Right now I have an old Gaggia Coffee that I bought off ebay for my office machine. It's paired with a Macap M4 grinder. I use it to make one or two shots a day for myself and co-workers. While the results aren't bad, for some reason I've never managed to get really good shots out of this machine. Strangely, my old Gaggia Classic seemed to work better for me before I replaced it, even though I was using that machine with a Rocky, which is not as nice as my current Macap grinder.

I'm using mostly Coffee Klatch Belle Espresso, which is a pretty forgiving blend, but my shots still tend to be a bit bitter. It seems that the espresso machine runs quite hot, since I can see the water flash boiling from the group when I pull a warm up shot. Usually, I'll pull a couple of ounces through the group until the water stops boiling, then grind and tamp, pull another ounce or two with the portafilter out, then lock and load and pull my shot. The result looks good, with lots of crema and nice tiger striping, but it doesn't have the same sweet, syrupy flavor that I get with the same coffee from my Anita at home. Now I don't really expect a Gaggia to perform as well as an E-61 machine, but I think I should be able to get shots that are less harsh tasting assuming good beans and a good grinder.

In any event, I'm thinking that I might want to try another machine at work and see if I can get better results. I don't want to spend $1,000 or more on another prosumer machine, but I'm considering getting a PV Export or La Pavoni just to see what lever shots are like. The compact size, simplicity, quietness and old-school design seem like they would be assets in my small office. I hear that the PV Lusso is easy to use for a lever, and I'm wondering if the Export is similarly forgiving.

On the other hand, I might go for a good single boiler pump machine or even a used HX if I could find a decent one for a reasonable price. Perhaps a used Nuova Simonelli Oscar or Lelit might work.

Any thoughts?

I love my Pavoni and even though I would love to get another machine some day I wouldn't do it if I had to get rid of the Pavoni. The one catch with taking it to the office is that if you want to make more than two shots in a session, it isn't ideal because it becomes overheated. On the other hand, since you said it is only 1-2 shots a day, I think it might work very well. I would love to take the Pavoni to work since it takes up almost no space and have an HX such as your Anita at home. I also think it works very well with a Macap (my current set up). It does take some work to master, but that is part of the fun for me.

Oh, the one other catch for me is that while most of the shots are quite good they vary quite a bit and I can't always tell by looking at them which ones will be great and which won't be. When I make them for myself I don't mind because if I'm not happy with it I can always make another, but if I am making it for someone else who isn't drinking it with milk the variance worries me since they might be too polite to tell me that it didn't cut it.

As you mention, from the posts I've read, it sounds like the Lusso does not have the same flaws, but I don't know about the export.

Good luck!

Beezer wrote:I hear that the PV Lusso is easy to use for a lever, and I'm wondering if the Export is similarly forgiving.

I've been evaluating the Ponte Vecchio Lusso for quite awhile; you can read lots of commentary in the Lever Espresso Machine Smackdown and offshoot threads like Cappuccinos with punch from the Ponte Vecchio Lusso. Unlike the Lusso with its thermosyphon design, the Export will overheat when left idle like similar levers with the grouphead attached directly to the boiler. Tricks like applying a wet cloth to the grouphead or locking in a cold portafilter may help.

Despite lever espresso machines' reputation for being difficult to master, I find the Lusso is a snap, even when compared to the venerable E61 group. It would work well in an office environment, assuming your colleagues are comfortable with hands-on espresso.

Thanks for your responses Dan and Hugh.

I like the concept of lever machines, but I'm not so thrilled with their quirks. The Lusso seems like a good lever machine in terms of being user friendly, but it's almost as much as getting an HX machine or high end single boiler like the Alexia. Not sure if I can justify that for just a couple of shots a day. The Export seems a bit more reasonable, though not exactly cheap. However, if it overheats like a normal lever, that isn't really appealing either.

The Pavoni lever machines are common on eBay, so I could probably find a relatively cheap one used. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I want to deal with the finicky nature of the design. Maybe I need to keep looking for a used pump machine that's a bit more stable than my current Gaggia. Or I can just keep working on my technique with the Gaggia and see if I can get better results.

Hi Eli,

I was thinking about how hard it is to master a Pavoni a little more and it did occur to me that 90% of what I had to learn to make good espresso on the machine is stuff that applies to machines in general. For example, you need to know how to dose and distribute, what it means about the temperature of the water if your shot is sour or bitter, etc. The issue for most Pavoni owners is that unlike the average HB poster they have to learn all of that background as well as how to use the machine, and putting these two tasks together compounds the difficulty. For you there will be fewer variables since you know more about espresso than I did, for example, when I got mine.

So while the machine is still finicky since you have so much control, the warnings about how hard it is to master probably apply much less to you and others who have already studied espresso than it does to the average consumer and your learning curve should not be so steep. I suppose if you found a cheap one on Ebay you could buy it, try it for a while, and if you didn't like it relist it on Ebay for roughly what you paid.

I'll also add that for me learning to use the machine wasn't as frustrating as one might expect given how much I've learned over the course of the voyage because my taste evolved along with my skill so I didn't know how much better the coffee could be when I started - it tasted good to me then it just tastes better to me now. Here is hoping that the evolution in both skills and taste never stop going upward (together)!

Hugh