Of course I’m a coffee snob – is that meant to be some sort of insult?
There is a difference between likeing something and snobbery.
I like Keira Knightley, I tend not to point out all the way she's better than my girlfriend and snub her though as that would be snobbery, and she might stop bringing me coffee in bed and withdraw pudding.
But what if someone asked if your girlfriend could be a a successful actor and model?You presumably wouldn't lie then, if you knew that she couldn't?
JP
Colonna pods and a Nespresso machine
Are these pods reasonably priced and properly recyclable or biodegradable?
Nespresso machines are cheap as chips, but I've yet to have a decent espresso or espresso-like coffee from them (or any capsule based coffee maker). Always a bit thin, never thick or syrupy. Also they produce a high ratio of plastic /aluminium waste per cup.
I've been in a similar situation to the OP. I opted not to buy an espresso machine, mainly down to cost, The amount it would actually be used and available worktop space. Instead I've got an aeropress, v60 filter, the tiny Bialetti stove top maker, several cafetieres and a Hario hand grinder. I find myself considering Nespresso occasionally though
Gotta love an STW coffee thread
But if the question is ‘can I make good coffee on a £100 machine’
That wasnt the op's question.
I bought an Aldi Ambiano espresso machine for 50 quid. We use pre ground Lavazza Espresso coffee and, to us, it tastes better than most coffee we ever drink out.
I have no formal training, have never written articles on coffee but I hope this gives an answer to the OP.
We love ours, it's relatively cheap and has a 3 year warranty. Wealthy friends of ours who captain mega yachts around the world and live in fine dining restaurants say it tastes good. Boom!
Nah minty your wrong .
What you need is an aeropess. It'll make the best xdamn espresso(not espresso) you ever had.
Keeping the inappropriate expensive bike analogy. You’re the LBS owner still trying to sell the £8k bike to the commuter.
No he's like the LBS owner being asked if they have any decent mountain bikes for £100. Sure you can buy a BSO for that much but not an actual mountain bike. To 95% of the population, a BSO is still a perfectly functioning bike.
Anyway, OP....
As others have said, you'll struggle for £100, especially given your someone that clearly likes good coffee since you have a load of other kit. 2nd hand Gaggia is definitely a good shout, using your current grinder.
The problem with cheap espresso machines is they often don't operate at a high enough pressure to properly extract espresso. Sure they can still make a reasonable coffee from just passing hot water through coffee at a lower pressure, but that's essentially what your aeropress and stove top already do very well, so if you are really after espresso and something different from what you already have, theres probably no point.
Trial_rat, stop it, I'm married...😳
@dmorts - Yes - we do sell compostable pods. The Colonna pods taste very good - they can't really be compared to other pods - they're mucg higher quality. I'm happy to send out some samples if anyone fancies trying them.
JP
I had a thoroughly unacceptable coffee from my 10 year old Classic this morning, and pre-ground Lavazza. I feel ashamed.
Can’t see the point in coffee pods. Instant tastes just as good without the cost or pointless extra faffage/additional environmental cost.
keep a look out for a gagia classic in a sale/ on eBay and bobs your uncle.
No he’s like the LBS owner being asked if they have any decent mountain bikes for £100.
I read it more like he's asking if it's possible to buy a used decent mountain bike for 100. Which is difficult, but you might get lucky.
Good old STW coffee threads. To sum up:
Some people think you can get a decent Espresso from a cheap machine
Some people think you can't get a decent Espresso from a cheap machine
Some people think the grinder quality is really important to, others don't seem to have an opinion on them
Here's the thing - what constitutes a decent Espresso is very subjective (in the world of Internet cycling forums anyway, I'm sure there's more to it at Barista contests).
That said I'm not really sure why TINAS is bothering to argue against JP's advice, JP clearly knows a lot more and seems like he just has higher standards (as to what constitutes a decent Espresso). Don't take it so badly TINAS, you're just further down the scale of coffee snobbery.
Personally I prefer a latte, have a Nespresso (although getting rid as rarely make coffee at home these days) and even drink instant coffee from time to time. I guess I'm the coffee equivalent of a chav, shoot me now...
I have a machine that uses ESE pods. It cost much less than my car, and hence really much less than my bike, but I like it (the shame). FWIW the pods are biodegradable and a huge range of pods are available including lots made in micro-roasters in Italy.
Are these pods reasonably priced and properly recyclable or biodegradable?
No pods (especially the clooney cyst versions) are reasonably priced when you look at the piffling amount of coffee you get in them and the quality is never going to be as good as a decent shot out of a home espresso machine. You are paying for convenience.
the colonna pods are very good, I have used them in hotels sometimes where they have a pod machine but I don’t see them as a long term option.
(I’m currently drinking some normal colonna Ethiopian filter which is very good)
a blade grinder
Well they are not grinders, they just smash beans into different sized pieces .
(I’m currently drinking some normal colonna Ethiopian filter which is very good)
Not sure I could drink something called "colonna" 🙁
I like natural processed coffees, I also like natural wines and guzzled a fair bit of Spunk in that hot summer we had.
I have a sub £100 delongi (probably £50-60 or so many years ago). It makes functional espresso. Wakes me up. Better than my camping stovetop, but that's it.
I would love a gaggia classic, enormous 2nd-hand burr grinder, mini scales, unicorn coffee beans, barista course etc but I don't have the space, spare cash or time for all that. I do appreciate properly made espresso made by others who have gone down the 'proper' route, but I will stick at 'functional' for the foreseeable future. I don't need another hobby.
so this wouldn't be any good?
ive got a gaggia deluxe sat doing nothing in the corner of the kitchen if its any use?
tell me more 🙂
it looks like this
no idea what its worth. been sat a year without any use.
I had one of those too ^
Decent machine, though doesn't have the 3 way solenoid 'exhaust' valve, so you get a sloppier puck. It makes no difference to the shot quality though. Steam wasn't up to much either, but then I never used it.
Sorry if it has been mentioned before but I use a Presso (now called ROK) manual espresso maker every day and I think it makes a very good espresso for similar effort to a Bialetti (which I also have). A friend who had a Gaggia has got rid of that in favour of a ROK after using mine. They do need the rebuild kit periodically but I've been using mine virtually every day for about 4/5 years and only rebuilt it twice (although the rebuild kit includes multiple o-rings so you replace them more regularly) plus I bought it used
I also have Wacaco which does make a good (but small) espresso, arguably better crema than the Presso/ROK but it is more faff and more annoying to clean and I have had issues with it which were sorted with a replacement unit but it does still leak occasionally. Works well for camping and potentially while riding/touring. I'd be tempted by their Nanopresso rather than the Minipresso I have but I've just seen the sports pursuit offer on the Staresso which looks like a same principle but with better quality parts (less plastic)
I've also got two Bialetti's including the tiny single that takes a cup on top and I basically can't get that to work as my (gas) hob is too big 🙁
Hope this helps
I’ve also got two Bialetti’s including the tiny single that takes a cup on top and I basically can’t get that to work as my (gas) hob is too big
Can't sit the thing on the hob you mean?
Brake discs to the rescue.
I’ve got a Gaggia Cubika and it does the job for me and hasn’t broken down in the five years that I’ve had it.
However…
1. It is slightly over the £100 budget.
2. I've not tried a pod machine.
3. Somebody bought me a grinder, but it was a James Martin one, so I sanded his name off it and still refuse to use it.
4. I wasn’t trained by the 3x World Barista Champion, although my mate Nigel came second in the backwards running European marathon championships (over 40s) which is as relevant as banging on about fancy-ass kit to a bloke who only has £100 to spend.
just use a reducer, they are made for using with stove top pots
ffs just drink tea
lol @ Harry!
Brake discs to the rescue.
If you go fast enough (and then slow enough) you can dispense with the gas altogether 🙂
Gaggia Classics are OK machines - you won't get amazing coffee but it won't be terrible as long as you use a reasonable grinder.
JP
I find my Gaggia is finicky and difficult to get consistent results (and mine's an older model with the 3 way value and I use a proper portafilter not the crema thing for use with crap coffee). I think it may be as I'd only use it for one brew in a day and not really every day whereas it may be better after it's run a couple of brews through it first and is regularly running.
The Bialleti is perfect every time, even if it's not strictly espresso, it's great tasting coffee for me. It's also quick.
it looks like this
That's a Gaggia Classic. Basically the ideal entry level machine. Not quite the same as a Gaggia Deluxe (if that's what you;ve got), but not sure how it differs.
Can make great coffee and ok milk (especially with the modded steam wand). You can get good espresso with one of those & a hand grinder. Certainly better than any high street coffee place and to my tastes, better than any speciality coffee shop I've been to. The Mazzer Mini is certainly also not the cheapest decent grinder on the market. There are a fair few under £200 starting and cheaper s/h (not that you need one).
I'd love to try the manual ones but I need a milk steamer.
I find my Gaggia is finicky and difficult to get consistent results (and mine’s an older model with the 3 way value and I use a proper portafilter not the crema thing for use with crap coffee). I think it may be as I’d only use it for one brew in a day and not really every day whereas it may be better after it’s run a couple of brews through it first and is regularly running.
You might be suffering as much from inconsistent grind as it being the machine itself. That said, turn it on a bit earlier and let everything (including the portafilter & basket) heat up. Then run some water through to temp surf.
Would it change the tone if I said I was reading this while drinking a cup of Tea?
Would it change the tone if I said I was reading this while drinking a cup of Tea?
Now we're talking. Are you a milk in first or last kinda tea drinker? This is important.
I probably know the answer to this, but are all the Nespresso machines a much of a much-ness? Or do some give much better coffee?
Burn.
The.
Heretic.
all the pod machines i've had coffee from are shit compared to fresh ground beans. (or chopped up beans in my case as i'm lazy). any port in a storm and all that but if you have choice non-pod is better.
Certainly better than any high street coffee place and to my tastes, better than any speciality coffee shop I’ve been to
This (or words to the effect) has been said more than once on this thread. I get it that Costa et. al. use shit coffee and burn it to make your pint of hot milk taste of something other than milk, but what are all these speciality coffee shops doing wrong with thousands of pounds of equipment that can be beaten so easily at home with a £200 machine?
As with all these things it's a matter of taste. Milk isn't an issue with espresso but there are lots of compromises a commercial enterprise has to make to be profitable that an individual doesn't and frankly, the cost of the machine makes far less of a difference than the user and the beans.
Plus the fact that they have to cater to wider tastes then it's not unexpected that I've made coffees more to my liking than shops have.
Expensive machines (assuming good training) buys you speed and consistency. It doesn't mean you can't make great coffee on cheaper equipment if you put time into getting it right whether that be beans, grind, tamping or extraction time.
That's not to say it's easy (and I didn't). Though for many it might well be.
That's not really true - most proper speciality shops make very few compromises.
Let's look at Colonna and Smalls in Bath, for instance. The water is optimised for coffee, which very few home users do (we're talking Mg, Ca and Bicarbonate levels here, which can be adjusted by using the correct filtration systems and levels of filtering.) This alone makes a big difference - the owners and Chris Hendon from MIT have had an academic paper published in a respected peer review journal on this topic:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf501687c
Unless you're very fortunate, water from the tap is not going to make great coffee. High Bicarbonate levels, that are common in many areas, inhibit extraction and result in sour tasting coffees.
All coffees are weighed in and out, and are dialled in by a team with great experience. The quality of the beans used will be much better than most home users have.
Whatever you say, equipment does make a difference - grinding on an EK43 produces a better coffee than almost any other grinder. Few home users have access to this sort of equipment.
What you really mean is you prefer your own coffee. I can't argue with that, as it's your own subjective experience, but if you think that, objectively, the coffee you make at home on normal home coffee equipment is demonstrably better than that which you get in a proper speciality coffee shop, I would suggest that you are wrong. If you still won't accept this, then why don't you enter the UK Barista Championship - if you can make world class coffee at home then I'm sure you'll have no problem wowing the judges.
If, however, you've not been to a proper speciality coffee shop and tasted decent coffee, you're welcome to drop by my business and have some coffee on the house. We're near to Wind Hill Bikepark if you're ever heading down there to ride.
JP
there are lots of compromises a commercial enterprise has to make to be profitable
I think it's true that plenty of places make those compromises, though I don't think they're always necessary economically, and I've been to plenty of them - but they're more of the we're-a-proper-hipster-"speciality"-coffee-shop-because-we-have-an-aeropress-and-some-industrial-looking-furniture type. There are also plenty (though maybe less) of proper coffee shops who put a lot of effort into the details that make great coffee.
Plus the fact that they have to cater to wider tastes then it’s not unexpected that I’ve made coffees more to my liking than shops have.
It's also true that personal tastes vary. I find a lot of "proper" coffee shops produce the most strongly flavoured coffee possible - using lightly roasted beans - which is very acidic, whereas I prefer something more darkly roasted with more of sweet/malty/chocolatey flavours, which a lot of coffee snobs would call "burnt." (Over-roasted or over-extracted coffee is bad, but there's a sweet spot.)
The reason most speciality shops don't serve dark roast coffee is that is disguises the flavour of the beans with a generic roastiness. We're all about showing the flavours of the different beans and how they're grown and processed - you only get this with a fairly light roast.
If there's too much acidity, then it's probable that the coffee has been under -extracted; not all speciality coffee shops get this right.
I'd suggest that next time you visit a speciality shop, look for a coffee from Brazil - these tend to have less natural acidity, with more of the flavours that you like being evident without the need for then to be over developed in the roast.
JP