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What if you just want a great tasting coffee without too much hassle?

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    I empathise Carmen, my wife, an ex nurse has a similar attitude to your friend, she enjoys good espresso and can use my setup, however she cant be bothered stuffing around with the "espresso process" only drinks cappuccino when I make it for her, otherwise happily drinks instant.
    Ditto with my Lovely Lady.
    Absolutely can't be bothered with real coffee of any kind, even French Press.
    Sticks to her preferred instant coffee no matter what...

    Mal.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Carmen00 View Post
      I’d happily buy a pod machine but aren’t they meant to be the worst?
      Pod machines lift the 'minimum quality level' up from what you can achieve with a proper espresso machine. And they lower the ceiling on the maximum quality you can achieve. For nearly everyone that bothers to come to a site like Coffee Snobs, the quality level you are forced to is not high enough. For many many people it is high enough.

      The fact that you are here is already an indication that you think about coffee quality more than someone that would be happy with pods. Add to that the heinous ecological impact of all the packaging plus the extra cost of beans, and pods are probably not an option for you.

      The Breville Smart Grinder Pro at $190 looks like a bargain, so all you need to do is decide on an espresso machine. The BES920 dual boiler ticks all your boxes (warms up in 5 minutes, excellent temperature control, can set volume etc) except the price box. Currently it's at $788 at Hardly Normal and never goes much below that, but it goes up quite a bit in between specials. If you drop to under $500 you're looking at a significant loss of features like integrated group head along with the accurate temperature control that gives, and easy steaming etc. Like the Duo-Temp Pro Espresso machine at $379. Or a second hand Silvia with PID when they come up locally. I have one I am thinking of moving on (and even a Rocky grinder) but I'm in Perth so no help there. In your position I would probably just bite the bullet and jump on the BES920.

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      • #33
        I do like a good coffee and it’s getting harder to find good coffees at cafes. They seem very inconsistent and I’m sick of taking it back. So yes, I’d really like a machine. I’m happy to practice and make a few crap coffees until I know what I’m doing. Of course I’ll be using it at other times and probably a few times a day.
        I’m thinking maybe the breville bes820 or 840 and buy a separate grinder.

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        • #34
          I noticed someone on FB marketplace selling breville coffee machines at reduced prices and she claims that her husband services them and brings them back to working order (that’s why they sell them)
          They look like they’re brand new. If that’s really the case then there’s a hell of a lot of faulty machines that people are leaving at the repair shop as it’s too expensive to fix.
          This doesn’t sound right to me, does anyone else think it sounds dodgy?
          I wonder where the machines are coming from...

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          • #35
            Harvey Norman’s old product care (ext warranty) was replacement rather than repair, so all the old machines went to be fixed & resold.

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            • #36
              Originally posted by shauno View Post
              Harvey Norman’s old product care (ext warranty) was replacement rather than repair, so all the old machines went to be fixed & resold.
              So who is someone allowed to get these machines for free, fix them and sell them?

              I don’t think I could trust this type of thing. It only comes with a 3 month warranty.

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              • #37
                Then buy a lower model new from a shop? There’s been a lot of good advice given so far - you don’t seem to want to go down the harder Rancilio/etc path, so the best option would probably be one of the Breville’s

                Get the Barista Express on sale, which has the built-in grinder and can be purchased close to your target price of $500 - it’ll be cheaper than buying bits separately.

                Or get the smart grinder and a cheap machine to start (the Bambino?), and upgrade the machine later if you’re enjoying the process...

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by shauno View Post
                  Then buy a lower model new from a shop? There’s been a lot of good advice given so far - you don’t seem to want to go down the harder Rancilio/etc path, so the best option would probably be one of the Breville’s

                  Get the Barista Express on sale, which has the built-in grinder and can be purchased close to your target price of $500 - it’ll be cheaper than buying bits separately.

                  Or get the smart grinder and a cheap machine to start (the Bambino?), and upgrade the machine later if you’re enjoying the process...
                  I’ll go and have a look at the Brevilles tomorrow and see what I think.

                  The advice has been great on here, thankyou everyone!

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                  • #39
                    Once you realise you like great coffee, and can tell the difference, all is lost.
                    You are on the slippery slope to having to get your own Espresso machine, grinder and source quality bean.
                    I don't think a Pod-machine is going to satisfy you. There is NOTHING like good/great Espresso.
                    The BES 820 is no more so the BES 840 would be the one. You don't want one with the grinder on the top.
                    Some folks focus on how long the machine will last. It's like a car - you can get a dud and you can get a good one. It's a punt.
                    Chances are that by the time it has had it's day you will be ready for a step up the line anyhow.
                    Get the Breville, a grinder you can afford, find the best bean you can source, and learn to work with the limitations of your tools to get the best result you can.
                    Good Luck.
                    Quality bean is SO important, start looking here.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Rocky View Post
                      Once you realise you like great coffee, and can tell the difference, all is lost.
                      You are on the slippery slope to having to get your own Espresso machine, grinder and source quality bean.
                      I don't think a Pod-machine is going to satisfy you. There is NOTHING like good/great Espresso.
                      The BES 820 is no more so the BES 840 would be the one. You don't want one with the grinder on the top.
                      Some folks focus on how long the machine will last. It's like a car - you can get a dud and you can get a good one. It's a punt.
                      Chances are that by the time it has had it's day you will be ready for a step up the line anyhow.
                      Get the Breville, a grinder you can afford, find the best bean you can source, and learn to work with the limitations of your tools to get the best result you can.
                      Good Luck.
                      Quality bean is SO important, start looking here.
                      Finding beans might be hard.
                      I like an Italian style taste.
                      Nothing fancy, floral or fruity. I’ve always been attracted to the type of coffee you get at places like pellegrini’s in Melbourne. Basic coffee that is not bitter or burnt and is a caramel colour with condensed froth!

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by WarrenK View Post

                        And if you are served burnt and bitter tasting coffee use your consumer rights, protest and or go elsewhere.

                        .
                        Gees- there wouldn’t be many cafes left in Sydney if we were all to apply this principle.

                        Most days I’d rather make a Portaspresso coffee in the office than spend ten minutes getting one from one of 4 nearby cafes.

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                        • #42
                          Carmen, I think your taste in coffee - i.e. bean - would be met by 'WOW' from the Beanbay on this site.
                          There are also several other varities of bean on Beanbay that are not light nor acidic roasts that I think you would like. Have a look at the descriptions that come with them.

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                          • #43
                            Hi Carmen,

                            You don't like the coffee that many cafes make. I agree with you. Most cafes have thousands of dollars worth of equipment; maybe up to $40k, and people whose full time job is making coffee. You want to do better with minimal time input and $500 of equipment. I salute your optimism.

                            At any budget, you have to make compromises. You can rank what is important to you and focus on getting that as much as you can within your budget and knowingly sacrifice things that are less important to you, or you can take a punt and risk that the compromises that you buy will not be the ones you would have made had you known better.

                            You seem to have three main options; pod machines, new machines or second hand (the compak/macap/silvia I was referring to are in the coffee hardware for sale part of this forum now and at steep discounts from new; of course, caveat emptor). All have advantages and disadvantages. You should collate the pros and cons of each and weigh them and make a decision based on it. There is a lot of good information in this thread, but I feel that you run the risk of being influenced by one main observation about something without considering all of the pluses and minuses. I was going to have a go at setting this out, but I tried to hit the quote button to quote you, stupidly lost part of this post and don't really have time to work it all out again - sorry! I think I already made my point that my experience with breville stuff was that the new and repaired stuff didn't last long.

                            I'll make a few non-machine observations that might be helpful, though:
                            1) Be very wary that people's opinions are shaped by their frame of reference. You will read a lot of stuff on the internet where people declare something to be the "best". It probably is the best that they have ever tried. They might never have tried anything good. Or their frame of reference might be different from yours. They might like fruity and acidic coffee. Most people probably won't write what their frame of reference is, so you won't know.
                            2) It looks like you like big bodied, low acid, sweet coffees, in the nut type flavour spectrum and you don't like bitterness. A few tips. First, most roasters think that dark roasts achieve this. They do not. At a certain roast level, coffee becomes bitter and ashy and, incredibly, loses body. Second, buy coffee that is roasted from green coffee that actually has these characteristics. Brazillian and El Salvadorean coffees are good bets. There is a trend for roasters to buy coffees that are inherently fruity, medium to low in body and high in acidity and to try to roast them to make them big bodied and low in acid. I spent probably 15 years thinking that they must know something that everyone else doesn't, but I'm yet to taste a roast that has done a better job at this than buying coffee that inherently has those characteristics to start off with. Third, lots of commercial roasters suck. You should try a few different ones to find something you like. There is no substitute from trying yourself: to be blunt, lots of newbies get into roasting and copy/paste marketing jargon from everyone else, so if you're a regular human being as opposed to a total coffee nerd, you won't be able to sort the sheep from the goats, plus lots of the "reviews" online are from people with poor frames of reference or are drivel from people who make money from it and therefore can never call a spade a spade. Generally, the hipster kid roasters will roast stuff that is grassy and sour, the old fogey roasters will roast stuff that is ashy, baked and bitter and the geniuses will engage in enough navel gazing that they do a poor job of actually marketing the fact that they exist.
                            3) Check the hardness of the water where you are. If you are somewhere with hard water and are ignorant of that, I can imagine you might end up turfing a new thermoblock machine every year or two due to scale buildup.
                            4) If you buy coffee roasts that are properly developed (ie. absent of roast defects) and keep your machine clean, it is actually pretty hard to end up with coffee that tastes burnt. That said, it's actually pretty hard to buy coffee roasts that are properly developed.

                            All the best. Maybe there's some great EOFY sale around that will help.

                            Cheers,
                            Luca

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Thanks Luca, that was very informative!

                              You’re so right about the hipster coffee that tastes sour and bitter! Does anyone really like that?!!

                              I know it sounds that I’m asking for the impossible. A decent machine (not the best in the world!), not too fiddly or too time consuming that makes non burnt ashtray like coffee but instead a smooth rich coffee.

                              It’s kind of disappointing to me when I go to a cafe that has the 40K worth of equipment, full time barista and it produces a grey looking dishwater style coffee with white airy foam. I get the feeling that it comes down to skill as surely they can’t blame the equipment and probably not the beans. So I wouldn’t be surprised if I could produce something decent in a $500-$600 machine in time!
                              I hate to say it but I’ve has Nescafé at work in a paper cup that has tasted better than some cafes and I hate Nescafé!!

                              I’m certainly not claiming to be an expert in all things coffee but I know what I like. I also like a barista that is consistent!

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Carmen00 View Post
                                Thanks Luca, that was very informative!

                                You’re so right about the hipster coffee that tastes sour and bitter! Does anyone really like that?!!

                                I know it sounds that I’m asking for the impossible. A decent machine (not the best in the world!), not too fiddly or too time consuming that makes non burnt ashtray like coffee but instead a smooth rich coffee.

                                It’s kind of disappointing to me when I go to a cafe that has the 40K worth of equipment, full time barista and it produces a grey looking dishwater style coffee with white airy foam. I get the feeling that it comes down to skill as surely they can’t blame the equipment and probably not the beans. So I wouldn’t be surprised if I could produce something decent in a $500-$600 machine in time!
                                I hate to say it but I’ve has Nescafé at work in a paper cup that has tasted better than some cafes and I hate Nescafé!!

                                I’m certainly not claiming to be an expert in all things coffee but I know what I like. I also like a barista that is consistent!
                                G'day Carmen

                                I have been following this thread without commenting so far as most comments are on the money.

                                A couple of posters stated that the most important part is the grinder. Too true - a poor grinder is early enough in the coffee making chain to nuke any possible later improvements. The Breville Smartgrinder / SB EM500 is roughly $200 out of your budget. To get a significantly "better in the cuppa" grinder is way, way over your total budget and they are largely aimed at coffee that is not really to your taste anyway (yet - who knows the future), so that bit is easy. Appliance grinders often come with an extended warranty, however I reckon by the time your get through year one you will either be on the way "up the coffee quality chain" and replace it anyway, or it is good enough and you will keep it "medium term". Grinders are improving at a huge rate nowadays, so any direct replacement "down the track" may well be cheaper and better.

                                The type of coffee you prefer is available on virtually any "real" espresso machine after about 1980. As a busy nurse (yep, I also know quite a few of them) you also want fairly fuss free operation. Low maintenance would be an issue, as is longevity.

                                I will go out on a bit of a limb here and suggest that makers like the Miss S (i.e. Sylvia, with or without a PID) I lived with for 9 years are too way much faffing around to do what you want. Your first post actually ruled it out: "I love coffee and I usually drink a strong latte." - any gender will probably be able to grow a beard in the time it takes to do both milk and coffee in any single, small boiler machine. Shudder (at my memory of staring at the thing waiting, waiting, waiting). For about the last 6 years I just used it to froth milk while the "real machine" next to it handled the coffee.

                                The issue with the proper commercial machines are their warm up time (my La Pavoni 2 group takes 240V @ 18 amps for 35 minutes) and their heavy power consumption - so they are also not an ideal option for you either (mind you the "single button press factor" is appealing).

                                So I feel your machine options come down to finding a secondhand repairer you can trust (some are on this site as sponsors, and are also in Melbourne - if they were not trustworthy they would not be on this site for long) and buy a secondhand appliance machine. Probably the SB6910 / 7000 or the Brevilles - anything that can take a standard 58mm basket - usually about $200. They are fairly light on power, fast(er) to warm up and will deliver what you want in a cuppa for a (hopefully long) while. Also they are pretty easy to master. Once again, by the time it dies you will be able to make a much more informed choice due to the increased options available (and possibly cheaper as well).

                                Now to the beans - you can still get properly roasted beans from many places in Melbourne. The earlier suggestion of bean bay is your best easy option - Andy is the "non intrusive / does not promote himself" owner of this site who is arguably Melbourne's best roaster - certainly in the top few. https://beanbay.coffeesnobs.com.au/H...hippingOptions will reach him.

                                Good luck with your quest - I reckon you will get there.

                                TampIt

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