Everyone's a buzzin' about the new La Marzocco GB5 machine. The first ten just rolled off the production line for the first time, and nine of those ten are at the show, used in the World Barista Competition.

I got to fool around with the machine quite a bit, and I also had many shots served off a few of them, when I went through Judges' certification. As such, I've got some initial thoughts on it.

First, the positive: this is one helluva machine. Not only for the user, but for the servicer as well. For the user, we're talking absolute temperature control through a PID. Pressure control. Super fast recovery times thanks to preheaters and ingenius use of the boilers. Beautiful machine to look at. Steam performance is part. And for the servicing of the machine, everything is easy access. Everything is easily laid out. And though it is an automatic, it still retains much of LM's old school philosophy on making a machine bulletproof with backup systems in place.

The bad? Well, the drip tray is not deep, front to back. It's probably 1/3 less deep than the current Lineas and FB70s. I found myself missing that tray space. And the new gizmology inside means you have to relearn a bit on using the machine... it appears to need a bit more bleed time, and if you accidentally run the pump dry (if running off water bottles), you need to do more intensive bleeding of all the groups and wand to get it back up to performance once you change the bottle.

Here's some photos. Enjoy!

La Marzocco GB5 Nice tight machine. Looks awesome. Automatic Automatic controls, but with some backup tech inside. Multi Display This is the heart of controlling the GB5... if you're a power user, you can control everthing on the machine. Ron Cook Ron, in white jacket, is the head of La Marzocco. He's showing off the machine to customers.