STARESSO Plus 2023

[338]

Seems a bargain at that quality for the price

[Andy]

5: Usage.
Like all espresso gadgets you'll always get best results if you rinse with boiling water first to add some heat to the contact surfaces. This simple task will yield far better coffee and a more consistent shot profile.

Then simply add espresso ground coffee to the filter basket and tamp it (tamp not included), coarse screw the base back on and place the STARESSO in the stand, unscrew the top and add the amount of water you want then pump it to the profile you want.

The manual suggests one pump a second and that felt about right but I'm sure you'll find your own perfect rhythm. When you get the first drips of espresso you can pause for a pre-infusion then pump once a second till your shot is poured.



6: Packed.

When finished, empty the puck, rinse it out and pack it up.
It weighs 690g and feels super solid. It folds-up neatly and would pack anywhere easily for travel.



7: Chamber

The chamber has a maximum capacity of 180ml, I'm not sure you'll ever need anything like that though.





8: Basket

The additional 53mm unpressurised basket sits neatly in the base for dosing and tamping.




9: Naked.

Using the unpressurised basket it becomes a naked.




Thoughts:

The usefulness of this will depend on your goals. A good barista knows that pulling a great espresso is the start (or the end) of many espresso based drinks. Pulling a shot over a cup of hot water and you have a great Americano/long black, add a splash of milk to the Americano and you have a flat white, drink your double shot espresso as an espresso, or use a separate milk frother to turn your espresso shot into a cafe latte or cappuccino or pull the shot over ice cream for a great dessert. I drank all the doppio espresso shots out of this as shots though.

Does it make a good espresso? It sure does. Way better than an Aeropress who claim to make espresso (on the box) but it's only a fractionally pressurised filter. Way better than something that has a tiny grinds area that doesn't hold enough coffee for a shot. Way better than any pod/capsule gizmo because you can use good coffee and the correct amount.

Thermal stability was good, the stainless internals make it easy to clean but thankfully not too thick so it acts as a heat-sink but as mentioned earlier, I like to rinse with boiling water first to help keep the brew water temperature more consistent.

The pressurised basket is well designed and easy to clean but for me, a waste of time. It held something like 20g of coffee so it's a great size but don't expect magic in the cup. The 53mm generic non-pressurised basket that was also in the box (I think added as an extra) was way better and was about a 15g double basket. The open ended naked portafilter style of STARESSO allows for all basket depths so you could easily fiddle with a range of VST/IMS/Pesado aftermarket 54mm baskets between 15g and 21g or more to get something you're happy with.

It sells for around US$100 or 100 Euro so I guess it'll likely have a AU price close to $200 (with GST and freight). It's only just been released so it'll take a while for our site sponsors to land them but I'm sure if you ask, they'll give you a better ETA.

Punchline is, of all the easily packable, portable, non electric espresso gizmos, this makes the best espresso and has the flexibility of using a basket and tamp that suit your taste.

[Andy]

STARESSO have been around for a while now, this is their 3rd generation Plus model.
The full model name is a mouthful, "STARESSO Mirage SP-300 Plus" but I'm guessing it'll be known as STARESSO Plus 2023 or STARESSO Mirage 2023 in online stores.

The beauty of waiting for the 3rd generation of a coffee gizmo is that many of the unforeseen bugs have been ironed out and it shows here with a lot of thought in the design.

1: Unboxing:

It arrived in a strong well designed retail box. Foam packed, near impossible for a courier to damage the contents.
You can see below that the freight guys tried to damage it (ding in the corner) but the contents were untouched.





2: Inside.

First reaction was "wow, this is really well made" and it is. Stainless, cast alloy, high density plastic (that you could confuse for cast alloy) and soft-touch rubberised outer grip.

Comes with a well designed stand with rubber feet that was perfectly stable and non-slip on even on a shiny stainless bench. The base/cover doubles as a stainless cup which would be good for camping duty if you didn't pack espresso cups.





3: Components.
The main unit is stainless lined and has the espresso "shower screen" rubber mounted in the bottom which pops-out for easy cleaning.

STARESSO have redesigned pump mechanism and it's now ceramic coated inside and meant to be good for 1,000,000 pumps so you'll be unlikely to wear it out. It came with a pressurised basket (more on that later) and had an additional non-pressurised basked in the box (thankfully).



4: Main unit

The water chamber in the main unit is stainless lined, previous models were plastic inside so this is a great upgrade.




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