Madison Keys' Espresso Game Leads to Courtside Coffee Corner Section
The Australian Open winner likes to show off her coffee-making skills so much she has a special coffee section on her Instagram page. This led to the creation of a Coffee Corner section.
Madison Keys's espresso-making game is as fierce as her forehand. The 2025 Australian Open champion is serious about her coffee, and like most people immersed in coffee culture, She continues to improve her coffee-brewing skills.
While checking out her latest espresso-making video on Instagram, I was inspired to create a Coffee Corner section on this substack.
What caught my eye? Well, it was an espresso machine I’d been coveting for years. When Keys gave a tour of her Orlando home four years ago, I spotted a Breville Bambino on her kitchen counter. That’s the espresso maker I own. But recently, she posted a cup of espresso, and I immediately knew she had upgraded to the La Marzocco Linea Mini R Espresso Machine, my dream machine.
The cute compact prosumer (professional/consumer) machine retails for $5,900. That’s beyond my budget. But I was intrigued that Keys upgraded from the exact machine I owned to the one I craved.
Keys and I have similar tastes in coffee machine design and beans. Keys also uses a Chemex and posted pictures of a bag of coffee beans from Buddy Brew, a Tampa-based coffee roaster. Buddy Brew is my second favorite coffee roaster, behind Ethos Roasters.
I considered making Coffee Corner a separate section on Courtside Coffee and not just a part of the newsletter. I feared the coffee content might be buried beneath the tennis coverage. Seeing Keys, a world-class athlete, with a coffee section on her Instagram page finally inspired me to do it. Yes, Maddy made me.
Tennis, being a coffee connoisseur, and living in Central Florida are three of the four things I have in common with Keys. She’s also into interior design and wants to pursue a career in decorating after she retires from tennis.
Perhaps she’ll inspire me to redecorate my office. In the meantime, thanks in part to Keys, you Courtside Coffee peeps will get more coffee content.
To populate the new Coffee Corner section, I’ll post coffee culture stories that ran in previous Courtside Coffee editions. Then, I will add new content. This will make coffee stories more accessible.
I hope you enjoy this highly caffeinated content.
