting your own beans may or may not be economically advantageous, but, with a bit of work, it's def advantageous wrt flavour. Buying whole beans is better from a flavour perspective than buying pre-ground coffee. Relatively freshly roasted beans are better than stale ones. Beans you've roasted yourself are, sooner or later, going to beat the tight pants off of any pre-ground coffee you can buy... and, with some training, it'll beat many pre-roasted beans.
When it comes to brewing methods, I have recently become enamored of the good ol' cowboy coffee. It's more common up here in the north and was introduced to me by the manly men in my fiancée's family. I've also bought the second iteration of the Presso and, though the quality of its output is steadily improving, I must say it's been more hassle than it's worth. However, when it works well, it's a reasonably cheap and elegant way to get good espresso at home.
Wrt flavour, I've discovered, to my surprise, that I really like light-to-medium roasts. Done well, and under the right circumstances, these roasts seem to have sweeter and more exciting flavours, as opposed to the more bitter and less varied flavour of most really dark roasts I've tried. I hear adding a tiny amount of salt to a bitter brew can neutralise the bitterness to a great extent but I've decided to steer clear of such black salty magic.
Another way to reduce bitterness is to cold brew your coffee. Depending on the coffee and the time, this method can also bring out both a more rich chocolatey flavour as well as some subtle delicate flavours you'd never notice otherwise. It's probably one of the better ways to use "bad" coffee and it can be fairly practical as well in that you can just prep it quickly in the evening (eg. in a french press or Aeropress) and drink it in the morning. Some people make larger batches of cold-brewed coffee concentrate but I'm not a fan.
