Forgive me if this has been answered, but I cannot for the life of me find any sort of sticky thread or rundown on general consensus of what the best espresso machines are in the sub $500 bracket.
My wife and I currently have a Breville Cafe Roma at home, which I use with Vittoria Oro pre-ground coffee (I can hear the groans and sighs from here!) and as for the coffees I get from this, I'm really quite happy with them, they're better than a lot of coffee shops, and give me my daily doses of caffeine nicely. Also, anyone I make them for comments on how good they are.
But we, my wife in particular, is annoyed at how long it takes to make a coffee with it, particularly how long it takes to steam milk, such that if we have half a dozen people over you'll be spending a really long time at the machine making coffees. With this in mind she said we should combine our gifts to each other this year for our birthdays and treat ourselves to a new coffee machine setup, which still means it has to come in within the 'Entry Level' sub $500 price point.
Her main wish is that it's faster to make coffees.
My wish would be an increase in coffee quality without it taking me longer than it currently does to make said coffee. And I certainly don't want to end up with worse coffee than I do now.
So, CoffeeSnobs, how can I get myself a setup that'll make great coffee quickly? Oh, and I want it to last. The Breville we have now at home has been going strong for almost 10 years now... I'd rather a new one not die in a few years. Should we get all in one with a grinder built in? A machine and separate grinder? Continue with the packets of coffee but improve the machine a lot?
I've looked around a lot and see a lot of machine names, but they all seem to have their good and bad points, and I don't know enough to prioritise those points.
If there's already a post which covers this, my apologies, I couldn't find it!
My wife and I currently have a Breville Cafe Roma at home, which I use with Vittoria Oro pre-ground coffee (I can hear the groans and sighs from here!) and as for the coffees I get from this, I'm really quite happy with them, they're better than a lot of coffee shops, and give me my daily doses of caffeine nicely. Also, anyone I make them for comments on how good they are.
But we, my wife in particular, is annoyed at how long it takes to make a coffee with it, particularly how long it takes to steam milk, such that if we have half a dozen people over you'll be spending a really long time at the machine making coffees. With this in mind she said we should combine our gifts to each other this year for our birthdays and treat ourselves to a new coffee machine setup, which still means it has to come in within the 'Entry Level' sub $500 price point.
Her main wish is that it's faster to make coffees.
My wish would be an increase in coffee quality without it taking me longer than it currently does to make said coffee. And I certainly don't want to end up with worse coffee than I do now.
So, CoffeeSnobs, how can I get myself a setup that'll make great coffee quickly? Oh, and I want it to last. The Breville we have now at home has been going strong for almost 10 years now... I'd rather a new one not die in a few years. Should we get all in one with a grinder built in? A machine and separate grinder? Continue with the packets of coffee but improve the machine a lot?
I've looked around a lot and see a lot of machine names, but they all seem to have their good and bad points, and I don't know enough to prioritise those points.
If there's already a post which covers this, my apologies, I couldn't find it!

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