Hi all,

I am planning to buy an espresso machine for a small office (6-10 users). I currently narrowed down my choices to Lelit Elizabeth and Lelit Mara X.

Needs:
- Occasional heavy use for milk drinks, lets say 6 back-to-back in the morning
- Ease of using, we have automatic coffee maker at the office, so only dedicated users should use the new machine, yet, I dont want to have high entry skills requirements, if someone would like to enjoy occasional good coffee.

I understand Mara X is better suited to sustain heavy usage, while Elizabeth is better on the ease of using.

Would Elizabeth be enough for 6 back to back milk drinks?

Thanks for your help

I have experience with both machines. Mara and Elizabeth are solid build, nice, Italian machines.

Mara with its E61 group will last forever. Parts for E61 group will be available "to the end of the world".
Big steam boiler with Mara will be useful while preparing several milk coffees in a row. Feeding water also will be easier with Mara.

From the other hand, Elizabeth will be easier to operate thanks to its programmable buttons. Milk frothing with Elizabeth will be easier than frothing with Mara working in X mode - steam pressure in Elizabeth is stable.

If durability is more important, buy Mara. If ease of use, buy Elizabeth.

I understand Mara X is better suited to sustain heavy usage, while Elizabeth is better on the ease of using.

I have had the Mara X for a couple of weeks now. I am really enjoying the machine, but not sure it would be idea for multiple users in an office environment. The reason for this is that in brew priority mode (which is the selling point of the Mara X), the machine starts a heating boost as soon as you start to brew your first shot, in order to get it up to steam pressure and temperature. You then have a few minutes (reviews say about 5 minutes) to brew your shots at the designated brew temperature, before the machine gets to seam temperature (which is too hot for brewing). You then need to let the machine cool off and stabilise back to brew temperature, which reviews say takes about 15 minutes.
While this is no issue for a single user, in an office environment with multiple users wanting to use the machine whenever they are ready, this might not be ideal. The Elisabeth is a double boiler, so shouldn't have this problem, but the boilers are small. I don't have the machine, so can't say if it's good for 6 back to back shots.

If all 6 to 10 people will be using the machine, and making multiple drinks, I would want something a little more robust than either the Mara or Elizabeth..

For a little more money, there is a La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi with a tank: $$1,895 https://www.chriscoffee.com/collections ... so-machine

And they have an open box La Spaziale Vivaldi Plumbable for $1,756.00

https://www.chriscoffee.com/collections ... di-ii-sale

These machines are work horses. YMMV