If you are someone who thinks the Rancilio Silvia is the epitome of the current crop of quality consumer espresso machines, you should stop reading this review right now. The Elektra Nivola is not meant to compete directly with the Silvia, and feature for feature, the Silvia will have the Nivola over her knee for a good spank session.

That said, the Nivola is an intriguing product, one worthy of consideration by many people who see the artistry and culture in espresso. The thought behind developing the Elektra Nivola was to design a work of art. A hand made work of art. The plan was that each machine would be as individual as you are, with hand built, molded, and polished, each with it's own design characteristics. I won't go as far to say each is an "individual" painting, but if you look at the skin of each Nivola, they are all different - the polish marks and textures are unique to each individual machine.

Many CoffeeGeeks probably won't sit too well with this. Many of you value outright performance and specs over design and accruements, and will probably pushaw a machine like the Nivola. Me? I'll be honest, that was my initial thought, and my re-occuring thought during the evaluation process.

But I also kept going back to what Dr. Federico Fregnan, the head of Elektra in Italy, wrote to me.

"Polishing by hand the aluminium of the Nivola and after that, painting with a special transparent color, that alone costs more than what it cost us to make the entire body of the machine. Understand that the Nivola is a piece of art. It is a piece of design for your home. That is our primary intention, along with delivering a machine with many technological advances that make it "idiot proof" and good looking while doing it."

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