Coffee Appreciation

Biased owner here, but a Europiccola is around a similar price point and will outlive you with pretty basic maintenance

I switched from cheap espresso machine to La Pavoni and love it but I wouldn't recommend it for making more than two drinks in a row.

If you decide to go from the Gaggia DM me as I have a code that will knock an extra tenner off.

I upgraded from a Gaggia Classic to a HX - small boiler means steam pressure is questionable but otherwise will give you serviceable coffee. Additionally the range of temperatures of the temp stat in the Gaggia means temp surfing is a must if you don’t have a PID installed, otherwise you get a very wide variance in extraction. Also not sure if you can adjust the OPV of the pump (to vary extraction pressure) on the newer gaggia models?

@Stevethecoffee the Argos is being produced by people who know what they are doing and are operating as professionally as a small business can do, speaking as someone who has waited for a preorder for a year and a half and been kept updated with reasonable progress in that time. Of course longevity of the business is a concern but I suppose Decent started out the same way and their development trajectory doesn’t seem questionable in the least. They also try to use industry standard parts for consumables so it’s mostly the electronics that I’d be concerned about support for should they wind the business up. The ability to change between spring and direct, added to the temperature stability of the brew temperature (pretty much the biggest issue with all lever machines of that size) are really big plus points for anyone thinking about going the lever route.