Hi all

Just a bit of background first: My mates and I regularly have "coffee parties", once or twice a month, where we get together and just try all sorts of coffees. Usually in one sitting we pull about 40 shots between 2 machines. Since not everyone has an espresso machine, I usually lug my Gaggia Classic along and do half the work (which works surprisingly well for a single boiler).

Well my wife has given me permission to upgrade, so I'm looking for a new machine. At first I thought of going all the way and getting the Alex Duetto, but realised that the 30kg weight might be a bit tough to carry by myself to the car and back on a regular basis. So now I'm looking for a machine with the following criteria:

1. Reasonably lightweight (20-25kg) - I think this is the heaviest I'll be willing to carry as a single person...any more and I might injure myself!

2. Durable and reliable - this machine is going to be moving alot...back and forth to different places in a car. I've heard that some of the more modern electronic components in some machines are liable to coming loose (eg: Stories of cables coming loose in a Mini Vivaldi in transit), and would like a machine that is better constructed in this regard.

3. Fast shot-to-shot recovery - needless to say.

4. Good steam power - about 75% of the coffees I make are milk based, especially at our gatherings, so I'll need steam power to keep going

I'm not too worried about espresso quality as most machines do at good job at this level. But do you guys have any recommendations in particular?

I figure that a HX would probably be more appropriate, and looking at the Andreja or something from Rocket, but I'm not sure.

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Sing Chee

I don't have any experience when it comes to these machines, but a machine that pops in mind is the nuova simmonelli Oscar because of it's weight and that it is a less expensive hx.