Advice please! I should have said 'appropriate replacement for...'
So this is the situation: I have always desired a lever machine. Then by chance I came upon this almost unused (as it turned out) lovely two group Gaggia GX lever. It is immaculate. Outside and inside are stunning. Electric/gas. I was lucky to find it, it still had the protective plastic on the stainless and only one group had been used and that very sparingly. There was even a spare portafilter that I had turned out and made naked and then chromed. Then we moved house and there is no way that my wife would let it into the house. So we use a Rocket Giotto inside. I had thought I could part with the Gaggia, advertised and some offers came in but I could not bear to sell it.
And so my amazing Gaggia GX lever is in my garage/workshop, on a cart and all connected. Every now and then I go, turn it on, have a coffee with friends and then in all its glory it is back under a cover sheet until next time. A terrible situation.
What I love is how it pulls perfect shots, the poetry of the lever being pushed down, the spring slowly pushing it up, the oozing of the first drop, the perfect puck when changing the portafilter, the endless steam from a large tank, the quiet of not having any pump during extraction, the beauty of its stainless steel and Ferrrari-red body and the shiny massive lever groups. Just everything. Most of it though I love the poetry of the lever action.
And as it is in the workshop I've been wondering if I could replace it with a one group lever machine that I could bring to live inside. At least with a new owner my machine would be used in all its glory.
I've looked and there are options. For example a Bezzera Strega.
What would you go for?
So this is the situation: I have always desired a lever machine. Then by chance I came upon this almost unused (as it turned out) lovely two group Gaggia GX lever. It is immaculate. Outside and inside are stunning. Electric/gas. I was lucky to find it, it still had the protective plastic on the stainless and only one group had been used and that very sparingly. There was even a spare portafilter that I had turned out and made naked and then chromed. Then we moved house and there is no way that my wife would let it into the house. So we use a Rocket Giotto inside. I had thought I could part with the Gaggia, advertised and some offers came in but I could not bear to sell it.
And so my amazing Gaggia GX lever is in my garage/workshop, on a cart and all connected. Every now and then I go, turn it on, have a coffee with friends and then in all its glory it is back under a cover sheet until next time. A terrible situation.
What I love is how it pulls perfect shots, the poetry of the lever being pushed down, the spring slowly pushing it up, the oozing of the first drop, the perfect puck when changing the portafilter, the endless steam from a large tank, the quiet of not having any pump during extraction, the beauty of its stainless steel and Ferrrari-red body and the shiny massive lever groups. Just everything. Most of it though I love the poetry of the lever action.
And as it is in the workshop I've been wondering if I could replace it with a one group lever machine that I could bring to live inside. At least with a new owner my machine would be used in all its glory.
I've looked and there are options. For example a Bezzera Strega.
What would you go for?

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