I want to know what this magical espresso machine is that covers up the flaws of a poor barista such that they will never learn good technique. You will get out what you put in, and the machine that provides more clarity to that relationship will teach the barista more. I agree with Jim's sentiment, we as barista wanna-be's should be striving to learn about coffee, not espresso machines.

compliance wrote:I want to know what this magical espresso machine is that covers up the flaws of a poor barista such that they will never learn good technique.

I have interpreted this thread to be the opposite of that: How can a barista learn good technique when the equipment they are using is so inconsistent that there is little to no way to learn how manipulating the variables affects the taste of the coffee? Is it just me??

compliance wrote:I want to know what this magical espresso machine is that covers up the flaws of a poor barista such that they will never learn good technique. You will get out what you put in, and the machine that provides more clarity to that relationship will teach the barista more. I agree with Jim's sentiment, we as barista wanna-be's should be striving to learn about coffee, not espresso machines.

I love what Dan wrote in some other thread (paraphrasing) -- you cannot buy your way in to make an exceptional espresso. (Sorry for semi-accurate recall of the quote, but you get the idea). At some point the balance between state of the bean, quantity of grinds in the basket, and grain size needs to be put together, and that's when experience and knack how to make good stuff comes together.


(Alternative solution - make sure that you find someone to do it for you).

allon wrote:Just curious on the thoughts of the HB crowd - does having to struggle with unforgiving equipment make one a better barista, in the long run?

Hypothetical -
Barry the Barista starts out having to struggle for every shot with inferior equipment, and learns out how produce acceptable shots with what he has, occasionally hitting awesome. Then he gets a new machine, top-of-the-line, and everything is so much easier now; he can produce awesome shots with ease.

In an alternate universe, Barry Prime starts out his career with the top-of-the-line machine.

In all other ways, these alternate universes are equal.

A year (or two) later, both Barrys are attending a local barista shootout, and a wormhole opens. Suddenly, Barry and Barry Prime find themselves in competition between each other.

Who wins, or is it a tie?

I think that regardless of their equipment, if their diagnostic and remedial skills aren't correctly guided, developed and honed, either of them will be then in a difficult situation. Better equipment might partially mask poor skills, but not much. I am not sure what others do, but I do appreciate at least once a week to buy a best espresso I can find in town, just to benchmark my palate. Without it its difficult.

I wonder a little about all this. I think it is easy to equate cheap and simple with inconsistent. I had a cheap Saeco machine with a plastic box around it. 2-3 oz stainless boiler. Heating element. A little brass on the group, and a brass non-pressurized PF. It was very easy to get consistent results, because of the simplicity of the equipment. If I followed the same routine, the water was always the same temperature, etc. The same holds for very simple home lever machines. What is more difficult with these simple systems to get consistent results across a RANGE of conditions. SO if one wants to change temperatures, dose, etc. frequently, a simple system may be less forgiving. In my case I'm lucky because I tend to like to drink the same kind of espresso for long periods of time, so changing parameters is a non-issue.

Its like any modeling exercise - the more complex the model, the more variation in the system. Yes, if one has very good estimates of all the parameters one can make a very complicated model that makes accurate predictions. But in complex natural systems (e.g. pressurized, heated water flowing through (and extracting bits of) a porous medium), one is unlikely to have good estimates of all the parameters.

PC

This thread strikes a chord with me because I lived the dichotomy, more or less.

After falling in love with espresso in France and Spain, I decided that I would like to try having it every morning at home. But when I looked at the cost of the equipment, I balked. I just wasn't sure that I wouldn't tire of espresso and regret spending all that money. So, I found what I thought was a good entry-level machine with high resale value -- a venerable PID Silvia. I bought the machine, despite warnings from the experienced baristas on this site. My bad.

I paired Silvia with a Macap M4 grinder, which had received many positive reviews. In this case, I followed the advice of the experts and got a good grinder. Or so I thought.

Results were disappointing. Even with the PID, Silvia's temperature instability, lack of forgiveness for preparation mistakes and intolerance for higher doses made it very difficult to explore the extraction space. Each cup of espresso was an adventure -- despite many attempts, I simply could not pull the same cup twice. I never did learn how to steam milk on that machine.

But oddly enough, as difficult as it was to make espresso with Silvia, I got firmly bitten by the espresso bug and decided to get really serious. After only one month, I sold Silvia and bought a GS/3.

What!?!?

Yes, a GS/3. Having determined that I was in the game for the long run, I saw no point in following a long upgrade path to the very best machine. Knowing myself pretty well, I knew that I would end up there anyway, and it would be cheaper to buy the machine now rather than after a series of lesser, disappointing machines. I knew that one of the less expensive HX machines would be much better than Silvia, but I also knew that I would probably tire of the temperature dance. A double boiler machine was right for me, and I had lived long enough to accumulate the funds to buy one of the best.

I very quickly found out just how much more forgiving the GS/3 was than Silvia. But my enthusiasm was short-lived. My shots were better, and the GS/3 made pulling them effortless, but they were still not consistent. What the GS/3 showed me was that the M4 was simply not good enough. When I replaced the M4 with a Baratza Vario, my espresso world changed dramatically. Finally, I was able to produce reasonably consistent shots of very good quality. The BV was a joy to use compared with the M4, and allowed me to turn my attention to exploring different coffees and preparation parameters. It was all very good.

But small inconsistencies nagged at me. While the BV was mostly on target, it required careful adjustment and monitoring to get consistent shots. I discovered that different levels of beans in the hopper required different grind settings. My attention soon turned to the Titan grinders.

I won't bore you with what went into the selection process, but I eventually settled on a Compaq K10 WBC. This grinder finally brought me to the level that I had wanted to be at all along. The grinder is as rock-solid and repeatable as it gets. With this level of consistency, and a great single-dose capability, I was able to dial in coffees quickly and effortlessly, and explore variations in dose, grind, temperature, etc., without grind inconsistencies clouding the issue. Once you can do that, you can begin to learn to be a better barista.

One thing I must stress. My ability as a barista has gradually improved from the time I began to the present. But the greatest improvements came after I got the K10.

I have two points here:

1. I'm in violent agreement with the thesis that learning how to use inferior equipment does little to improve one's ability as a barista. It only gets in the way. What you learn are the idiosyncrasies of the equipment and how to compensate for them. You end up focusing on that instead of exploring the incredibly diverse world of coffees and roasters, and you can't produce espresso consistently enough to explore the extraction space.

2. Most of the comments in this thread have been about the machine. That's not the issue. As we all should know: "It's the grinder, stupid." Once you get to the entry-level HX machines, you can learn to get consistent performance. It may take some dancing around or addition of a temperature probe, but it can be done. What you can't do is compensate for an inconsistent grinder. I was able to learn this by eliminating virtually all of the inconsistency of the machine, which revealed that the real problem was the grinder. I feel that I learned this the hard way, and even though the BV was very good, I would have been better off with a K10 right from the start.

My conclusion is that the best approach to espresso is to begin with a truly top-of-the-line grinder, no less than a Super Jolly (Baratza Vario) or better. If you can afford a Titan grinder, get one. If not, start saving for one. You won't regret it. If the grinder breaks your bank, get one of the good entry-level HX machine and a Scace and/or one of Eric's temperature probes. Learn how to get the temperature where you want it. After that, the grinder will take good care of you. If you like milk drinks and can afford a good double boiler machine, go for it. Again, you won't regret it.

Bottom line: my answer to the subject of this thread is: No.

I started out on a pro machine in a cafe, and it really really helped learning about the taste of coffee, and what to look for in a good shot. It took me months of toying around with my la pavoni before I could really get quality out of it, but it helped immensely that I was familiar with what I should be striving for. If I had have only had the la pavoni, and no experience dialing in day in day out and becoming very familiar with tons of different coffees, I don't if I would have been able to get the most out of a home machine.

+1 to the above poster

As a home user with 'starter' equipment the biggest hurdle for me is knowing what I am looking for when tasting my espresso. That to me is the most challenging aspect because even going out and getting an espresso, it's hard to be sure whether or not what I am tasting is exceptional espresso. I am lucky enough to live in an area that has a lot of good espresso, supposedly, however with the rise of these fruit bomb single origins I find that, at least to my untrained pallate, a lot of the espresso that I drink else where tastes like one of my under extracted shots.

Just for example I was at Blue Bottle over the weekend and got a shot that didn't taste much different from what I pulled this morning from Allegro Breakfest Blend on my first attempt with it.

To just address my take on the question though; the person that has the best chance of being the best barista on any given machine is the one that has logged the most hours with that said machine. I'll take the barista pulling shots off a Strada that has had 10,000 hours on it over the one that has only 1,000 hours with it but another 15,000 on a variety of other machines.

Specificity. You'll only get good at what you practice. If the goal is the best espresso, you want the best equipment you can afford. No sense gaining skills working with nonsense, unless that alone is the goal.