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Hi,
this is my first post. A few years ago I had a Gaggia Classic - pretty good actually. Then the pump gave up and rather than get it fixed
I got a Presso and used that for a couple of years. That was pretty good as well, but I did miss the steamed milk with the coffee (I normally drink cappucinos). Not wanting to get a pump machine again, I finally settled on the Ponte Vecchio Export. I didnt go for the Lusso as I only make coffe for myself and its usually only one in the morning before going to work.
So I ordered it online from the supplier that I could I could see subtracted teh VAT as it wasnt applicable , and they also promised to attach an Australian plug. All this came to just under 1000 AUD. About 3 weeks later the machine arrived. The company was very good with sending emails to let me know its status, and also giving me the tracking number for the shipment. So I can recommend that company.
It came with the Australian plug. It was also full of water - I presume as they had to check it before sending it out. This was about 2 months ago. It has actually taken about 6 weeks to really work out how to use this machine properly. It took about a week to get the right grind for the coffee - I eventaully decided that it needed to be fine enough so that the lever took about 15 seconds or so to come back up. So now I press the lever down for about 5 seconds, wait for it to come backup anbd then pull down again for another 5 seconds or so. As I like to have the coffe up to about 40 percent of a 6 oz cappucino glass, it takes me about 4 pulls to do this. At this stage now I have a great crema on the coffee (currently using espresso beans though will be switching to maragogype soon).
Then its time to steam the milk. Its taken me about a month to learn how to do this properly. The Gaggia was very easy - just basically stick the wand in and the milk would froth up properly. With the Ponte Vecchio, I have found I have to slowly bring up the steam pressure, while moving the milk jug up and down underneath it (and even sometimes holding the wand just above the surface to get a couple of bubbles). I have also found that this only works with a small jug - a 0.3litre jug filled just under halfway (with a bigger jug I cannot get any froth going - and the milk tastes a bit burnt). At this point if everything is right then the milk starts to froth up the jug and almost fill it. I also hold my hand on the jug to make sure it doesn't get too hot. This doesn't take long - just a few seconds. Then I bang the jug on the counter a few times to make sure there are no big bubbles , so it should be all tiny bubbles now.
The last bit is to get a spoon and use it to hold the froth back while pouring the hot milk in another third of the cup (leaving about a centimeter from the top). Then finally I spoon off the froth into the last third, so that there is a layer of froth about a centimeter so so of the cup. This seems to give the right balance between the milk and the coffee . Then with that its absolutely magic - the best cup of coffee I have ever had - the espresso beans give it a bit of kick but it has a real silky smoothness that I've very rarely tasted before.
I have posted this in case anybody else is interested. I know when I was doing some Googling on this machine there wasnt really anything that explained how people were getting the best out of their machines....a lot of it was things like Fellini moves etc - which I never really understood the point of or why people bothered with it ...
Thanks for your patience...
ashley
this is my first post. A few years ago I had a Gaggia Classic - pretty good actually. Then the pump gave up and rather than get it fixed
I got a Presso and used that for a couple of years. That was pretty good as well, but I did miss the steamed milk with the coffee (I normally drink cappucinos). Not wanting to get a pump machine again, I finally settled on the Ponte Vecchio Export. I didnt go for the Lusso as I only make coffe for myself and its usually only one in the morning before going to work.
So I ordered it online from the supplier that I could I could see subtracted teh VAT as it wasnt applicable , and they also promised to attach an Australian plug. All this came to just under 1000 AUD. About 3 weeks later the machine arrived. The company was very good with sending emails to let me know its status, and also giving me the tracking number for the shipment. So I can recommend that company.
It came with the Australian plug. It was also full of water - I presume as they had to check it before sending it out. This was about 2 months ago. It has actually taken about 6 weeks to really work out how to use this machine properly. It took about a week to get the right grind for the coffee - I eventaully decided that it needed to be fine enough so that the lever took about 15 seconds or so to come back up. So now I press the lever down for about 5 seconds, wait for it to come backup anbd then pull down again for another 5 seconds or so. As I like to have the coffe up to about 40 percent of a 6 oz cappucino glass, it takes me about 4 pulls to do this. At this stage now I have a great crema on the coffee (currently using espresso beans though will be switching to maragogype soon).
Then its time to steam the milk. Its taken me about a month to learn how to do this properly. The Gaggia was very easy - just basically stick the wand in and the milk would froth up properly. With the Ponte Vecchio, I have found I have to slowly bring up the steam pressure, while moving the milk jug up and down underneath it (and even sometimes holding the wand just above the surface to get a couple of bubbles). I have also found that this only works with a small jug - a 0.3litre jug filled just under halfway (with a bigger jug I cannot get any froth going - and the milk tastes a bit burnt). At this point if everything is right then the milk starts to froth up the jug and almost fill it. I also hold my hand on the jug to make sure it doesn't get too hot. This doesn't take long - just a few seconds. Then I bang the jug on the counter a few times to make sure there are no big bubbles , so it should be all tiny bubbles now.
The last bit is to get a spoon and use it to hold the froth back while pouring the hot milk in another third of the cup (leaving about a centimeter from the top). Then finally I spoon off the froth into the last third, so that there is a layer of froth about a centimeter so so of the cup. This seems to give the right balance between the milk and the coffee . Then with that its absolutely magic - the best cup of coffee I have ever had - the espresso beans give it a bit of kick but it has a real silky smoothness that I've very rarely tasted before.
I have posted this in case anybody else is interested. I know when I was doing some Googling on this machine there wasnt really anything that explained how people were getting the best out of their machines....a lot of it was things like Fellini moves etc - which I never really understood the point of or why people bothered with it ...
Thanks for your patience...
ashley
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