I can't stop myself here. I must really love downvotes (given the site I'm posting on)...
I don't get this espresso thing. Perhaps I've just not drunk the right stuff, but I've drunk quite a bit of it and there only seem to be 3 flavours of espresso. Pathetically weak and watery, rancid or strong and quite nice.
Since the beans have been roasted to buggery, I've yet to detect significant difference in the taste of different espressos. Although I've read that there's been a recent fashion for using medium roasted beans, in order to get a fruitier coffee flavour into it. Which many espresso fans don't apparently like.
So you need a decent machine. Or possibly (so I've heard) one of those aeropress thingies? But you don't need to grind freshly, so long as you're not just shoving the ground stuff in the cupboard for several weeks.
What's then truly disappointing is when you ask for coffee and get watered-down espresso. Which is Americano as I understand it. Mostly what I want to drink is coffee. Get some light/medium roasted beans, grind and place in hot water. Drink black. Savour flavour. If I can't have that, I'll take a cappucino or cafe au lait. Or black tea.
Is a flat white more like a cafe au lait? I think we suffer from the collision of American and European terminology. So a latte doesn't seem to be the same as a cafe au lait, it's more like a coffee-ish milkshake.
I'm happy to be educated about espresso, and pointed in the right direction to learn the 'error of my ways'.