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Obligatory lever machine recommendation: https://www.lapavoni.com/en/product/europiccola-en/
Pros:
- Simple, completely mechanical bar a heating element and pressure-stat.
- As a result, fewer parts to go wrong and a cheaper machine in the first place.
- Servicing means replacing a couple of gaskets and that's it.
- No water pump means quiet operation.
- Personally, I'm a big fan the aesthetics too.
Cons:
- The amount of pressure to apply to the lever is another variable to throw into the dialling in process (personally I think that's a factor that's usually blown out of proportion, with lever machines seemingly solely being targeted at 'experienced users'.
- If you're wanting to make more than 4 or 5 drinks in quick succession, you'll want the 'Professional' model, with a 1.6L boiler as opposed to the 0.8L one in the model above. I imagine this will come with a longer warm-up time (around 10 minutes for the standard model)
- Edit: Very much at the opposite end of the spectrum as the Sage Barista Express, you will need to factor in the cost of a grinder with this as opposed to the Sage.
- Simple, completely mechanical bar a heating element and pressure-stat.
mmccarthy
Recommendations needed. My 30th is coming up and can’t think of anything I want / need more than a nice espresso maker (have dipped my toe with a cheap machine we got gifted, am now ready for a proper one).
I’ve been looking at the Sage Barista Express, looks like a decent machine with handy features.
Any other recommendations in the sub £500 category? Could be similar to the sage or just a ‘dumb’ espresso maker, I’m not decided one way or the other yet. Cheers!