Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I usually use an $800 espresso machine and grinder for my home coffee experience. I choose to think of making espresso drinks at home as a hobby instead of a convenience. When my younger brother asked for an espresso machine for his birthday this year, I started to worry. Does he know he is asking to pick up a new hobby, or does he want some automatic, convenient "espresso-ish" experience? Turns out, he wanted to learn some skills. Whew! Now the challenge... to find a machine that was inexpensive enough to justify the purchase to use to learn the basics. I was searching for a machine that could be modified easily into a something that could effectively deliver consistent 28(ish)-second double shots with about 16g of coffee in, and roughly 40ml of espresso out, with decent crema (depending on origin, roast, grind, etc.), at what I would consider a tasty temperature for extraction. Bonus if I could ditch the panarello-style steam attachment in favor of a far more simple pinhole on an articulating metal tube. I'm pleased to say this machine ticks all of those boxes, with some modification and proper accessories. Upon pulling everything out of the box, enthusiasts will be disappointed. You will find a pressurized portafilter basket, plastic tamper, plastic panarello-style steam wand with basic articulation (side to side, but not up and down), and no frothing pitcher. So what can you make with the included kit? You will be able to produce drinks that will somewhat resemble what you can get in a cafe, but good craft baristas will always give you a product that is lightyears ahead of what you can make with this thing out of the box. So you've bought some good, fresh coffee beans. Now what do you need to do so you can pull cafe-quality shots out of this thing? 1) First, get a 51mm non-pressurized, single-wall portafilter basket. I found one on Amazon for about $10. Amazon item #B07JM8F4YS worked for us. It maintained a seal. 2) You'll need a decent tamper, again, 51mm ($7 on Amazon). Watch tutorials about tamping. We had to remove the black plastic insert from the portafilter to get the tamping pressure right. It really doesn't do anything, anyway. 3) Frothing pitcher recommended. $11 4) Most important: you need a grinder that can grind fine enough, with some possible fine-tuning of grind. I found a grinder that works, with the caveat that there are not enough fine steps for the enthusiast, but it worked for my brother to start to learn: $93. Amazon item #B0833F31MS It grinds fine enough to choke the machine, which the Cuisnart from Costco was not able to do. Dial in from there. 5) Watch some of the great tutorials about "dialing in" your shot on YouTube. You may need to learn about "temperature surfing" as well, to make sure you pull great shorts consistently. 6) There's no automatic "preinfusion" in this machine, so we learned to replicate it by turning the switch to brew mode for 1 second, off for 1 second, then brew the shot. Seems to work well for his needs. Steaming milk: Remove the plastic "panarello" jacket from the frothing arm, and you will find a simple, semi-articulating metal pipe with a single pinhole at the end. Perfect for learning actual milk-frothing technique. This machine takes a while to steam milk, which is great for learning to produce microfoam for latte art, but not great if you are in a hurry. Steaming milk takes a couple minutes. Compare that to a $1000 machine that does it in about 20 seconds. That's the sacrifice you are making to save $900. There are plenty of great tutorials out there to help you learn to produce cafe-quality foam. Watch them. In summary, this is a basic machine that I would not really recommend, unless you put in the time, money, and effort to make the changes I outlined above. If you do, this is probably the best sub-$100 espresso machine money can buy. The shots we pulled are almost indistinguishable from the shots I pull every day on my much more expensive machine. The milk we frothed, while slightly time-consuming, was well textured and consistent. I'm not saying this is as good of a machine as mine. It's not really close. It's just a darn-good machine at this price point.