malachi wrote:Just because I disagree with your first statement doesn't mean that I am saying the latter.
Cheap debating tactic IMHO.

No, not at all. I was responding very directly to the OP's remarks:

Yerushalmi wrote:...I'm talking about 90 seconds or more... It seems to me the only way I've found to make delicious espresso.

You may not be fond of rules - neither am I - but there are reasonable guidelines associated with espresso. How long does it take before a pour is too long? Don't you think 90 seconds is a bit over the top? Not only does it overturn all generally accepted brew parameters for espresso, but you are the guy who insisted that

malachi wrote:milk can wait for espresso - espresso cannot wait for milk.

The heck with consistency. Apparently it's OK to let espresso sit in the cup for 90 seconds or more during an ultralong pour, but not for the 15 seconds it takes to froth milk.

D'oh
Mea Culpa

I did not see the follow up "90 second" comment.

Yeah... I agree. It's hard to imagine a situation where coffee + machine + personal taste could equal an optimal extraction time of 90 seconds without something being quite wrong.

I stand corrected and apologize.

I would love to get my machine working better, but I don't really have the time to fiddle with it myself. The company that I bought it from will only agree to ship it back to their shop in Haifa (a long way from Jerusalem) and then I'll have to wait about two weeks -- and they'll probably tell me that it's fine anyway.

It's a long shot, but does anyone know a machinesti (or whatever a espresso tech is called in Italian) who lives in Israel and makes house calls?
worth a try
thanks