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I got my hands on a La Pavoni Romantica at the end of last week (Thanks Casa Espresso). I first became interested in one when I was working in a cafe in Canada a few years ago where they had a lever action machine.
An awesome upgrade from my Breville 800 series, though it has taken me the past week (and nearly a kg of beans) to pull consistently drinkable shots from it.
I'm definitely agreeing with everyone and saying that a proper tamper is a must with this machine, the plastic one was just tamping unevenly and constantly pulling under extracted shots.
The steam wand (mostly tip) is something that I'm still getting used to, it gives good foam, though you have to be very cautious of the timings as it will quickly burn the milk/not give you enough time to mix through. The machine needs a good 15 minutes to heat up properly, 10 if you pull some water through the head a few times.
I'm still learning the ins and outs of it, but at least I'm enjoying it. I've paired it with a Rocky grinder and some beans from both the Coffee Barun and Coffee Amigo here in Adelaide.
My current "recipe" is 14-15g of beans, the Rocky on a 5 setting, nice solid tamp, pre-infusion of about 10-15 seconds and extraction of about 15 seconds.
(I'll take side-on photo over the next few days)
An awesome upgrade from my Breville 800 series, though it has taken me the past week (and nearly a kg of beans) to pull consistently drinkable shots from it.
I'm definitely agreeing with everyone and saying that a proper tamper is a must with this machine, the plastic one was just tamping unevenly and constantly pulling under extracted shots.
The steam wand (mostly tip) is something that I'm still getting used to, it gives good foam, though you have to be very cautious of the timings as it will quickly burn the milk/not give you enough time to mix through. The machine needs a good 15 minutes to heat up properly, 10 if you pull some water through the head a few times.
I'm still learning the ins and outs of it, but at least I'm enjoying it. I've paired it with a Rocky grinder and some beans from both the Coffee Barun and Coffee Amigo here in Adelaide.
My current "recipe" is 14-15g of beans, the Rocky on a 5 setting, nice solid tamp, pre-infusion of about 10-15 seconds and extraction of about 15 seconds.
(I'll take side-on photo over the next few days)
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