Jarno wrote:Why do I feel like we're comparing blondes vs. red heads?

As someone once said, redheads are a cute genetic aberration but deserve their own little corner of the universe in which they can be lovingly cared for and treasured .... by those who choose to.

HB wrote:I named two lever machines that require the same or less skill than a pump machine (Gaggia Achille, Ponte Vecchio Lusso). But I understand your point, they are the exception among popular home lever espresso machines, not the rule.

For folks reading these posts who are as yet unfamiliar with espresso machines, we have to say what aspect is easier and what is harder, rather than simply assigning the attribute easy/hard to the machine or class of machine.

As single boilers with groups making direct metal-to-metal contact with their boilers, these machines are comparable in their temperature management, though two are manual and one is spring:

Pavonis and rebadged Pavonis
Export (spring)
Cremina

These next two machines are very different from one another in terms of temperature management and also by virtue of the fact that one is a spring and one is a manual lever:

Lusso (spring with thermosyphon)
Achille (manual with HX)

To say that the Achille requires less skill from the barista than a pump machine does seem odd. Managing the Achille's HX is comparable in difficulty to managing the HX on an electrical pump machine; but the Achille has the added issue that the barista needs to know how to pull the shot manually, and must pull the shot manually with both hands on the machine, rather than simply pushing a button and waiting or doing other barista chores.

I do see where one could say that the Lusso is easier than a pump machine, because the Lusso manages temperature with its thermosyphon design. If the pump machine is one that does not manage temperature for the barista, it would indeed be more difficult to use than the Lusso in this regard. If the pump machine manages temperature, it is probably no harder than the Lusso -- unless it has a bunch of complicated electronics on the front panel.

How a machine manages temperature is a very important consideration when selecting an espresso machine. It will determine whether the machine is suitable as a personal espresso machine or for a couple, or one suitable for entertaining a small group, or suitable for a larger party.

If you want to entertain four or five friends at a dinner party, say, the first three levers (Pavonis, Export, Cremina) are unsuitable, unless you're entertaining friends who are willing to stand around admiring your machine and your acumen as a barista, i.e. aficionados not just your typical friendly guest who is there for the good company and not to watch you indulge in your hobby. The Lusso and Achille are suitable for light entertaining, the Achille less so because as a manual lever the Achille requires the barista's hands to be engaged with it during the entire extraction.

Regards
Timo

timo888 wrote:If you want to entertain four or five friends at a dinner party, say, the first three levers (Pavonis, Export, Cremina) are unsuitable,

He probably should have written "the first three levers (Pavonis, Export, Cremina) MAY BE LESS CONVENIENT..."

Again, timo, you are expressing opinion as fact, and, to my knowledge, with no experience whatsoever with the Export. Please remember a potential newcomer may take your advice very seriously when considering purchase of a machine. They would not necessarily need to spend the extra $ to buy a Lusso vs. and Export for light entertaining. You might consider qualifying what you know from personal experience.

RE: the Ponte Vecchio Export and overheating. With the pressurestat turned down (to < 1 bar, but I don't have a gauge), I can pull a number of shots without overheating by simply applying a cool towel or sponge to the group. This is not a terrible inconvenience, and requires little waiting. The PV group seems to dissipate heat much better than does the Pavoni group, which in my limited experience, overheats much more quickly.

PC

timo888 wrote:To say that the Achille requires less skill from the barista than a pump machine does seem odd. Managing the Achille's HX is comparable in difficulty to managing the HX on an electrical pump machine...

The "morning after" score is a judgment based on actual use. In most cases, I corroborate my assessment with others either by loaning the evaluation machine out or collaborating with a second reviewer, as was the case with the Gaggia Achille. Sometimes the differences are not readily appreciated without firsthand experience with all the machines in question. I try to avoid talking about easier/harder in the abstract, instead following PC's recommendation that members clarify the basis of their viewpoints. In fact, this is explicitly stated in the site's Guidelines for productive online discussion:

Be open and honest. Many people rely on opinions presented in these forums as part of their purchase decision. The source of the information you present and basis of the opinions you express are as important at the statements themselves. For example, you should make it clear whether you speak from first hand experience, what you read elsewhere (and if appropriate, link to the source), or conventional wisdom.

This was added at Luca's request in A plea for openness.

Sigh... It sounds like we're back to lever machines being 'inferior' to the pump machines. Different? yes. Inferior? no.

The Pavoni is a machine with lots of history and even more character. It is a hands on machine that needs lots of attention to details, massaging, and soft hands. If you try to 'manhandle her,' she'll bite. But if you can coax and seduce her, the results are rewarding -- not just with the espresso but also personal satisfaction. And those are the ones who will appreciate the Pavoni lever.

HX pump machines? square box, plain vanilla, Safe Susan. She'll do no matter what the mood. If you get a bad cup, then blame your lack of technique and consider upgrading to a double-boiler.

Jarno wrote:Sigh... It sounds like we're back to lever machines being 'inferior' to the pump machines. Different? yes. Inferior? no.

Agreed. And that was precisely MY point in writing that levers were not the ultimate -- they are different, period.

Jarno wrote:The Pavoni is a machine with lots of history and even more character. It is a hands on machine that needs lots of attention to details, massaging, and soft hands. If you try to 'manhandle her,' she'll bite. But if you can coax and seduce her, the results are rewarding -- not just with the espresso but also personal satisfaction. And those are the ones who will appreciate the Pavoni lever.

It's that "personal satisfaction" that I was aluding to in that "zen of espresso" comment way back when . . .

Jarno wrote:HX pump machines? square box, plain vanilla, Safe Susan. She'll do no matter what the mood. If you get a bad cup, then blame your lack of technique and consider upgrading to a double-boiler.

One presumes, of course, that is is a joke. First of all, many are not square. And none, to my knowledge, are named Susan. The machine can indeed be finicky, but -- thankfully, from my own point-of-view -- not nearly as much as my 1970s Pavoni.

But if I get a bad cup of espresso -- no matter what category of machine we're talking about -- it's usually operator error. This is no less true for an HX machine, or a dual-boiler one, than it is for a lever. And clearly, HX machines can produce great espresso, just as dual-boiler models and lever machines can.

This is more like asking who was better, the Beatles or Bach; the Stones or Beethoven?

Jason

peacecup wrote:timo wrote:

If you want to entertain four or five friends at a dinner party, say, the first three levers (Pavonis, Export, Cremina) are unsuitable,

He probably should have written "the first three levers (Pavonis, Export, Cremina) MAY BE LESS CONVENIENT..."

Again, timo, you are expressing opinion as fact, and, to my knowledge, with no experience whatsoever with the Export.

I stand by my opinion. The single-group Ponte Vecchio Lusso is just able to keep pace with the typical demands of entertaining four or five non-espresso-hobbyist friends at a dinner party, and its temperature management is much superior to that of the Ponte Vecchio Export's. Overheating issues are common with the class of domestic single boiler lever machines whose groups have direct metal-to-metal contact with their boilers. Using the Export for that type of duty would be much less "convenient", so much less that it gets a THUMBS DOWN for Dinner Parties, though I would give it a THUMBS UP as a personal machine.


Regards
Timo

P.S. Imagine if someone asked if the original IBM XT would be suitable for crunching numbers in a busy currency trading department. I would say, No, unsuitable, because the duty envisioned requires response times of n seconds with datasets of n size. The IBM XT might be able to give the identical numerical results eventually but eventually isn't good enough. Same with the Export for dinner parties -- the waiting time when it overheats and has to cool down or be cooled down would simply not do .... given the average person's sense of propriety about how long guests should be asked to wait for their coffees.

zin1953 wrote:And that was precisely MY point in writing that levers were not the ultimate -- they are different, period

Sorry that I misunderstood you. I think I was thrown by your word choice 'the ultimate.' Perhaps a more appropriate description may have been 'finicky', 'temperamental', 'mysterious.' The phrase, 'not the ultimate' would imply that another machine is, and thus placed in an inferior category. But I agree, they are very different.

zin1953 wrote:One presumes, of course, that is is a joke. First of all, many are not square. And none, to my knowledge, are named Susan. The machine can indeed be finicky, but -- thankfully, from my own point-of-view -- not nearly as much as my 1970s Pavoni.

But if I get a bad cup of espresso -- no matter what category of machine we're talking about -- it's usually operator error. This is no less true for an HX machine, or a dual-boiler one, than it is for a lever. And clearly, HX machines can produce great espresso, just as dual-boiler models and lever machines can.

Yes, this is a joke poking fun at people who think that a more expensive machine can overcome the shortcomings of the barista. Moving away from grinding and packing a puck, I'll get away from the romantic speech regarding levers and to the more physical and formal aspects. At its surface, the lever is a very mechanical device and its operation appears straightforward. But if you poll all the members of the LMWDP you'll find at least 100 variations on how they pull a shot. However, I'm willing to wager that only a handful of those techniques are worthwhile for pulling good, consistent espressos, shot after shot in rapid succession. Now with the HX machines and dual boilers, as I understand them, there are not many variations on using them and the user is confined to only a few techniques. I believe that to understand the lever, is to understand espresso making. Once one can define the limitations, then the hunt begins to overcome or compensate for them. There is no doubt in my mind that the engineer who designed the dual boilers with all of its electronics can easily take apart a lever machine, understand it completely, and then within a day create a technique to maximize the espresso's flavor and consistency. Sometimes unraveling the puzzle is more rewarding than the drink itself. Don't you think? Ahhhh... the Zen....

Jarno wrote:Sorry that I misunderstood you. I think I was thrown by your word choice 'the ultimate.' Perhaps a more appropriate description may have been 'finicky', 'temperamental', 'mysterious.' The phrase, 'not the ultimate' would imply that another machine is, and thus placed in an inferior category. But I agree, they are very different.

No, my use of the word "ultimate" (as in "Lever espresso machines are not the ultimate") did not imply another machine -- or even another category of machine -- was. Rather,

Zin1953 wrote:But what IS the ultimate espresso machine? Who would agree? Can anyone here say, definitively, that ____________ class of machines is indeed the ultimate in the world when it comes to producing quality espresso? I'm not talking looks. I'm not talking price. I'm not talking scarcity. I'm talking "quality of espresso," and that -- as with anything subjective, is left to the eye of the beholder . . . or, in this case, the palate of the taster.

But, you see, you are guilty of the same sort of "snobbery" you accuse the HX crowd of, namely --

Jarno wrote:Yes, this is a joke poking fun at people who think that a more expensive machine can overcome the shortcomings of the barista. Moving away from grinding and packing a puck, I'll get away from the romantic speech regarding levers and to the more physical and formal aspects. At its surface, the lever is a very mechanical device and its operation appears straightforward. But if you poll all the members of the LMWDP you'll find at least 100 variations on how they pull a shot. However, I'm willing to wager that only a handful of those techniques are worthwhile for pulling good, consistent espressos, shot after shot in rapid succession. Now with the HX machines and dual boilers, as I understand them, there are not many variations on using them and the user is confined to only a few techniques. I believe that to understand the lever, is to understand espresso making. Once one can define the limitations, then the hunt begins to overcome or compensate for them. There is no doubt in my mind that the engineer who designed the dual boilers with all of its electronics can easily take apart a lever machine, understand it completely, and then within a day create a technique to maximize the espresso's flavor and consistency. Sometimes unraveling the puzzle is more rewarding than the drink itself. Don't you think? Ahhhh... the Zen....

You seem to be saying that -- regardless of the number that may or may not be worthwhile -- there are 100 variation a barista can employ with a level, but extremely few (my words, not yours, I know) with an HX or DB machine. Furthermore, you imply that it is because of these variations that the level is "the ultimate."

("I believe that to understand the lever, is to understand espresso making." Doesn't this imply there is no other way to understand espresso; that this is the way?)

I, on the other hand, willingly admit there is more than one way to skin a cat. Great espresso shots can be pulled from dual boiler machine, an HX machine OR a lever machine. Indeed, I've even pulled some great shots from a single boiler-dual use machine -- a category barely mentioned, if at all, in this thread and yet there are how many thousands of extremely happy Silvia and Gaggia owners out there . . .

The point is that this IS a discussion of blondes vs. redheads. One is not automatically (or even semi-automatically) better than the other. It's the individual blonde or redhead that counts, even though we may have general preferences. (I prefer brunettes.)

In the wine trade there is an expression that may apply here. "There are not great wines, only great bottles of wine." Every bottle is different than every other, even when stored in the same cellar.

In coffee, it's even more complicated! There are dozens of worthy machines -- of all types and categories -- out there, and there are hundreds of quality-minded roasters out there. Put the machine with the coffee and what happens? Nothing. You need the barista -- professionally trained, self-taught, or completely untrained (and everything in between)! You need the individual standing in front of and operating the machine . . . otherwise, super-automatics would be the ultimate, wouldn't they? And every individual has his or her off-days, off-moments, off-shots.

All the wine geek has to do is know how to use a corkscrew. It's much simpler.

Cheers,
Jason