i’d just get a cheap 15bar pump machine. Its all about the coffee not about the machine. I got a £60 Krups machine about 15yrs ago, at the same time my dad got a £300+ Gaggia machine. We did a back to back test using the same coffee and you couldn’t tell the difference, and the steam wand on mine worked much better than the Gaggia’s. I could tell he was a bit P’d off, but he justified it to himself with the fact it was ‘nicely built’. But 15yrs on my Krups machine is going strong and gets regular use – or did until about two months ago since I got a pod machine, so is his Gaggia but he hardly uses it.
