Need reco! Compact espresso unit? Breville? Jura?

[sarimento1]

Hello, coffee-holics!
I'm thinking about a compact espresso machine.
Small footprint; I'm the only coffee drinker in the house!
Breville Bambino? Jura ENA4? Other??
Does not absolutely need milk frother or grinder, just great coffee, hot with crema.
Opinions please!
Pics would be great!

 

[Ad Astra]

Very happy after three years daily use of Breville Roma...

...and YOUR pics are the great ones! I'll look...

AA

 

[Elliot]

I’d probably go with a manual lever. Which depends on budget.

 

[Leverspro]

If small is your goal, this one looks tiny.

 

[Tirvine]

Elektra Micro Casa a Leva. Superb espresso, oodles of steam, small footprint, easy to maintain, easy to use. Mine dates to the seventies.

 

[Dnallehekaj]

The Breville Bambino is great, once you replace the portafilter and get a real tamper!

Plus, if you also decide to get a Hario Switch, it stores nicely with the Bambino:



We got lucky it fit like that.

Edit: we replaced the portafilter so we could use a bigger basket. I think it came with those pressurized baskets.

 

[sarimento1]

The Breville Bambino is great, once you replace the portafilter and get a real tamper!

Plus, if you also decide to get a Hario Switch, it stores nicely with the Bambino:

View attachment 1603496

We got lucky it fit like that.

Edit: we replaced the portafilter so we could use a bigger basket. I think it came with those pressurized baskets.

thx!
sorry for my ignorance...
what do you use to replace the oem portafilter?
and i presume you use the harlo separately just as a pour-over?

 

[Dnallehekaj]

thx!
sorry for my ignorance...
what do you use to replace the oem portafilter?
and i presume you use the harlo separately just as a pour-over?

The switch is used separately as a pour over, yeah. It was just a perfect fit for storage.

We replaced the stock portafilter with a naked portafilter. I don't remember what the place is called, but they bulk order the portafilters from AliExpress or something and put on nicer handles. It's not Crema, those were like 1/3 of the price of the Bambino.

We also got an IMS basket with a higher grounds capacity.

So yeah, we ended up spending about 1/3 of the machine's price on accessories anyway. It's pretty great now! Better than I'd hoped for the footprint and for the brand.

We used to have a larger and older Breville Duo Temp (not the pro model) and it was finnicky and annoying. There were a bunch of workarounds for the machine's shortcomings, but it was a frustrating venture, and I sold it to a friend on the other coast for the cost of shipping.

The Bambino is a much more reliable, much less finnicky machine, and it fits our small footprint requirement. It's great!

 

[AndyPanda]

They've become very pricey in the past 15-20 years but the Cremina delivers about the best espresso you could ask for at any price and is very compact! There is a learning curve to get the technique down.

 

[MurderousCrow]

They've become very pricey in the past 15-20 years but the Cremina delivers about the best espresso you could ask for at any price and is very compact! There is a learning curve to get the technique down.

They are pricey. But the build quality is second to none, they are incredibly well made. Beauty is debatable, but I like their clean lines.

In terms of the espresso, yes this is true. That is mostly down to them being the exact same design as another, older classic - the La Pavoni lever. One of the earliest espresso machines that's still in production today, the LP enjoys a permanent place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It uses a proven narrow, tall portafilter and a direct lever to allow (in skilled hands, and paired with an excellent grinder) extractions of the very highest quality. While not built to the same tolerances as the Swiss-made Olympia, La Pavonis are cheaper and very easy to service. They don't break down much, and when they do parts and how-to's are easy to find. The footprint is a bit smaller than the Cremina, and most people agree with MOMA that they are more beautiful.

Regardless the learning curve for direct lever machines such as these is really steep.

OP, home espresso is a deep and expensive rabbit hole. I read your post and I think you have three main options. All are dependent on a. your expectations of quality and your taste in coffee, b. your budget and c. how much time you're willing to invest.

1. Full-on home espresso setup. You may as well go all-in here, as you'll only need to upgrade if you try and skimp. Anything other than jumping in with both feet is a waste of time and money. For the machine, you need something good, but you need to recalibrate what an espresso machine is - or more accurately what it isn't. Any machine that uses a pressurised portafilter (like the Breville you mentioned), is not a true espresso machine. Because the coffee puck is not required to provide resistance, pressurised PFs allow use of almost any grind size of coffee (store bought pre-ground works fine). They produce a kind of analog to espresso. It still extracts at around 6-9bar, but the flavour profile is very different and IMO inferior. Less so with quality, fresh-ground beans, but still not espresso with its instantly-recognisable flavour hit and silky mouthfeel.

Good, lower priced machines (this is a relative term!) include the Rancilio Silvia, Gaggia Classic, and some direct lever units like the La Pavoni, or the more expensive Flair models... These all require a grinder capable of grinding sufficiently fine to allow the puck to provide the resistance. You need the best grinder you can afford. For an electric grinder, spend roughly double what you spend on your machine. Seriously. Cue hours of head-scratching as you pore over your extractions, wondering what went wrong. After months of practice you will probably be making palatable coffee, maybe a bit sooner if you're inclined to do tons of learning and willing to pull numerous 'sink shots'... In all honesty making real espresso at home is a bit of a nightmare unless you enjoy this kind of detailed, intense process.

2. Bean to cup machine like the Jura you mentioned. These work best with medium to dark roasts. Because of the design limitations of this type of machine, it's not true espresso - they all use a pressurised PF - but again, with good beans and reasonable expectations, they make an OK coffee. That sounds really snobby I know - but truth is they are ideal for many people. So simple to use.

3. Other brew methods. There are loads of options, each offering a slightly different take and more suited to certain styles of coffee. Pour-over / perc (V60, Kalita Wave, Clever Dripper), Aeropress, others, I might have missed a few options. But anyway, paired with a good hand grinder, these are all capable of making world-class coffee. No it's not espresso, but lovely coffee in its own right. And these methods are much easier to learn than espresso, not to mention cheaper by an order of magnitude.

I've been making home espresso for about 15 years. If I knew in 2008 what I know now, I'd have spent a wedge on a good grinder and stuck with my Aeropress and V60. But sometimes you have to do a thing, to know it's not the only way. Anyway, forgive the long post, hope it's helpful.

 

[MurderousCrow]

Some gratuitous pics of my La Pavoni, and a pretty espresso I made with it.

It's a great machine. It's paired with a brilliant grinder (Eureka Olympus with titanium Mythos burrs). It makes magical espresso but being honest this kind of setup is well into the area of diminishing returns, if all you want is a nice coffee.

 

[Nik]

Rok Presso. Manual espresso machine, no complicated cleaning, makes espresso to die for with a little practice. Annoying as for more than one person, but great if it’s just you. Will post a pic shortly.

 

[Nik]

This

 

[Chard52142]

Perhaps a small Nanopresso...very small, easy to keep, and fabulous for travels, the Barista pro makes a nice quad shot for me...