Coffee Appreciation

Lanark is boss. Love that place.

Can you organise delivery to St Thomas' one day.
Add to the love of Lanark here.

Currently drinking the Fondo Espresso blend from Pact. Its very, very smooth.

Hoffman's sub 500GBP espresso machine review is up. Not particularly enamored by any of them and it just makes me want a Robot even more... or a Europiccola for that matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HIGdYy5of4

We have that DeLonghi machine at work and I’ve been quite surprised with it. Here’s a few observations:
-It pulls pretty good shots with supermarket coffee. You can’t do that with a ‘proper’ espresso machine, because you’ll just end up with a large cup of bitter brown water.
-It slightly surprisingly pulled a great shot with that light roast from YB that we all struggled with a while back. I couldn’t get that coffee to work at all in my Classic.
-It can’t handle very fine grind, big dose or a heavy tamp, however. I don’t know what the pump pressure is but I don’t think it’s very high.
-The basket is also tiny, I don’t think Hoffmann would have got 18g in it. Maybe 15g tops.
-It’s a fixed shot size and quite short duration.
-I haven’t used it for milk but it’s a panarello wand so it’ll be thick Starbucks cappuccino style froth.

or a Europiccola

Lol, this was my exact thought watching it!

If they weren’t twice the price of a Robot in the U.S. I’d consider it, but a robot seems like the best value over here at $420 with the pressure gauge and distributor/tamp upgrade versus the La Pavoni at $800 ish.

I’ll sell you my Gaggia G106 for a lot less than that

hi

Shipped to California with a 120v power supply? 😢

@giles337
It’s been in my parents’ loft for the last 4 years. If you’re after one I’m seeing them this weekend and could bring it back to London.

I need to check the condition but last time I used it it was all working and a 7/10 for visual condition (bit of rust in the drip tray, light scratches etc).

Yeah it’s going to be a while until I’m in the US with work again...

Power supply could be an even trickier issue to solve.

The Gaggia Classic and the Europiccola are the only two espresso machines I've owned and the Europiccola is so much better. The only downsides really are moving from a 58mm industry standard portafilter to relatively rare 51mm one, and having a fixed volume of water to use for a shot (you can do all sorts of weird stuff with half/multiple pulls but that just seems to be asking for inconsistent results).

Maintenance is a hell of a lot more straightforward and the additional variable of the lever really isn't an issue (I definitely thought there'd be a lot more trial and error with that aspect).

I'm quite vocal about my love for the La Pavoni but if you're not making milk drinks I'd definitely be looking at the Robot instead. I love the Europiccola for it's simplicity, but you can't get much more simple that the Robot.

I would love one of those, beautiful objects... What are they like to use, Ed?

If you like being an amateur coffee dork and don’t mind varying levels of consistency it’s great. I had a few amazing shots over the years, a fair few ok ones and the occasional one only fit for the sink. No good if you need to make lots of coffee in one go but I loved the process of using it / tinkering around.

I eventually moved over to aeropress because I was always waking up too late to warm the machine up etc.

Sounds great tbh.

I like milk drinks but I don’t love them. Maybe 1 in 10 espresso’s ends up with milk. I also think my wife would be a bit gutted if I got something with a steam wand after she got Me a stand-alone breville steamer only six months ago... but that’s another conversation altogether!

One thing I really adore about the ROK is that I can roll out of bed and have an espresso five mins later. Yes you need to preheat it but you don’t need to wait for a boiler to heat up.

I eventually moved over to aeropress because I was always waking up too late to warm the machine up etc.

Hmm, I think this is where I'm heading... I only get to use the Classic on weekends or when I'm WFH... I'm really enjoying a longer coffee as well, a lot! The Aeropress has totally curbed any thoughts of upgrading the espresso machine...

FFS, can we PLEASE get over the whole warm-up time in the morning thing. It’s not a thing. Put your machine on a timer.

Forget keep cups, if all the coffee shops in all the world put their 5kW machines on timers instead of leaving them on 24/7 we’d save the polar bears overnight.

Only overnight though. They’d still melt when the machines were on during the day.

I had my machine on a timer... until I got my first leccy bill.

Smart plugs are where it's at these days, you neanderthals.

Thank you for this write up - very informative!

Sette 270 and Europiccola

As I'm a milquetoast milky coffee drinker, this looks like it could be the setup for me.