i have an espresso every morning before leaving the house. i have been using nespresso machines for about 6-8 years but have grown tired of the taste, even when i switch up the flavors regularly.
in order to make real espresso, like what i get in a great coffee place, what’s the minimum equipment i need?
i’m not spending 3k, but i would like something easy to use and clean.
well, if you want what you get in a great coffee place, you need that equipment plus a lot of barrista experience. so you cannot replicate that at home. those la marzocco strada machines that are popping up everywhere are very expensive because they are worth it ($18,000).
however, you can achieve a product that is orders of magnitude better than nespresso with some fairly reasonably priced equipment. this is what i recommend as the absolute minimum for anyone serious about making proper espresso at home.
Rancilio Silvia machine paired with Rancilio Rocky doserless grinder. you can get this setup for just under $1,000.
you’ll need to spend at least $1,000 on the machine to get to the next level.
A silvia and rocky as Yaacov suggested is really the best entry level setup for home espresso. It still takes plenty of tinkering to get good drinks out of that setup but after you get the hang of it, you can make better drinks than the average coffee shop.
the super-autos are indeed fairly terrible. good for office situations, but when they break - and they do often - expensive to fix. and correct, if they were good, cafes would use them.
i know that the silvia takes pods, but not sure how that’s any better than nespresso.
I disagree. I have tried espresso from many machines from manual to full automatic pods etc. I ended up with a fully automatic DeLonghi as it had the perfect balance of convenience and taste. Makes really good espresso.
Truly the key is the beans and the grind. Put old or crappy beans in any machine and your espresso will suck.
Lowest price for a good enough grinder is around $500 for a Baratza Vario. There are several good espresso machines in the $1,000 to $1,500 range. The Breville 900 (double boiler) does most things well enough at a good price ($1200), with a small footprint and a good deal of convenience.
There’s also going to be a couple of hundred bucks in various critical accessories.
It’s true that bad beans make bad espresso no matter what equipment you’re using. I’ve never had a truly great drink from any super auto machine but I’m happy to agree with you that they offer a good balance between convenience and taste.
if you want good coffee (drip style) there are many great and cheap options - french press, chemex, etc.
but for espresso, unfortunately, you need a minimal amount of hardware that is only found in certain machines. the lower end gaggias are okay, but if you’re really interested in making proper espresso, i think the silvia is the cheapest thing really worth buying. what ends up happening is that you buy a cheaper machine and realize quickly that it has a lot of limitations when it comes to making proper espresso.
i suppose the gaggia classic is a decent deal at under $400, but for a little more you get the silvia which is a much better machine.
I won’t get delivery for probably 6 months but I think it will kick a stock Rancilio’s ass. It’s a open source PID controlled machine. The community will be able to reprogram the Arduino board and share it with other owners.