Creative Caffeine: Nashville Recording Studio

When regular coffee stopped giving 22-year-old Jake Ousley the flavor kick he needed, he decided it was time to graduate to the hard stuff: espresso. That’s what led the former Belmont student into Davis Cookware on a recent weekday to nose around for an espresso maker.

“I’ve just been progressing in the flavor of coffee,” he said. “I had tried espresso shots every now and then, and the more I drink it, the more I like it straight.”

Ousley, some might say, is a brave soul. Espresso — the tiny cup of honey-brown caffeine and the sputtering, steaming machines that make it — can be intimidating. A few minutes in Williams-Sonoma will expose the average shopper to sleek, newfangled machines that do everything but fold laundry to retro models outfitted with more knobs and gizmos than a contraption from Ben Franklin’s workshop. Sticker shock can also make the decision daunting (some at-home models cost more than $3,000). But on the contrary, espresso doesn’t have to be hard — in taste or in preparation.

Ousley, for example, walked out with a simple stovetop maker and bag of beans for less than $40. And even Grace Schoper, a sales associate at Williams-Sonoma, said the process just takes research.

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Brew your own espresso | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean