Attention Espresso Aficionados…?
My fiancee loves espresso and he and I had discussed getting an espresso machine before. He has since moved to VA (Navy) and no longer has the luxury of stopping at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru for his morning caffeine fix. So for Christmas this year I wanted to buy him:
- An espresso maker (with possibly a coffee maker built in)
- A coffee/espresso bean grinder
- two espresso cups, saucers
- a simple recipe book on how to make different coffee/espresso drinks
- some good espresso beans or maybe a sampler of beans
However, I am so unbelievable confused by all the variables involved with espresso. Pump versus steam? Ground beans versus pods? I have no idea what "tamping" is! Is there someone out there who is an espresso/coffee connoisseur that can help guide me?? I really need help as I want to give him quality items that also won’t totally break my budget. I don’t want to get the cheapy espresso makers from Walmart that will break in the first week. Let me know and perhaps we can talk via email in depth about all things espresso.
Thank you!
Thank you so far. He actually prefers to either drink the espresso straight or to add espresso shots to regular coffee. I don’t think he would like the coffee maker idea. I don’t have a problem spending more money on something that is good, I’m just not going to drop 00 on an Italian machine. Any recommended brands for pump espresso makers or burr grinders?
This is a fairly inexpensive espresso maker one that has a lot of really good reviews:
http://www.consumersearch.com/espresso-machines/delonghi-ec155?ap=36
It is pump, not steam, and you can get it for >$100. It makes better coffee with beans of course, but it also takes the pods, so if your fiance is in a hurry or just not in the mood to grind beans, he can just pop in a pod. It does take about 15 minutes to heat up before you can draw a shot though.
And here is a burr grinder priced at around $100 with good reviews too (though it is a little noisy):
http://www.consumersearch.com/coffee-grinders/capresso-56001-infinity?ap=8
Wow, that’s a lot of answers to pack into this little box! 8^)
Pump is better than steam. Only the cheapest machines are steam. Ground is definitely better than pods.
Tamping is pressing the ground coffee down in the ‘portafilter’–too little and the water goes through too fast and you get weak coffee, too much and you don’t get any coffee at all. There’s a tool for this, like a little potato masher, and you practice on a bathroom scale to get just 30 lbs exactly.
You need a really good grinder for espresso, a burr grinder. You have to have a very fine grind but also very consistent. In the e-mail group I used to belong to there were people who spent >$1000 both grinder and espresso maker. So it’s really a matter of how good you can get for what you want to spend. You ought to be able to get pretty good stuff for $150-200 for both grinder and espresso maker.
A recipe book usually comes with every espresso maker, and there’s lots of stuff on the Internet. He probably likes cappuccinos or lattes or whatever, and he’d learn to make those pretty quickly, they’re not complicated.
An espresso machine that makes real espresso, like a coffee shop, start around $300. That’s the pump vs. steam aspect. Cheap machines just use steam pressure, which is unreliable, inaccurate and inconsistent. The pumps maintain a constant pressure (approx. 4 atmospheres) on the grounds and will produce a good cup of espresso every time. The problem with the cheap machines isn’t that they’ll break right away, they could easily last several years . . . but they won’t brew one cup of really good espresso.
Unless you’re planning on brewing the entire contents of the beans your buying the same day you buy them, always buy your beans whole and grind them right before you’re ready to brew. A regular coffee grinder is OK but they don’t do a very good job of grinding the beans uniformly. Uniformity is important for espresso as it’s a very fast brewing technique. A "burr" grinder does a much better job but they’re more expensive, around $70.
Tamping just means to press the beans down into the cup that holds the grounds before you brew. It makes a better "crema" (the foam on top of a good cup of espresso) if it’s tamped.
For real espresso, there aren’t any pods.
After all of that’s been said, it sounds expensive right? Well, it is. I think there’s an easy alternative though. Consider a senseo machine that uses the pods you were talking about. It’s not espresso, but it is a really good cup of coffee that you can make in about a minute and a half. It sure beats going through the trouble of making espresso in the morning. The machines are about $60 and the coffee pods are about $4 for a pack of 16 pods. It’d make a great gift for any coffee-head.
I own a coffeehouse and every year, customers get machines for Christmas or make New Year’s resolutions to make their own coffee and they’re back in a few months. So before you drop all that cash, make sure it’s actually going to fit into his morning routine and get used. Espresso has a lot more variables than brewed coffee and can be difficult to get right, which can lead to frustration at the hassle.
Expect to spend as much on the grinder as the machine. A $50 grinder that says it will grind for espresso won’t grind fine enough for a pump machine and won’t allow the fine-tuning of the grind necessary to pull a good shot.
My favorite book for espresso technique is David Schomer’s Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques.
Also, check out http://www.home-barista.com/ and http://www.coffeegeek.com/ for resources, reviews and help.