Hi,
I've learned an awful lot from you guys, but never had much of interest to contribute. Finally I have a little tip to share, so here is my impossibly significant, paradigm shifting idea. If your life isn't changed forever, you can have your money back.
As everyone with a non-kitchen friendly grinder knows, removing the bean hopper can save a lot of space. It does however leave you with the problem of covering the throat. Not everyone has an appropriate sized tamper and some might feel it doesn't look quite right. Cups or plates are a little unwieldy, so what's a home barista to do?
I'll tell you. Find an (otherwise fairly useless) 59-60mm single basket, like the ones on my old Gaggia Cubika...



Problem solved.
It's not a great photo, but it does look rather nice in the flesh.
Now all you need to do is find someone who sells baskets for an obsolete, non-standard and fairly rubbish machine...

if you use a double or larger synesso "triple/double" basket you can measure the dose of beans with it, dump them in the grinder and put it back in as the cover.

jon

A Gaggia single basket from my old Carezza is precisely what I use to cover the hopper throat on my Mazzer. Fits like a glove.

Tee-hee, had a funny feeling this wouldn't be news to you lot. I hope you saw through my crudely affected smugness; paradigm restored. Nice idea about using a larger basket for dosing, I might have to try it. Does the Carezza have the same weird group size as the Cubkia? That used to annoy me a lot - especially after I put by portafilter in the washing machine!

The world will never be the same! [Cue "Thus Spake Zarathustra":]



(That's about how a Super Jolly would fit my present kitchen, btw.)

This is great advice, thanks!

I ram an old tamper down the throat of my major