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@arrowplum
I was recently in an Italian cafe near my house (one that had foods and beer which is why I was there).
I noticed they had a beautiful espresso machine. I got excited when I noticed they had an actual tamper next to the machine. "Maybe these people give a shit about coffee" I thought to myself.
I ordered an espresso and was pretty bummed about what happened next. First I hadn't noticed the hopper, so the beans were preground in the hopper, then the dude bypassed the tamper and pushed it against the plastic thing on the grinder.
The espresso was over-hot and watery. It sucked, the machine was so pretty and the coffee was so non. I read some shit and I am pretty sure one of the problems was if the machine is sitting and not pumping out coffee, the water gets over hot. You have to flush out the water that sits in the heat exchanger I guess.
I almost want to go back there and order an espresso, throw it away and immediately order another one to see if the temp gets more right.
The machine was a Faema E61 ( an old one). If I had a cafe I would think about getting one of those.
Nerdy articles on the machine
part 1: http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/coffeeasia/06-05-2007
part 2: http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/coffeeasia/12-18-2007