Im new to the espresso world. purchased a barista express in march then decided to get the niche which finally arrived end of august. i was actually planning to get the decent as well but i'm struggling a bit with this niche and its made me think twice about upgrading the machine now...

I've tried a couple different bags of beans now and I'm finding the taste to actually be worse for me than using the inbuilt grinder. This is the taste with lattes in particular as that's exclusively what i drink. I generally like typical dark roast flavours, nutty, chocolatey, sweet and found with the BE the drinks tasted like they had a bit more flavour and a nice nutty/ chocolate after taste. With the Niche the drinks seem a bit flat with a more earthy aftertaste. Difficult to describe really. Having said that i do sometimes taste the espresso before adding the milk and the espressos do taste better and more balanced.

Has anyone ever had a similar experience? Is this even possible? I was expecting a big improvement to be honest. I see there are only three possibilities

1) I always used to add sugar to my lattes from cafes until i got the BE - could it be i got my pallet accustomed to liking the taste from this set up?
2) Could it be my workflow with the niche means my distribution is worse now? i made a makeshift funnel so i can dose straight into portafilter. i then tap a few times and slightly even out the surface with my finger before tamping. i did the same with the BE.
3) could it be something is not quite right with my niche? (at the beginning i was only moving the calibration ring mistakenly until i realised you had to move the upper ring, i haven't recalibrated but i don't think that should make a difference?)

the grounds definitely look fluffier and less clumped than the BE so it seems to work well. Although i do notice with the Niche i get a lot of these light brown bigger but thin grind pieces which look almost like the bean skin? especially at the end of the grind, which i never really got with the BE.

Also if i wait a few seconds after grinding and then shake the niche a bit, quite a few grinds drop out the chute. i don't find using the brush in the chute really removes anything though and the metal container gets some grinds stuck to it which i find annoying, another reason i stopped using it.

Have made similar grinder move and not had anything like the same experience. I also think you might be spending too much time trying to dissect and analyse the flavours and not enough time just trying to make tasty coffee.

Went from Barista Express on its own to Barista Express acting as the grinder for ECM Synchronika (while waiting for Niche Zero) to Niche Zero with Synchronika.

Managed to get good coffee (mostly drink flat whites) all the way through that evolution except for a few shots when I was dialing in new beans. Good coffee is determined by how much I enjoy it and since I am often a slow drinker, whether it still tastes good as it cools down.

I suspect there may be quite a bit of variability in the BE grinders as I have heard them described as not very good. I now think that the grinder in my particular BE was/is quite good and the machine is still in use during weekends at my partner's lifestyle block and still makes nice coffee.

Because of that often expressed view of the BE grinder I expected a huge improvement when the Niche Zero arrived but while I did get an improvement I cannot say that my coffee suddenly leaped up in quality. Also, I had no trouble dialing in the Niche and even my first shot was still quite drinkable.

The Niche did substantially improve the workflow and allowed me to more easily experiment with different beans and grind settings. It is also a lot quieter and faster.