Espresso Machines

There are many different types of espresso machines, which one is best depends mostly of who will be using it. As mentioned earlier it´s not an easy thing making a really good espresso. Firstly it requires top quality raw material, but also practice, experience and last but not least a good espresso machine that gives the right pressure and temperature.

In different tests of espresso machines they have found that the automatic machines are a bit unreliable. You can get different results not only with different brands or units but also from one cup of espresso to another. Most of the brewed cups of espresso will probably be ok, and with the automatic espresso machine anyone can make espresso without much skill or practice, but just as one might sometimes manage to make a really good espresso, the next time the same espresso might be awful. This can be frustrating enough for any private person, not to mention how it is for an educated barista. Furthermore, the automatic espresso machines are generally more expensive than the rest, but on the quite big pro-side is that anyone can use it and it´s easy to keep clean - everything is done by pushing a button. For an amateur who is not interested in learning all the details of making a proper espresso, the automatic machine or the pod machine is the best alternative.

The semi-automatic espresso machine is a bit trickier to maneuver. It requires knowledge and experience to control, but gives tastier coffee and more variation possibilities than the automatic machine once mastered. This is the machine used by most baristas all over the world.

To make things even more complicated you go for a piston machine where not only grinding, measuring and tamping the coffee is made manually, but also making sure that the right temperature and pressure are achieved. The level of difficulty increases drastically, but at the same time also the possibility to make exceptionally good espressos once the machine is mastered. All the control in the process of brewing the coffee is in your hands, which is a great challenge to many coffee enthusiasts.

A moka maker is a kind of simplified espresso machine. It is easy to use and costs only a fraction of a real Espresso machine. On the other hand it doesn´t really make Espresso, but a kind of reversed drip brew coffee. For someone who likes to enjoy a different cup of coffee every now and then, but isn´t too fussy about taste and quality, a moka maker might be a good alternative, but it can never be a substitute for a real espresso machine.

When thinking about buying an espresso machine, there are a few things you need to ask yourself: How much time and experimenting am I willing to put down? How much can I pay? How much cleaning does it need, and how much am I interested in cleaning it? It is very important to keep the machines completely clean, a tiny coffee particle stuck somewhere can destroy the whole brewing process by letting air out of the machine which changes the pressure. An automatic machine or a pod machine is much easier to keep clean than for example a piston machine.