Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Compact quality cappiccuno machine for caravan, ECM Cara 5, Quickmill Pippa or ??

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Compact quality cappiccuno machine for caravan, ECM Cara 5, Quickmill Pippa or ??

    Hi

    We have an ECM 3000 dollar machine at home, We make 4 very strong cappiccuno 300 ml mugs a day. We have a separate coffee bean grinder.

    2 years ago we bought a Nespresso pod machine for our first caravan trips and find it very weak, and need at least 2 pods of strong coffee per mug to get a poor, weak cappiccuno . We are disappointed in it. We plan to make frequent and longer caravan holidays in the near future. Currently finding we rather go out to cafe for our coffee and the Nespresso machine is getting very little use.

    We are trying to avoid spending 100 dollars a week buying coffee when on caravanning holidays.

    Looking at a smaller second machine for caravan up to 1400 dollars. Wonder how people rate ECM CARA 5 and the Quickmill Pippa? Is there something else you would suggest. Gaggia Classic Pro seem to be very good value at less than 700 dollars. We will take our coffee bean grinder with us.

    Just an an aside we have Rancilo Silva in the past and a Lelit Mara and were disappointed with the quality, durability of both of those machines.

    We prefer to buy new but are open to buy a second hand coffee machine if compact and quality

    Welcome any suggestions

    Have a good day
    Kevin







  • #2
    Made a purchase ECM Casa.

    Comment


    • #3
      We had exactly the same issue when touring - we normally stay in apartments, cabins etc, but as we travel via car we were also looking for something a bit lightweight we could move as luggage from the car to accommodation. I looked through Choice and was surprised to find amongst the recommended machines the Sunbeam Cafe Espresso EM3820. I followed this up in our CoffeeSnobs forums to discover that it was often recommended with the caveat that it will not last forever - between 1 and 2 years seems to be its lifespan. But as it only cost $111 (discounted) I thought why not - balanced against the issue of finding a reasonable coffee at our mealtimes (which is never easy in many areas), and like your observation, normally at $4+ a coffee, it looked very economical. 2 weeks in Tassie cost us over $200 for coffees prior to obtaining the Sunbeam, so our coffee habit is very similar to yours! I have been very pleased with the results - nothing like my home setup, but very much better than the usual coffees obtained in remote takeaway places. I did look at a pod machine, but was not happy with the resulting coffee. In any event the Sunbeam was cheaper than most of these machines when a milk frother was added. The Sunbeam is a bit flimsy with its plastic body, so needs some care in transport - the original box does well for this purpose but will not last. This solution may not suit you if you require a bit more control over various coffee varieties but has been a good solution for us.

      Comment


      • #4
        If you like your grinder DO NOT run it on an inverter. AC motors need good waveforms, even the most expensive inverters won't have good waveforms under load. Get a good hand grinder to take with you, some of them can be run by a battery drill if you don't fancy the manual labour.

        Comment


        • Dimal
          Dimal commented
          Editing a comment
          Indeed, you'd need to purchase an Inverter specifically designed for this duty and even then, it's not out of the question that horrific waveform harmonics will eventually shorten the life of the motor.
      Working...
      X