Coffee Appreciation

the bambino plus is fine (I think we've put nearly 800 shots through ours already) but i'd get better coffee from my gaggia classic, it's just much less hassle to use. basically it'll bang out a 6 or 7 out of 10 coffee in about 2.5 minutes from turning it on but it's not gonna blow your mind.

Just grabbed a spontaneous bag of Hunkute from Workshop. Really quite fun - lots of ginger coming through which is new to me.

?

Appreciating this, roaster is Passion Fruit, Trafford, baker is Pollen.

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Looks great tbh. PID temp control, double boiler etc.

Comes in sweet baby blue too

No flow profiling. Paddle is a glorified on/off switch.

Does a quorum of the people on this thread consider flow profiling to be an essential feature of a high quality espresso machine?

How much do you like being able to control pressure/pre-infusion with your lever?

How likely is it you'd like to play with variable pressure/pre-infusion at some point in the rest of your espresso-making life?

If you keep the lever for 'playing', LMLM would be a great daily driver for consistently good espresso but I don't see how a machine without at least the option for playing with pressure can be the 'best home espresso machine'.

edit: I mean, even the high-end spring levers have adjustable pressure pre-infusion now.

Maybe try Melitta or Rombouts

I was in asda yesterday and they had the Rombouts so I picked up a pack. They're a fraction smaller than the filtropa but slightly more ridged so they stand up a bit better. Basically no difference for 500ml brews, you're at the edge on both.

I know this was a month ago but if you've still got your Silvia on the wrong side of the cupboard* sort it out :P

(There isn't space to froth milk there!)

(Also hope you're not keeping those beans on top of the machine when it's on)

I want 300g of coffee beans delivered through my letterbox every week

We get Square Mile Red Brick delivered and it comes in a nice long flat letterbox compatible box (which you may well have experienced by now).

Only annoying thing is they use Royal Mail. Their roastery is down the road from us in Walthamstow and it goes out to Romford, then back to our local delivery depot, then out for delivery. Then because they send it on RM 48 and that's unreliable we get told it will be delivered by 3pm on a particular day, then it doesn't come (happened yesterday).

I am going to feed this back to them as otherwise their service and beans are very good.

We ended up buying £2.59 Lidl Colombian whole beans last night (227g) as a stop gap, I may post a little review of these as on first impressions they seem incredible for the money. Obviously you can't compare but a 350g bag of Red Brick is £13.

On the travel coffee setup discussion, I'm firmly in the aeropress + porlex camp

+1 but with paper filters - best coffee you'll get on the road IMO and only needs boiling (or close to boiling) water. Up for trying a metal filter though. I don't need to weigh to get good coffee with this setup.

Does anyone in here actually use any of these 4k+ machines at home? Genuinely curious if anyone has real world experience of Linea/Decent etc
Diminishing returns at this sort of price point no?

I wish! If I had the money I'd probably go for a Linea. My friend has one and it's his baby, but his brother is a successful pro cyclist and it was a present (as was his car).

Diminishing returns at this sort of price point no?

100%. I got around my upgradeitis by refurbing my Silvia, fitting a PID to it, making it smart using a Shelly Plus 1PM and adding boiler insulation. Also bought a decent WTD tool, a budget scale and a new knock box (old one was from 2013 and was rusting through at the bottom!) and it's transformed my coffee making.

Why you should open your boiler up ~every five years if you live in London in one picture :)

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Why you should open your boiler up ~every five years if you live in London in one picture :)

Jesus Christ!

I admit that if I lost my sanity/won lottery then a Linea at home would probably be what I’d go for.

For home use, a grand or so on a dual boiler machine is about as far anyone has to go really.
But I know it’s a bit like saying ‘you don’t need that 10k s-works, a £500 bike does the same’

My current set up
Lelit Elizabeth - dual boiler, two pid for both steam and group head temperature, has a clever pre-infusion method. No flow profiling but I don’t need it.

Makes a nice coffee.

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Had a similar experience with them after buying a bag of their new decaf filter roast. Live a stone's throw from the roastery and the beans took 4 days to arrive.

On the coffee, doesn't seem to be anything special. It's Brazilian instead of Colombian beans, which might be why. Much prefer the Dark Arts decaf so far, but need to spend a few more brews dialling it in perhaps.

Probably not, but I would argue that your Gaggia is also not missing any essential features of a high-quality espresso machine.

Paper filters definitely produce a better quality cup, but I like the convenience of not having to worry about how many to pack, whether they'll get crumpled up in transit (or somehow go missing).

With the metal one I can at least just store it in the aeropress for the travel time (I imagine long-term that may do some damage to the rubber plunger). Picked up a Koffi branded metal filter a good 10 years ago and it makes pretty decent coffee. Just need to make sure you don't fall back into the habit of knocking the filter + puck into the bin.

The wooden handle on my basket is somewhat unhappy with being heated / cooled, and has lost its threading.

It's now being held on with large quantities of PTFE tape.

Just tried to unscrew mine to see if it's a wooden thread or a metal plug and it's siezed pretty firm!

Could you bore it out and pop a metal plug in there for a more secure fit?

I’m right handed the other side would feel weird no? There’s enough room to steam milk

Still looking for optimum place for beans to live, currently in the cupboard below

Snap! Recently got the Elizabeth after much research and absolutely love it, need to adjust the OPV down slightly but have been getting consistently delicious shots since day one.

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Reusable espresso travel cup - what do people have?