I live in Colorado at an altitude of about 9500 feet and would like to find a recommendation on a machine that will produce good crema at that altitude. We have tried several machines there and not had any success in getting good crema. We have used a starbucks barista machine at sea level and it makes great crema. We also bought several machines at home with no luck in getting good creme - it was very thin and didn't last long. Any suggestions?

Are you using the Starbuck's pressurized portafilter? What other machines have you tried? And what brands of coffees do you use & how fresh are they? Or another way to ask the last question - are you buying your coffee at a supermarket or from a local roaster that labels the bag with a roast date?

The amount of crema produced is really a function of the type and freshness of coffee you are using, not the machine. If you are using a pressurized (stock) Starbuck's portafilter, it will create a limited amount of crema, but as you have found crema production is lower and dissipates faster at altitude. A pressurized portafilter is designed to keep a constant basket pressure irrespective of the operator's ability to achieve a proper tamp. But it doesn't work as well as a non-pressurized portafilter.

A non-pressurized portafilter takes practice to use effectively but produces much better espresso and potentially a lot more crema. If you use fresh coffee and a non-pressurized portafilter you should see lots of crema, albiet it will still dissipate faster than it would at sea level.

With a pressurized portafilter, all I can suggest is seeking out fresher coffee and encouraging you to grind it just prior to pulling the shot. Something that would work well, but is extremely unpractical would be to pressurize your home like an aircraft cabin. With a conventional machine, try setting your pressurestat (or PID) about 0.25 bar higher to account for the lower boiling point of water at altitude and seek out fresh coffee blends that are known to produce large amounts of crema.
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I don't live at a high altitude, but based on what I've read in the discussions linked from the FAQs and Favorites, this isn't a matter of what espresso machine you use:

How does high altitude affect brewing?
The Denver Effect?
Water boils at 195F
High Altitude Brewing

Below are a few other discussions found by searching on "high altitude" per the forum search tips:

Espresso at high altitude
Milk steaming at high altitude
How does elevation affect espresso - or do you think it does?

I may be able to help you. I live in Reno at 5,000 ft. In fact a quickmill Alexia with a dual PID controller. http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/hom...sso/alexia

Because water boils at a low temperature where you live finding a machine with a PID is important. I use two different roasters intelligentsia and ritual coffee. Both have profiles of 198-200 degrees I also turned down the brew pressure to 9 bars and get amazing coffee.

Hope this helps you

Tom

I don't think there's any machine that's better at high altitude than other machines. All machines should be affected about equally by altitude.

That said, I don't think altitude is likely to be a big factor in your crema problem. Using stale beans or a cheap grinder (or worse yet, preground beans) are much more likely to result in loss of crema. What kind of beans are you using? Are they fresh, i.e. less than 14 days old? Are they good quality beans from a quality roaster? What kind of grinder are you using?

Linda wrote:I live in Colorado at an altitude of about 9500 feet and would like to find a recommendation on a machine that will produce good crema at that altitude. We have tried several machines there and not had any success in getting good crema. We have used a starbucks barista machine at sea level and it makes great crema. We also bought several machines at home with no luck in getting good creme - it was very thin and didn't last long. Any suggestions?

Based on what you are saying, you may be using a pressurized portafilter and preground coffee. If so, what you are getting is not really a traditional espresso or crema, but a regular coffee, brewed strong, that is frothed by being forced through a spray can-like jet in the portafilter. How such a beverage reacts at altitude is an interesting physics question, but nothing anyone here would know, since this is a site for traditional espresso hobbyists.

If you are interested in espresso, i.e. a very specific beverage that requires some skill and very expensive equipment to make, this is the site for you -- there's lots of interesting stuff to read, and Dan has pointed it out. If you just want no fuss "cafe style beverages," you are likely to have better luck with a capsule machine like Nespresso or a superauto. Both these produce somewhat fresher coffee and a slightly more textured crema that may be be more immune to altitude than aerated coffee.