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Tenderloin
I've recently up/down/side-graded our coffee setup at home from my gaggia classic/vario combo to a sage bambino plus and their smart pro grinder after stonehedge brought it's existence to my attention.
I love my Gaggia and it's going as strong as it did when I picked it up in 2012, I had even just bought a PID kit for it that I was waiting for the right weekend to sit down and fit but try as I might I have never been able to get my GF to learn how to use the gaggia in any meaningful way and it was really chafing my arse with us both working from home most of the time that when I'm busy with work I couldn't just make a quick coffee for myself and get back to it, I'd be stuck making them for both of us.
after a couple of weeks I gotta say the sage is definitely not the beast my gaggia has become with its upgrades but it makes a coffee in about 3 minutes flat and with a short set of written instructions my gf now not only makes herself coffee but I even get them made for me sometimes.
currently I'm weighing out the grind by time on the smart pro grinder, then using a cheap coffee distributor and then a normcore spring loaded tamper all setup for double shot and using the auto-milk function and it's producing a consistent 7/10 coffee every time. there's wiggle room to improve it and have a vst basket and bottomless portafilter for when I feel inclined to tinker but work is busy and I have plenty of other things on my to-do list ahead of it.
at some point my heavily modded gaggia with all it's toys and my vario grinder will be going up for sale here but they both need a decent clean before I put them up. the brand new pid kit from shades of coffee with topbox and pressure gauge kit will also be up for less than rrp but I want to offer it up along with the gaggia first.