The Olympia Cremina is a holy-grail manual lever espresso machine. There are a couple of areas that have great effect over the quality of espresso that the Cremina, however, does not address. The ability to know and control pressure is one area but there is no pressure gauge on the Olympia Cremina. Why can't Olympia Cremina integrate a pressure gauge into the chassis? At $4,000 this is not an inexpensive machine. Olympia could make this simple and direct change while maintaining the Cremina's analog purity.

The next, more debatable, change that could be made is to integrate a thermocouple sensor in the Cremina. The only solutions so far have been to either add a temperature strip on the side of the grouphead or attach a third party thermocouple sensor. These are inelegant solutions for an elegant machine. Would you like to see Olympia integrate a thermocouple sensor in the grouphead and integrate a pressure dial on the left of the machine which echoes the boiler pressure dial? Is there a way to make these changes but also maintain the Cremina's analog purity?

It's an interesting question and I think many Cremina owners have asked themselves this very thing.

In one sense it goes against the purposeful simplicity of the device. An integrated sensor is another piece that may fail and having it would prompt further changes; why not an easily adjustable pressure knob? Why not even a PID? Coupled to the sensor in the group, you can fine tune the temperature. That would indeed be a different machine with a different user experience.

Rather I'd love Olympia or a partner to sponsor an easily attached and elegant external sensor that can be removed if desired. Manual levers have never really been about temperature perfection. The modern Cremina idles at a great temperature for pulling shots, so the challenge is to make sure you don't go too far above when pulling multiple shots. Usually locking in a cold portafilter and waiting 5-6minutes is good enough.

Anyway it's an interesting discussion. Manufacturers like ACS are experimenting with PID controlled levers with cartridges that heat the group to the perfect temperature (and separate PIDs for group and boiler). So it's an exciting time for lever enthusiasts. Maybe the best way for Olympia Express to maintain their niche is to hold fast to the simplest, traditional design? It would be fun to hear everyone's thoughts.

I totally agree that it would be a great addition. A factory integrated feature on the group that allowed an optional OEM bolt-on external group temp gauge would be fine with me. I have a thermometer on mine and I consider it essential to consistently excellent shots. If you pull in a consistent manner, at the same group temp, and same boiler pressure reading, you can get shots as consistent as a BDB. Or at least I could, when I had both machines.

cpreston wrote:If you pull in a consistent manner, at the same group temp, and same boiler pressure reading, you can get shots as consistent as a BDB.

I agree. That's really the magic of these machines.

It would be a great addition. The temperature strip, thermometer, and pressure gauge on the group is too ugly for me.

While some people say it will add cost to an already expensive machine, others have said that the Cremina is already too expensive. You are paying for the name. The tooling, parts, and machining don't add up to the exhorbitant costs that Olympia is charging for it. For instance, a Londinium is of equal quality but sells for half of the cost of the Cremina. The problem is that Londinium doesn't offer a steam pressure, manual lever machine. There is less involved to make this kind of machine, not more. The Cremina is a design icon and the aftermarket solutions are inelegant. They ruin the Cremina's purity. I don't have a solution for thermocouple sensor readout but I would hope that the readout would be a analog dial and not a digital one. I did make a mock-up of what a pressure gauge could look like and it's well integrated. Perhaps instead of one large pressure gauge dial there could be two smaller dials on the left, one for pressure, the other a thermocouple readout?