Ask Engadget: Best home espresso machine?
By Ryan Block 
posted July 28th 2005 7:16PM
posted July 28th 2005 7:16PM
Ask Engadget took the week off last Thursday, but it's back, this time with a question from reader Phil H. who wants to know:
I have a pretty boring job. I'm not complaining, but I've just been looking for a good espresso machine for home use to get me going in the AM. Semi-auto is fine, but full auto's probably a little much, and it needs to be something that works well, won't require a lot of maintainence, and that the wife won't kick out of the kitchen because it's so ugly. I hear the Rancilio Silvia has the best bang/buck, but is there anything else out there worth the cash?
Yeah, we're getting a little drowsy over here too in the late afternoon sun—anyone care to shoot a suggestion on a good shot of the good stuff?
I hope you are not considering anything the Starbucks people say, they make the worst coffee I have ever tasted.
Gaggia are excellent value for money.
What John R said. Freshly roasted beans is also very important. Best to find a good local or online roastery where you *know* how long ago the beans have been roasted. 2 weeks old is the max.
Again, this site is definitive:
http://www.coffeegeek.com
Also
alt.coffee.
for a machine that makes a dammed good cup of REAL coffee and doesnt look bad, I cant recomend the FrancisFrancis X1 highly enough... had one for 5 years now and it just keeps chugging along for me every morning.
http://62.207.135.220/FrancisFrancis/en-US/Products/X1.htm
amazon only stocks 3 colors, but there are more availible from other places.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004VXQC/qid=1122605826/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_unbuck_1/103-4979229-7368607?v=glance&s=kitchen&n=284507
for coffee on the go, Illy expresso pods in a can are a GREAT way to go when your in a hurry and dont want to mess with a grinder... they make a truly spectacular cup of coffee.
John R's post (#6) was both excellent and accurate - he knows his stuff. if you want the absolute best there is you simply have to grind your own... but if your going for a pod system, Illy expresso pods in FrancisFrancis machine can't be beat and arent quite as bad as john makes them out to be (though he is right - loose is better).
and finally, To the one person kind enough to mention a French Press, way to go. I love the coffee that comes out of mine. thats the way coffee should be made... i'm not a huge fan of franch press expresso.... but french press coffee is outstanding.
and to those recomending anything having to do with starbucks... NO NO NO NO NO dear god in heaven NO!!! that my friends is not real coffee.. it is americanized coffee - bitter, flavorless, and cheap. do yourself a favor and get a REAL machine... believe it or not it does make a difference.
-Frank
Nespresso is far and away the greatest. Absolutely no effort to make supremely good shots of espresso. Please try it, everybody, you will never again waste time trying to tweak it perfect and just enjoy the coffee instead of the frustration.
I've tried manual, semi-, full auto, and they all pale in comparison to the Nespresso system.
You won't be disappointed.
And it blows Senseo away too.
okay, i have two machines a gaggia classic, and a francisfrancis (i also had a faema). i love them both. the gaggia is a better machine overall. they both make mean espresso. as was stated earlier, you need a good machine, grinder, and beans. i've been making my own espresso for the last ten years, every day, so take the info for what it's worth. i've tried all kinds of beans. the $24 dollar a pound blue mountain, kona flown straight in from hawaii, and the best stuff for me is this brazillian espresso bean from porto rico coffee company in nyc. it's $3.99 a pound and it's WAY better than the others.
The Rancilio Silvia hands down is the best "home consumer" machine you can buy, bar none. I know you might be leery of jumping on a bandwagon i.e. "everyone owns a Silvia, so I should get something else" but in this case it really is far and away the best thing out there for the price you pay. And while you're at it, just go ahead and get a Mazzer Mini grinder. And a couple pounds of Caffe Fresco's Ambrosia espresso blend, a naked portafilter, a triple basket, a 58mm tamper, and a thermocouple thermometer. And that's just for starters. To reiterate, Silvia is awesome and you won't regret it at all.
I have one of these at my work, and I don't think I could live without it. There is a learning curve involved in making a good coffee with it, as it is basically a cut down version of a real cafe one. But its just great.
http://www.laffare.co.nz/shop/product.asp?pfid=0701
I have a rancilio machine and grinder, they are great and last forever, and is a great machine to start with. As for the beans which are very important, I use them from either Via Quadrono in ny or from Sant Estachio ( http://www.santeustachioilcaffe.it/ ) they are fairly expensive about $30 a kilo but well worth the price. They wield great nutty coffee with fantastic crema. Crema is a function of grind setting, machine quality and bean quality, but even the best machines will not yield good crema with crappy beans. And yes, starbucks has crappy beans. senseo and that other crap is not espresso, at least not in my book, so if you want to do it I recomend doing it right.
by the way i am an idiot and spelled Sant Eustachio wrong even when it was right next to me. I also spelled Via Quadronno wrong and forgot the to include the adress, its been a long day, my bad.
http://www.viaquadronno.com/enter.html
could I possibly tag on any more posts??? I don't know.
But it should be noted that my Rancilio warms in about 5-10 mins.
I love my Saeco Incanto machine (I'm sure it's sold as a Starbucks in the US). It's pretty compact, but the one-button convenience is great, and so clean compared to having a separate grinder.
The big problem is that it won't grind the coffee fine enough. If you set the grinder to the finest setting, the pump makes all sorts of ugly noises, and there's a danger of breaking the machine from the pressure building up from the finer coffee. The staff at Saeco here in Melbourne don't recommend setting it to the finest setting, and I can see why, but the coffee is still terrific.
To John_Repeat_Dance (#43): Say it ain't so! I can't believe the company that makes the worst coffee in the world now owns the company that makes the best coffee machines in the world... What a bummer :(
To those who claim stovetop makers are great: you're delusional. Stovetop pots, just like cheap steam-driven electric makers, work by pushing steam through the coffee instead of water like pump machines do. This results in scorched mud. Arguably one might develop a taste for it, but it is not what coffee connaisseurs call espresso.
The La Pavoni is an overpriced, shoddily made toy that has serious safety issues, is complicated and messy to operate and totally useless if you ever need to make more than 4 demitasse cups in a row.
Oh, by the way: you will greatly extend the life of your espresso maker (and improve the taste of your espresso) by using filtered water. Use a Brita or Pur carafe, or even better get a reverse osmosis under-sink filtration unit if you can.
Take it from a first generation Italian, Lavazza makes the BEST espresso maker in the world. Period.
Don't even bother listening to the other posts. Get a Jura Capresso S9 Avantgarde. It makes the BEST coffee drinks and cleans up after itself.
http://www.wholelattelove.com/Capresso/s9_avantgarde.cfm
i used to have a saeco before starbucks bought them. it lasted me 9 years (with some maintainance) but i've heard nothing but terrible reviews of their machines after starbux bought them out. it's too bad.
now i own a gaggia, it's strong and reliable but so tempramental compared to the saeco. if you don't get the grind *just right* or tamp it perfectly, you get crap. it's so finicky. unless you're ocd, don't get this if you're picky about what you drink.
honestly, i had great luck with a francis! francis! x5 and illy pods, and will go back to that as soon as i can afford a new machine again. it does well with loose espresso too, but i'll tell you, i've busted way too many $80 burr grinders already to buy yet another. i'm done grinding my own.
I have a jura imressa f9 and a saeco italia. for 2k (i ferget exactly), the impressa sucks; been sent back 1.5 times. though not as high tech as the jura, my saeco is a solid performer, makes better espresso.
Not what you asked but I wanted to put in a bid for raosting your own coffee. You won't believe the difference it makes. Coffee loses its interesting characteristics in three days and the only way around it is roasting it yourself. I have an article on this:
http://feedme.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/04/roasting_your_o.html
http://www.espresso-etc.com/espressomachine-espresso-machine4500.html
'nuff said...
Why not try 'pzizz'?
http://www.pzizz.com
Then you won't need coffee!!! ;-)
Yikes. Frankly, a bit peeved that the Engadget boys didn't just ask me to do a guest column on this subject
In the next few months, the best "home" espresso machine on the planet will be out, and it will be the La Marzocco consumer espresso machine. But at $4,500 MSRP, it's a bit out of the league of most common folk.
I won't recommend a best machine, but I'll give some advice on what to avoid if you want stellar espresso in the home that is still fairly quick and easy:
- Don't skimp on the grinder.
- Avoid any kind of pod only machine - proprietary (nespresso. sigh), or "open source" (illy pod systems)
- Avoid machines with aluminum boilers (sorry Gaggia)
- Avoid super automatics. You get an even-steven trade of convenience vs. quality.
- Look for something with a decent sized boiler - if it's a single boiler machine, look for 300mls minimum. If it's a heat exchanging machine, make damned sure that the thing is tuned for north american specs, and not euro power and specs (a big problem)
- don't skimp on the grinder
- Don't take looks over functionality. Francis! Francis machines look great, but you can get a better performer at half the price.
Mark, CoffeeGeek.com
hey, what happened to my big assed grin after my first sentence! grr ;)
...Italian mama here. Been making shots for 50+ years...still using gramma's stovetop brass boiler. Gotta say it's been consistently decent thru life in Arkansas (great water), FL, NY, NC, SC and FL (lousy water).
Espresso is just that- an "expression", if you will, of the soul of the bean. Get good beans- the rest will be your contribution to the art of the drink.
...and as for semi- or full auto- machines? just wait until the apocalypse, when electricity is no longer available. We'll all be brewing on wood stoves (with the stove top boiler!) until the beans run out.
Then the bullets will fly.
For expresso, the only way to go is stove-top.
Being born in Italy and a passionate espresso drinker since I was a bambino, after reading through all these posts and recommendations I must say:HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I would recommend the La Pavoni lever machine www.lapavoni.it , it just is fantastic looking, and with a bit of practice makes a wonderful coffee. And as it doesn't have a compressor, it is SILENT! Yeeeehaaaaaa ;-)
I've used the Rancilio, but I bought the Francis Francis X5 (http://www.wholelattelove.com/Francis/x5.cfm). This is the place to buy any espresso gear. They're awesome and their support & pricing is great. The Rancilio takes more work than the X5, and it's way touchier. I can pull more consistent shots from the X5, and it's much easier to maintain.
Seriously, listen to Mark.
Though I may disagree with him on certain things, the man has personally reviewed more machines than just about anyone else.
For everyone talking about $400 Super Automatic "espresso"/Stove Top "espresso"/Nespresso "espresso", you are all, as Mark says, delusional. That is quite simply not espresso. If you think it is, you have never had a real shot of espresso. (notice I said shot of espresso, not espresso covered in 18oz of milk)
Do yourselves a favor and go to an independent coffee roaster/cafe that knows what they're doing and have some real espresso. It will open your eyes, I promise.
Once again, with the nespresso, that coffee is *months and months* old by the time you use it. Please don't go nespresso.
And for the lazy ones who don't want to cut and paste, it's http://www.lapavoni.it .
By far the best coffee maker on the market has got to be the mukka express: http://www.bialettishop.com/MukkaMain.htm
Perfect cappucino every time....
Gaggia (I think) make the best espresso machines. As for the automatic and semiautomatic machines (which borders on 'coffee makers') the quality can vary. Personally I think doing everything manually is the best; grind the beans (Lavazza, Grinders, never Vittoria), steam the milk, and have a great coffee.
Right now I'm drooling over a ECM Giotto Premium...
http://www.nespresso.com is the best
Forget Starbucks, they are the Mc Donalds of coffee and if you wanna go for real and good food, do you go to Mc Donalds ?
As a professional barista I have to ask you to forget lots of comments made by the other readers. If you're into fully automatic there's only one range right now that is capable of making decent espresso. That is the saeco due to it's counter-pressure technicue. Otherwise I would recommend you to get a semi-auto machine. In this field we have a bit more of a choice...
With a semi-auto you'll need a good grinder. Don't buy the cheep ones with blades, they're not only cheap but they makes the coffee warm up and loose alot of aroma. So check out disc-based grinders with stepless grinding range. Still lots of grinders to choose from.
The machine itself is a real decision in the sub 1000$ range. If you're into pure espresso I would ask you to check out Innova Dream (The most stable pressure on the market), Racillo Silvia (Okay, if you got time, abit flucturating pressure when it's put to test), Gaggia Classic (Same as silvia), and ofcourse the more expensive machines in the isomac range (good bang for the buck). You should stay away from manufacturers in other home appliances, they never worth even the small buck they cost. As well, stay away from Francis Francis (Poorly built), Bodum (Actually spidem machines), Spidem (Cheap built, poor results).
If you're into warm milk, caff?atte, cappuccino etc. you should probably skip the Innova and go for the silvia. No machine in this range features a decent steamwand, but the silvia is the best choice in a not so bright competition.
I use a professional machine. A gaggia ge-one. Wonderful machine! With a mazzer major grinder which is also great. But the dream is to installl a la marzocco machine at home (www.lamarzocco.it), one of the best machines around but eventhough it's my profession, abit to expensive for my wallet.
Any questions, email me!
/Rasmus
You people who say starbucks is the worst coffee must lead gifted lives. Sure, if I'm in the city, I can get better than 'bucks, but holy crap it SO easy to find WORSE!
Way out in the burbs, if my choices are a diner, mcdonalds, 7-11, and starbucks. Where do you think I'll buy a cup?
Try Francis Francis... very stylish, good with the ladies! :)
Nothing comes close to a Pasquini Livia. I mean nothing. $1400 and worth every dollar - I've had two, one that I bought 20 years ago and another that was bought 2 years ago. The older one is just as strong as the newer one. The secret? Dual compressors for uninterrupted brewing and steaming with no recovery time.
http://www.pasquini.com/index.html
I can recommend the ECM Giotto for home use ... A commercial coffee machine on a domestic scale - http://www.ecm-espresso.it/product/GIOTTO.htm
If there's a truly good coffee shop nearby, consider how much stuff you don't have to buy, clean, and pack when you move when you next sit down to a rich, slightly nutty almost sweet esspresso topped with a perfect crema. Never tastes like that at your cafe? Move somewhere else. ;-)
The comments about the grinder are correct. With the cheaper grinders (under about 150) the quality of your espresso will gradually degrade as the grinder wears and you will be baffled as to the cause. What happened is that you have too wide a range of coffee grain sizes, but it's not obvious enough to the eye. For quantity, you need to know the diff bet flat burr and conical burr grinders - just being a burr design is not enough to make a commercial grade grinder.
An aluminum boiler will not give you Alzheiemers, just don't make tomato sauce in it. AL doesn't hold temp as well as brass, that's the real reason you want brass or SS.
Good espresso is a pain to make (unless you get a superauto, then you give up perfect to get good) and once you get familiar with it you're spoiled for 97% of the coffee you can buy.
Nespresso rocks...
the only thing i miss is blending the coffee with some salt and nutmeg...
I agree with zdril, the La Pavoni machine is the best. It is simple, not too expensive and sooooo beautiful and design-simple it even is James Bond's morning coffee machine... On the website it's around 1000$ for the professional-version USA ready lever machine (the best since the 50s), and 300$ less for the european version (if you think you can hack it for 110V by yourself). It's like the macintosh of the coffee industry!
#5: Strictly speaking, you're not drinking espresso (I have a pot like that, coffee is fantastic btw :) ). When you make coffee on a pot like that, it's called "mocha".
A real espresso can only be brewed on an espresso machine. When brewing it on on of those pressurepots, you lack a very important part of the espresso: The crema. So, technically, there's a difference ;)
#6: Basically all you need 1+2. You can buy the right grinded beans in a coffee shop.
On a more general note: Check www.coffeekid.com. He had the Rancilio Silvia for some time, and was very happy about it. Go to the website, look under "Obsessions" and read his coffee story ;)
Buy the Rancilio, honestly a super machine, much more solid than the gaggia, though a bit industrial looking, and does require a little getting used to. That said I love mine.
Bezerra BZ99 no doubt about that one
#58: A bit of a coffee snob are we ? ;) Granted, mocha (stove top) is NOT espresso. But it's still damn good coffee, especially for milk based coffee drinks.
Kind of an overkill to have a $500 machine to make 2oz of coffee, eh...
I would recommend the old-fashioned stove-top approach.
See this "machine".
http://www.manufactum.com/group/187290/product/1384071/Product_Details.2866.0.html
It's semi automatic as you wanted (you have to turn on the stove, but then it heats the water itself :)
Beautiful, cheap, easy to clean and highly girfriend-compatible.
#83: Sorry to say, but it's still not espresso. Not even when the website says it's an "espresso maker". It's mocha. It' still great, but technically not espresso. You can definately taste the difference.
As a fanatical coffee fiend I have to agree with the people who've:
1. Recommended Gaggia
2. Pooh-poohed Nespresso (coffee capsules? are you kidding me?)
3. Stressed the importance of a GOOD grinder
4. Stressed the importanse of starting with good beans to begin with.
First, although I'd love to have a $2000 machine, I can't afford any of the various brass boiler machines that have been recommended. I'm toying with constructing a brass boiler for my Gaggia, which should be a fun weekend project. I'm sure the uber-expensive machines make great coffee (they better).
My current machine is a Gaggia Paros, which is basically the guts of a nice Gaggia machine in the same case with a nice Gaggia MDF grinder (the grinder goes for about $110 separate). I got it used from WholeLatteLove.com and have been very, very satisfied with the quality and consistency of the coffee.
DO NOT use some cheezoid $40 machine from Target, do NOT use anything operated by steam pressure. You won't get any crema, which is literally some kind of divine essence placed on Earth to tantalize us mere mortals with a glimpse of a higher plane. The stovetop machines can make good coffee, but it's not really espresso, as noted by others (as it's basically just a cheap $40 Target machine minus the electric heating element). It's certainly possible to get something goood out of 'em, but they are also an utter pain in the arse if you plan on making more than one shot (ready to wait twenty minutes until it's cool enough to pick up?).
My favorite beans right now are called Malabar Gold, some custom blend sold on WholeLatteLove.com (which, incidentally, is a good place to start looking for machines as they usually have good deals on used stuff, and there are decent FAQ's for coffee noobs). The beans are perfectly roasted and still nice and oily (not dried out and over-roasted like the shite they sell at Starbucks).
If you buy a separate grinder, for GODS SAKE get a good burr grinder, don't get one of those $12 spinning blade things. It's practically impossible to get a consistent grind, which is almost the most important thing there IS, and it also heats up the coffee a lot during the grinding process and thus loses flavor due to volatile oils evaporating.
Resign yourself to the fact that (unless you spend $1500 or more on a fully automatic machine which MAY or MAY NOT give you a good espresso) you WILL screw up your first few shots. Getting it really RIGHT with any espresso machine will take some tweaking of how hard you tamp the coffee and how finely it's ground. Shoot for 20-30 seconds extraction time, preferably closer to 30 than 20. Over this and it'll be watery and bitter.
Once you've done it right a couple of times it's second nature, and you have vastly more control over the process than with superautomatic machines, which (in my experience) generally turn out substandard AT BEST espresso.
Regarding comments about Starbucks, I may have the information which will resolve the conflicts amongst the pro/anti Starbucks crowd.
Back in about 1994 when Starbucks first started showing up other than in Seattle and Portland, all of them used manual machines, and you had to take about a week of training to be one of their baristas. The coffee wasn't AWESOME, but it was, as others have said, at least a large cut above the stuff you could get most anywhere else. However, in the last several years, practically all new Starbucks locations have opened using fully automatic machines that extract the whole shot in only about five or six seconds - and it's uniformly TERRIBLE. I mean AWFUL. What's worse, some of the locations that used to have manual machines are replacing them with automatic ones, since no training is required, and all the "barista" has to do is press the button and go mix up whatever else is going into the drink - so they can serve more people (and thus make more money) in less time. Unfortunately, the coffee is terrible, but when you're drinking a triple nonfat decaf soy sugar free white mocha with a shot of vanilla, you probably don't notice that.
These aren't cheap machines, either. The manager of one of the locations I complained at explained to me at great length how he spent nearly $6000 on each machine, and how it therefore had to be a "perfect shot".
Sigh.
Mark is the chief COFFEEGEEK at www.coffeegeek.com
You need a great grinder. A machine with an E61 grouphead is the best. check out Isomac or Andreja machines. check out chriscoffee.com (I am not on the payroll)
Big decisions to be made...
The first question is: How much money do you want to spend on your coffee?
Cheap Version: A stovetop-mocca-can. Bialetti or equal. Worth every single cent, if Espresso is not your goal.
Middle-/Entry Class: Single-Circuit-Machines:
The Rancilio Silvia or perhaps a gaggia classic coffee. Both are good choices - IMHO the Silvia is definitely more worthy, but it's more expensive. You could go for a ECM Casa Prima or similar as an alternative.
Upper Class: Double-Circuit/HeatExchanger-Machines: If you do a lot of Lattes/Cappus, it will be a must to have the possibility to steam milk without having to vent the machine.
Large Variety to choose from - consider a Bezzera Bz99 or a nuova simonelli oscar, a Rancilio S24 or a LaCimbali bistro...
Maybe the E61 grouphead often used on chromebomber-machines is worth a look, if you like the design. It just depends on the amount of money.
The Top Class will be the single-group professional machines with either HX or Double-Boiler. The Dosatron often included provides more usability, and the amount of steam is endless due to the large boiler capacity. Heat stability is another advantage.
Consider a LaSpaziale, Reneka or professional Faema/LaCimbali series. I myself use a LaSanMarco, which I bought from a small restaurant. Classy coffee! Never had any better!
IMHO you can forget about all the automatic machines without portafilter - use a stovetop can instead! Hand-lever machines are OK, but not easy in use. Anyway they overheat very easily. The first one is too cold and thus sour, the second is perfect and the third is burned. A Microcimbali should get you more temperature stability than a laPavoni.
And do not forget the grinder! This is the most important thing above all! A good grinder will provide easy adjustment and good ground quality.
Consider a professional type, even if you decide to use the Mocca-can.
Good choices are Demoka, Anfirm, Rancilio, Obel, Mazzer, LaSanMarco, Macap, Cunhill etc.
Coffee is hard to get in the US - You don't have a large variety of beans available like we do have here in good ol'Europe - poor boys (and girls)! Nothing to say about Lavazza, but I don't like most of their roasts. If you ever come to taste Martella Maximum Class...
Illy should be available and is a good choice, yet hard to get by. Try to get Intelligentsia(Chicago) beans. They should provide nice quality.
Have a lot of fun testing!
Speaking of the innovas...
Testing both the Dream and the Arc right now. They are, for almost all intents and purposes, the same machines as the Francis! Francis! lineup - similar group, similar portafilter, similar boiler design, similar electronics (but compared to the 'lectronics in the FF!! machines from about 2 years ago - the most recent 'lectronics package cycles the boiler too frequently, ruining the espresso shots).
Someone in this thread said that the FF machines have the most stability in pressure - bs. They have the same vibe pump 90% of the other consumer machines have - vibe pumps are vibe pumps - pulse pressure. You want consistency, get an Elektra Micro Casa a leva.
All that said, in Canada at least, the Innovas seem to offer some of the best bang for the current buck. $400 cdn for the arc, compared to almost $1000 for the FF!! X1.
The Silvia? It's lost a lot of appeal for me when they changed the boiler design a couple of years ago.
The Pasquini? My first HX equipped machine, and one I had a lot of good memories of. Not an e61 machine, but seemed to handle the problem of overheating grouphead much better than all the e61 equipped machines I've tested.
The Brewtus from Expobar - looks very promising. But Whole Latte Love hasn't sent me one to review, so I can't say too much more about it.
Mark, CoffeeGeek.com
I got a Gaggia Synchrony (not the compact one) about 4 years ago; it's done stirling service ever since. Actually, so many guys from the office kept coming over for a liquid breakfast on the way into work that we got one at work too.
It's done almost 17,000 shots since and it's still going strong. It *has* needed a new boiler, probably due to insufficient descaling (we're in a hard water area), but that's a helluva lot of espresso.
One downside with it is that, being a single boiler system, you have to wait when switching from coffee to steam and vice-versa (up to about a minute), which really mucks with you making cappuccinos. Me, I just drink double espresso so it doesn't bother me, but I believe they have some home machines with dual boilers now.
I've seen the same machine under other brands, and the actual automatic mechanism is pretty common amongst automatic espresso machine - it's definitely in the Miele in-wall unit too, for example.
One teensy gripe: the LCD is ALL UPPERCASE. Been meaning to whip the EPROM out and fix that for years now...