I have been using the Breville dual boiler great bang for your buck with the Breville smart grinder with this set up makes great coffee, I got sick and tired of paying good money for bad coffee with this and fresh roasted beans fantastic . Look at the review on here.
NobbyR Senior Member Joined: 10 Jul 2011 Posts: 1,611 Location: Germany Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Poccino Opus One, Ariete Grinder: Eureka Mignon Istantaneo,... Vac Pot: N/A Drip: Melitta Linea Unica de Luxe Roaster: N/A
Posted Sat Aug 18, 2012, 10:43pm Subject: Re: what are some good espresso machines
The Speedster by Kees van der Westen, the La Marzocco GS/3, the Faema E61 Legend S1, the Elektra Sixties Deliziosa T1, the Rocket Espresso R58 to name but a few. ;-)
But seriously, those machines all cost several thousand bucks. Your question is like asking "What are some good cars?". The answer might be Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari, Bentley, Audi ... What I'm trying so say is, it all depends on your personal needs and your budget.
Give us the answer on the following questions and me might tell you some good espresso machines for your purpose.
How many cups a day, and how many cups per session is the machine supposed to brew?
What kind of coffee drinks will be consumed: mainly espresso or also espresso based milk drinks like cappuccino or latte?
What's the budget? Does that include a grinder and accessories?
Coffeenoobie Senior Member Joined: 11 Dec 2011 Posts: 2,317 Location: PNW Expertise: I like coffee
Espresso: N S Oscar Grinder: Vario W
Posted Sat Aug 18, 2012, 10:55pm Subject: Re: what are some good espresso machines
Haha, I beat you Nobby!
The most important part of any espresso set up is the grinder. You must budget for the grinder. At the starter low end you will spend more for the grinder than the machine.
Those machines Nobby named are huge bucks - like starting at 3k and going up. My set up cost about 1k with me buying a used machine. You can make do with cheaper but if you are in the less than $100 range you probably will not get espresso unless you are really lucky on craigslist. $300 is doable with used machine and a hand grinder. $500-700 is a good starter budget. I started out wanting to spend about $100 on a good coffee maker that could do espresso and researched my way up to a $300 budget.... then researched some more and was at 500 as the top of the top end. Then I ended up spending 10 times my starting budget. But I have not wanted to upgrade in 6 months and I can probably get 10+ years out of my machine.
Coffeenoobie
Buying advice: GRINDER GRINDER GRINDER. Don't cheap out on the grinder. My coffee treasure map... Click Here (maps.google.com)
NobbyR Senior Member Joined: 10 Jul 2011 Posts: 1,611 Location: Germany Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Poccino Opus One, Ariete Grinder: Eureka Mignon Istantaneo,... Vac Pot: N/A Drip: Melitta Linea Unica de Luxe Roaster: N/A
Posted Sun Aug 19, 2012, 1:55am Subject: Re: what are some good espresso machines
Coffeenoobie Said:
Haha, I beat you Nobby!
The most important part of any espresso set up is the grinder. You must budget for the grinder. At the starter low end you will spend more for the grinder than the machine ...
NobbyR Senior Member Joined: 10 Jul 2011 Posts: 1,611 Location: Germany Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Poccino Opus One, Ariete Grinder: Eureka Mignon Istantaneo,... Vac Pot: N/A Drip: Melitta Linea Unica de Luxe Roaster: N/A
Posted Sun Aug 19, 2012, 2:37am Subject: Re: what are some good espresso machines
Well, right now his questions posted on CG are anything but good advertisement. I wouldn't buy at or recommend a seller who obviously appears to not even know his trade.
*** "This drink of the Satan is so delicious that it would be a shame to leave it to the infidels." (Pope Clement VIII on coffee)
Posted Sun Aug 19, 2012, 8:48pm Subject: Re: what are some good espresso machines
So this fellow runs a website and on that site he sells coffee-related items including espresso machines, and he is asking us to name some good machines. I'd rather buy a used car from Richard Nixon.
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