The case for buying the best espresso machine you can get.

Making espresso at home is something that I think you just need to go for and you have to leap not just take a baby step forward. The reason is that the espresso machines you can buy for under a hundred dollars or a even a few hundred dollars are hard to get consistent results with.

Obviously we all have to decide how much is enough for home espresso, for me I took the leap with a Gaggia Classic and a Baratza Preciso. This is a very good set-up and can get nice results most of the time if you pay attention to what you are doing. But once you get up to something like a Quickmill Silvano you start getting away from having to pay as much attention to what you are doing. And having a grinder like the Preciso lets you grind just fine enough to get your taget pour of espresso.

The reason why this all came up is that I saw this adorable video at Clive Coffee,

If 5 Year Olds Can Make Espresso... from Clive Coffee on Vimeo.

These five year olds were taught how to brew this espresso, but they were able to steam milk and judging by the little design on top they got some pretty good results. That is what you are paying for when you are buying an expensive espresso machine. There is going to be a little bit of a learning curve but as this video suggests anyone can pull a good espresso shot, you just need to pay a little bit of attention.

There are also a lot of other videos on the Clive Coffee website that I think everyone should take the time to look over. This video is their attempt  to show people that home espresso is not difficult, and I have to agree, but the machine has a big part of it!