Apologies! I should have checked this advice before , the French offerings seems ludicrously expensive - must be being shipped from post-Brexit UK. However, should you have the misfortune to be a UK resident, at least you can console yourself with a wide range of single estate coffees whose packaging carries the date of roasting - seldom more than two weeks old andtheir rating in world tasting championships - anything in the high eighties is very good quality coffee - and great value compared to wines with similarly high ratings.
But good fun! We enjoy coffee and having the ability to play around with different grinds, pressures, water temperature and so on is perhaps our equivalent of having a model train set! Plus with the barista co-niece we get interesting deliveries of week old roasted beans, as well as working our way through coffee from local roastery. Latest was Ou Yang chinese beans 
which we thoroughly enjoyed. I like variety so happy to chop and change.
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Just wondering @Russellgww is Illy too light for you?
You mentioning the Algerian Coffee Stores takes me right back to when I first lived in London and knew many of the stores in and around Old Compton St very well indeed as I worked very close by.
Lots of people seem to recommend Monmouth for coffee. Recently someone really recommended Spiller & Tait.
When we could still travel I have been known to head to Italy pretty much for a coffee 
. Next time I make it back to London I will try to bag some of that velluto if I can get anywhere the centre.
For cafetiere my favourite in Mayfair was lastly Kibo AA Chagga from Higgins in Duke St. But it did escalate in price and I haven’t dared check if it’s still there.
This was my first thought when everyone started going on about their machines! I also find the cost per cup ridiculous, i bought a box when i stayed at my sisters and it was 50p per pod! if i was a one cup a day drinker it may not be such an issue! i am currently using just a cafetiere and tbh as i drink my coffee milky it is fine. i use lidls equivilent of Carte noir and it is really nice. i have in the barn a proper krups expresso machine but sadly don’t have any bench space for it at the moment.
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Our favourite coffee beans:
https://www.amazon.fr/Lavazza-Gran-Aroma-Bar-LavAzza/dp/B002V86PEY/
and our machine:
I have had the same issue. I find that all of the local torrefacteurs add chicory. I am currently experimenting with the products of Terres de Cafe, which are very good: https://www.terresdecafe.com/en/
Here’s my Turkish coffee mill, though I do not actually use it.
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Who are they? Are they doing it illicitly? There a couple of places in Bergerac (the Brûlerie du Perigord, Victoria) where you can get your coffee roasted and ground the way you like it. No chicory. I don’t actually understand why anyone would be adding chicory since that’s fraud and I’d have thought a minority taste anywa if you look at the proportions of coffee vs coffee/chicory in eg supermarkets.
Your coffee grinder’s really interesting. Hard to tell from single photo, but might it be a late C19th French one (I’ve got similar) that’s been repaired and also adapted to make Turkish coffee? The crank looks as though the original has broken and been repaired with a piece of blade and the knob on its end’s been repositioned, as one would have expected more of the knob to be above the crank. Was the extension beside it used for turning the ground coffee into powder with a pestle?
Traditionally, a cylindrical brass mill as above was used for grinding Turkish coffee and spices. I’ve one from Istanbul’s spice bazaar, it looks and grinds very fine, but is so painfully slow to use - that I always opt for pestle and mortar.
Was surprised to learn from a English C19th account of everyday life in the Lot Valley that the local peasantry home roasted their breakfast coffee the previous evening. Standards have definitely slipped since those days!
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“Bean to cup machines use electric grinders which compared to traditional hand cranked ones, grind too fast and overheat the beans”
I have read that, Mark, but I have a Japanese ceramic hand grinder that gourmets swear by and it mostly stays in the cupboard while my electric grinder gets daily use for my cafetiere. I have tried the same beans in both and there is no discernable difference, as common sense would suggest would be the case. Maybe for a professional coffee taster but there is a lot of nonesense spouted about coffee and at the end of the day it is all about enjoyment of the drink not feeling superior to others (not you, the people who write this stuff).
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Very useful for making coffee cakes and icing.
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Ha. a Rolls Royce compared to ours.
Fair points, but there’s also the sensory pleasures (at least for some) not only of using a century old fruitwood coffee mill every morning as generations have before me, but feeling how different roasts behave in the grinder. I’m retired, I don’t need to gulp down my morning coffee and dash off to commute - instead I can live slowly and in the moment
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I find Illy wildly overpriced and overrated, but that is partly because Lavazza used to be a client of mine in the past and tribal loyalties run deep (but not so deep that they interfere with my passion for Veluto Nero)! I do use Illy pods sometimes in the Nespresso machine and I have a battery operated Nespresso machine for travelling (when such a thing was allowed) and use Illy pods in that for when the hotel and/or conference venue coffee is undrinkable. The price uplift on their pods is less marked than for their coffee. The portable nespresso machine does cause some consternation at security, mind.
Of course I could find an equivalent coffee and at times I have had to, but in general I have been disappointed with the products from local coffee roasters - I guess they cater to the French taste which is more mellow than the Italian in general - although, contrary to popular and especially Italian belief, I have had some of the worst coffee ever in Italy. Don’t forget most Italians use a Moka Express at home which utterly ruins good coffee.
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Will Véro rise to your bait !?
I can buy that, Mark, but I like a full cafetiere and I like it very strong and 10 minutes grinding the coffee is more than I fancy, even though I am also retired (but seem to have less time than when I was working). The resulting thick black liquor is too much for most people - they can add water if they want but I’d much rather they had a Nespresso and leave me to my fix! I have an old Spong cast iron grinder, not quite as evocative as yours, but I use that for grinding spices now.
Polar opposites! I used to love strong coffee, but my taste has travelled in the opposite direction and I now go for the pale fragrant brews. Some of them are almost like tealike, but perversely I don’t like tea.
I have a Moka Express of course (friends call my house the museum of coffee) and use it sometimes for fun, but the coffee is not great. Also Turkish and Arabic coffee pots and a whole range besides.
Have you ever tried true Arabic coffee - the type that is a thick green viscous liquid? When I was first served it in an hotel in Jeddah I called the waiter back and told him I had ordered coffee not tea, which is what it looked like. Absolutely divine, flavoured with cardamom and especially when served with good dates - there used to be a fabulous date shop, Bateel, in New Bond St now sadly closed due to redevelopment, and they served Arabic coffee with dates at a surprisingly modest price.
Edit: I looked up Bateel to see if they had reopened in London but sadly not. You can order their dates online though - the Sukari are incredible - like eating toffees.
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No, had it with mastic and cardamon, but have never been to Saudi or the Gulf. Sounds interesting.
Also have set of Moka pots - haven’t used them this century, but they’re so cute I wouldn’t get rid of them