My ES.1 came in today. I took a few pictures while unboxing.






Here is what came in the accessories box:


The tamper seems alright, it fit well in my hand and has a slight concave profile. However, I went back to my Flair 58 tamper after the first two shots.

After powering up, filling, and purging the lines, I did have to take the side panels off after hearing a water hiss. It required the tightening of a fitting off the steam line, near the steam boiler, to stop a small leak. Everything is working great now. Synesso was easy to get in contact with and worked with me on a little trouble shooting.

First shots were tasty, but I have yet to find the right area to click to adjust pressure settings for pre-infusion, infusion, and ramp down for a manual shot. It seems like for now, the machine is locked in at 3.5 bar pre-infusion, 9 bar infusion, and 7 bar ramp down. After pulling the shot you can edit the shot settings and adjust those. It was easy to adjust the brew temperature for the manual shot. The first shot caught me off guard after brewing with my Flair 58 for the past year, with it scalding my tongue a bit.

The tea tap settings were easy to adjust and it worked well for my wife's americano.

I'll come back with more pictures after tomorrow's drinks.

Is there a riser for using small espresso cups?

Seems like a huge drop to the drip tray.

lagoon wrote:Is there a riser for using small espresso cups?

Seems like a huge drop to the drip tray.

Nothing came with the machine to help with the drop distance. I can even squeeze my kettle underneath the bottomless portafilter. It did make it easier for me to bend over and look at the shot as I was pulling it, since I still haven't invested in a shot mirror.

I might look for a scale stand in the future, but the shots I pulled earlier didn't splash using the doppio glasses from Decent.

Reason I asked was this video from Reddit which is doing the rounds:



When it zooms in, you can see a lot of splatter on the front of the machine from splashing.

The blue might be hiding my splatter better. I'll pay more attention to it for tomorrow's shots and report back.

lagoon wrote:Reason I asked was this video from Reddit which is doing the rounds:

When it zooms in, you can see a lot of splatter on the front of the machine from splashing.

Seems like an easy enough problem to solve. Look at it this way: they are leaving plenty of room for you to fit a scale in there.

It's better to have tall gap between group head and bottom tray than short. If tall, the user can easily shim it with all sorts of kitchen stuff. If it's short, well..., you would be * out of luck.

Sivs wrote:The blue might be hiding my splatter better. I'll pay more attention to it for tomorrow's shots and report back.

I increased my grind size a touch and had a 18 second shot, 18g in and 36g out, that did splatter some this morning. When the shot is in my preferred 27-32s range I haven't been getting much mess. Even with what did splatter, it doesn't matter much after I do the quick purge. The purge water is what really gets all over the drip tray. I'm definitely going to be going through towels more quickly.

dockoelboto wrote: I'm interested to hear about your experience, specifically about how adjustable and controllable the ramp up/down feature is. How realistically can you pressure/flow profile?

Does the tea tap function as advertised? Reasonable good/fast for an americano?

Also want to hear your take on the "noise" the machine pump makes. Early morning noise is a big issue in my household.

The advanced user settings do allow me to adjust each of the three pressure stages. The minimum for pre-infusion is 3.5 bar, I would have liked to be able to go a bit lower after coming from a Flair 58. I've only pulled shots in manual mode so far, and I've really enjoyed it. The tactile feel is great. I need to get better at timing the bump to ramp down pressure, one part of the manual says 1-3 seconds for ramp down length, in the shot setup I think it says 10-20% of the shot volume should be in the ramp down stage. I've been winging it so far with good results. The pump is very quick to adjust pressure after my input. If you were looking to control every aspect of the shot flow, this isn't the best machine for that, being limited to the three different pre-set pressure settings. I definitely feel limited there in comparison to the flair.

The temperature stability is amazing though, what a huge upgrade from my flair. I'm at higher elevation and the hottest water I could start with in my flair was about 93c. I'm having to learn the temperature variable all over again it feels like.

The tea tap has been great, goodbye kettle. It let's me pull boiling water if I wanted to. I had my tea tap temp set to 93c today for our americanos. With all the added room under the group, I think I'll start to pull my shot directly into my americano cup. I was space restricted with the flair.

The tea tap is a bit slower than a fast pour from my kettle, but it was more than quick enough.

In regards to machine noise, I asked the wife to rate it in a general sense. She said it's not very loud. I think it's quieter than my EG-1, grinding at low rpm. I'll get back to you on that again while it's on my mind.