Hi George,
Nice to read from you again. Mr D sure looks happy and well cared for, as does your Jolly. Sorry to read that you're still parked in the garage. Let the coffee gods help you to get your deserved place in the house back again.
Best wishes. Wilco

George, am I right in assuming your machine is drawing water from the Crystal Geyser bottle? Without aid from a pump? Very impressive, my plumbed, rotary Volante made unpleasant restriction noises when I tried to draw from an external tank I was going to use for descaling.

Javacat,
Thanks. Yes that is a Reverse Osmosis system. The two filters are a pre and post carbon filter. The tricky part was blending mineral rich city water back in with the R.O. water. I installed an adjustable rate flowmeter
by Dwyer instrumentation that allows me to control how much city water to add to the R.O. tank. When I set it at 10-15 cc per minute it gives me a hardness of about three grains. Just enough for taste but not too much for scale.

Here's my new home setup:



On top of the cremina is a pressure gauge attached with an reducing fitting to a boiler cap that had a false pressure relief valve in it.



The grinder is a 12 year old Santos one that I bought unused for a bit less than $300. So it was quite a bargain it seemed - well when I acutally went to the shop to buy it, it turned out that it is a three-phase one. So I had to get a variable frequency drive for it (look for AndyS posts about it). But after seeing an offer on *bay of $200 shipped for a used one VFD; I couldn't resist and ordered additonally a timer with an adjustment wheel (again copied from AndyS). So the small black box which sits beside the ginder has a timer in it and the Keypad for the VFD on top of it (connected through a 10 pole ribbon cable to the VFD under the located under the table). But I still feel like at a price of $600 is a good deal compared to a new machine. And now I'm almost completely happy with my grinder - there's still the idea of getting a metal funnel or chute (maybe something like user dsc built).

So thanks a lot - to all the people that make this site possible in the first place and those you are contributing to it!!!
...it sure was the best cure for an espresso enthusiast tumbling down the rabbit hole
and here what gets extracted with it. It is my momentary favourite and when it's right it gives me a cup quite balanced between bitters and sweets, with silky but not so thick crema. Altough it is an SO it remembers me of the classical italian espresso flavours (just less body) along with a crisp fruity acid of tangerine or pink grapefruit cest flavour. It is a 'yellow bourbon' from the 'Private Estate Fazenda Rainha' from the region of Mogiano, Brasil. Roasted to something between full city and full city+.

Cheers

I haven't taken any pictures of my setup since I moved into our new home, but here are two from our old condo. Pretty standard no frills setup. The cupboard underneath has all the cups, green and roasted beans, roasting equipment, etc.



This is a bad picture of a close-up of a dirty machine and a bad art pour. Tasted great though! I was on a Yemeni kick at the time, where every blend I made had to have a Yemeni. I don't even recall where I got the batch of green, but I still have some sitting around.

My new Mini Vivaldi and Mazzer Super Jolly. Espresso and Latte heaven !

I'm pretty happy with the look as well. The black and chrome is not too overpowering in the kitchen layout. While it is a bit big for some tastes (and so is my grinder), I find it matches the other appliances well (who said the Vivaldi is ugly?)

I replaced the massive Mazzer hopper with a more discrete Mini Hopper.

after clicking through all 23 pages of this thread, i didn't see a single livia 90.....so here you go....





(and no, its not usually this clean and tidy around them, just when i take glam shots

Endo wrote:My new Mini Vivaldi and Mazzer Super Jolly. Espresso and Latte heaven !

That looks like a long way to walk between the grinder and machine but it may be perspective in the photo, nice setup. You may want to revisit you phone location. Things placed by a knock box tend to get covered in stray grounds and coffee spatter.

Here's mine: