The famous pod adapter is shown to the far right:
La Valentina and apparently your machine come stock with this funky dispersion screen. It allows them to serve double-duty as a somewhat pod-friendly espresso machine and also use traditional loose grounds. Or at least in theory. The idea is to reduce the head clearance enough that the water doesn't channel around a double-pod stuffed into the stock basket. A friendly lurker offered some samples for me to try, and as expected, it was typical pod espresso: Weak, devoid of body, and bitter. If you added enough milk though, it was better than our office coffee.
Most swap out the adapter for a standard E61-style dispersion screen. This allows more headspace and improves the loose grounds extractions considerably. On a lark, I tried the adapter coupled with the La Marzocco triple basket, figuring that the reduced head clearance of the adapter and the extra clearance of the triple might cancel each other out. It worked pretty well at 19 grams instead of the usual +22 grams.
The other downside of the adapter is its "ledge". You can see a lighter ring in the picture above. That's the portion that extends beyond the grouphead seat; unfortunately it accumulates grinds.
Bottom line: Nice try, but this thing belongs in the drawer next to the single basket and stock plastic tamper.
by rfc on Tue Aug 30, 2005 4:10 pm 
