Coffee Appreciation

Cool. I'll check out Tinderbox next time I'm through. I haven't been to Beanscene in quite a while but I remember having many over-caffeinated moments thanks to their four-shot drinks.

Bombcup could you remind Neil to buy a fricking market license this week please.

He really is a bellend sometimes. I'll kick him all the way to the town hall if he doesn't.

We're opening a cafe which has a workshop and are looking for a competent barista with good bike knowledge. Ideally a friendly rosetta pouring individual who loves riding their bike and knows a headset from a Bottom Bracket. This is us www.lookmumnohands.com and our job ad is here: www.londoncoffeejobs.co.uk

Where is it? I'd be very interested. Almost 2 and a half years as a barista and pretty handy with bikes, pm me with details. Thanks.

Does anyone have any opinions on the Vibiemme Domobar Junior? I was having an idle peruse and thought that it might be something to aim for. That and a Mazzer Mini perhaps.

mccarthy, take your bows

Hah! Just saw this, i'm still practicing them, got the whiskers looking nice and thin now =P

awesome :)

cup of instant, nine sugars.

loving the tags:)

Does anyone have any opinions on the Vibiemme Domobar Junior? I was having an idle peruse and thought that it might be something to aim for. That and a Mazzer Mini perhaps.

That machine and all the others like it will make a great cup of coffee but for the price of them I find them really tinny and a faf to use. My money (probably less money) would be on a single group used commercial machine like Hippy's if looks are not a priority and space allows. They're so much more user friendly (you have much more space and you really value a plumbed waste), the contact points and all-round engineering feels miles better, they're easier to maintain and service and are quieter in use (rotary pump vs vibration pump). Overall you are much more keen to use it as it feels solid and is way less messy.

Mazzer mini makes great coffee.

That machine and all the others like it will make a great cup of coffee but for the price of them I find them really tinny and a faf to use. My money (probably less money) would be on a single group used commercial machine like Hippy's if looks are not a priority and space allows. They're so much more user friendly (you have much more space and you really value a plumbed waste), the contact points and all-round engineering feels miles better, they're easier to maintain and service and are quieter in use (rotary pump vs vibration pump). Overall you are much more keen to use it as it feels solid and is way less messy.

Mazzer mini makes great coffee.

Thanks for that. Very useful.

Matthew Algie and Espresso warehouse are one and the same, they supply M&S & Pret to name a few of the big ones. They are famous for putting the beautiful retro styled Electra Barlume in coffee bars. Tinderbox was started up by David Williamson who was the top man at MA before he passed away last year. There's one in Angel so you don't have to go to all the way to Glasgow. One of the best things about Tinderbox was the music which David did himself with the help of rough trade. Not sure who does this now.

Thanks for the interest in Lookmumnohands! I will PM you but do check out the ad on www.londoncoffeejobs.co.uk

So my £40 Woolworths (yep) espresso machine is terminally ill and will, I expect, give up the ghost any day now (the portafilter started losing pressure and spraying steam out the side, now the spray has become a steady flow that dilutes my shot and fills it with coffee grinds). I can't complain, she's served me surprisingly well all things considered but I feel that now it's time to upgrade.

There is a veritable smorgasbord of machines to choose from and plenty of conflicting and confusing information on the big bad internets, and given the vast numbers of coffee nerds on this forum, I thought it would be worth asking for some first hand opinions.

My main concern is lifespan. I'm planning on spending about £200 (but will stretch a bit further if someone can put forward a convincing argument) so I don't want a machine that will fail after 9 months. Reliable information on that front is hard to come by with google. This means that serviceability is also important, or at least a company who will deal with problems should they arise. A good steamer is important, one that can produce microbubbles and not just piss lukewarm water into the milk. It's also important that the machine produces a good crema - I've been getting into espressos / macchiatos recently. Pod machines can eat a bag of dicks - I don't want to be paying extra for something I'm not going to use. If the machine is good, I'll probably buy a decent grinder and do that whole thing, but I'm going to manage with Illy preground until then.

These are the things I know. Everything else (boiler sizes, how long it takes to pull the shot, etc) are the things that are confusing me. I've only ever really used my crappy woolies machine or professional machines with their own water supply, so these things have never been an issue, but I want to get the most I can out of my money. There seem to be pros and cons with all of them, but I'd rather have a machine that reliably and consistently produces good coffee than one that is super easy to use but doesn't quite hit the mark.

So does anyone have any recommendations / advice?

a gaggia machine with the pro group head? i.e. something above the cubika level of machine.
some experts will be along in a bit to suggest other machines.

Basic choice at this level of spend is Gaggia Classic or for a bit more the Rancillio Silvia (£300-350). If you want to make decent espresso you really need a good grinder, Iberital MC2 is best for £100ish, under that it's all pretty much bobbins (for espresso).
FWIW I have a Silvia and just upgrading from an MC2 for 3 years and they have been great. The Silvia is built like a tank!

To be honest, I am quite seriously considering the Silvia, but I've read mixed reviews as you always do.

All the Illy/Francis Francis machines are over £200.

I have had no experience with them, (and I have no idea how expensive the pods are) but you can get a Nespresso machine for about £150 (see CITIZ range), and George Clooney is the face of Nespresso. but it looks like they don't have a steam wand.

And I know how much you like your latte art.

this^

Shame it's over $1,000

you can get away with not having a grinder. i get beans ground at monmouth/flat white/espresso room (selling square mile coffee) there is a bit of inconsistency between batches but i'm still getting shots way better than that from chains or restaurants, and sometimes better than the reputable coffee shops. will get a grinder eventually but i don't feel it's an essential at the moment.

?? consistency and freshness of grind is far more important than quality of machine.. a zassenhaus hand grinder would be the least you could get a decent grinder for, and tbh i think they perform better than any electric burr grinder <£200..

but since you asked about brewers the gaggia classic or baby are around £200, the rancilio silvia is a bit more, the saeco nina is also around £200..

To be honest, I am quite seriously considering the Silvia, but I've read mixed reviews as you always do.

the only negative review of the silvia i can imagine is from someone who doesn't know a whole lot about coffee, stretched their budget to the max to buy a silivia, expected miracles, and then was disappointed when it didn't deliver. it's a manual machine that allows you to dial in temperatures as well as many commercial models at a VERY affordable price. that said, it's better suited to enthusiasts, not beginners because if you are just pulling illy out of the can at stock configurations, you can get the same results with a saeco or gaggia at half the price

Well, like I say I don't plan on staying on the Illy forever. In fact, I've just been reading through the coffee thread and it's opening up a whole world of geekery that I never expected to find myself so excited by.

just wait until you stumble upon here:

http://coffeegeek.com/forums
or here:
http://www.home-barista.com/forums/

;)

I've read a lot about the Silvia and, like you, was slightly put off. All of the things I read about it were based around modifications to make the machine better. The general theme was that it is a great machine to modify but is a bit weak straight out of the factory.

These, however, are the opinions of coffee geeks who bought a Silvia and have now grown out of it and want to make it produce espresso comparable to that of a commercial machine. Once I looked past these reviews I found that as a 'first proper machine' it's a very capable one.

Oh gawd this is the second evening I have spend reading about coffee. It's making me feel terrible - I'm doing some temporary work at a cafe and it's just dawned on me that I have been serving awful coffees for weeks now...

I'm honestly so torn over what to get. The idea of experimenting with everything sounds incredible, but I don't know if I can face dropping £500 on coffee making equipment at this point in time. Anything less than that though and I know I'll feel like I've wasted my money.

i think spending £300 and picking up something like a gaggia classic/baby and a zassenhaus hand grinder can be well justified. it's a bit of work grinding a shot by hand (about 40 seconds of turning), but the quality compared to pre-ground, pods, or cheap burr grinders is huge, and really it's probably only once or twice a day you will be grinding a shot, right?