New member and home espresso (actually hold your nose, mocaccino) drinker. The background is that my wife and I both enjoy our morning mochas from Peet's Coffee and Tea. Due to the cost, we try to limit ourselves to Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Recently, my wife gave up alcohol and in looking for a replacement, stumbled on making a homemade mocha at our friends' with their Nespresso and electric frother. She liked it, so after some quick research I purchased a Nespresso Creatista Plus and some Peets espresso Pods.

The short is the Nespresso made something, but I don't know that is could called espresso and the mochas were barely drinkable. After three days, I decided to return it. A bit more research and I purchased a Breville Barista Express. Better, but extremely inconsistent, which I blame on the grinder (have to set at finest, which generally results in way to low pressure and 5-10 second extractions, sometimes too high and it won't extract). I was not also not impressed when after less than week, the steam function started only working part time. Given the one year warranty and lack of ability to fix the Breville, I decided that I was not going to keep it only to have it die in a year or two.

So I started really reading. I initially decided that the Gaggia Classic Pro and a Baratza Sette 270 would be good. $828 for the package and done. Then I read more and discovered the need to flush between shots and more importantly refill the boiler manually after steaming. Given my wife will also being using it, is not detail oriented, and can be forgetful, I decided this could be a recipe for disaster. So, I kept looking, and the budget kept going up.

After considerable additional research time, I came up with the most important factors for us, quick warmup and ease of use. After further research, the Lelit Elizabeth looked good, but decided against it because 1) didn't like that the two boilers cannot warm up at the same time, and 2) the interior did not look well laid out or easy to service (I plan on having the machine at least 10 years and want to be able to fix it myself if it needs service). I then decided the Bezzera BZ 13 DE PID would be a good fix. One problem, they are back ordered, back ordered to the point where they haven't even left Italy.

At the end I ended up selecting a Profitec Pro 300, fast warmup, reputation for reliablity, and pretty easy to use. I combined it with a Eureka Mignon Specialita 16cr (I didn't want to look at the mismatching Baratza for years to come). I was concerned about the lack of a dosing control on the Profitec, but decided that given our use, once I dial in the grinder, combined with a leveler/tamper, the shots should be consistent enough for my wife to use with a calibrated cup. I have gone ahead and purchased a inexpensive coffee scale, 80ml pyrex beakers, and the leveler/tamper to help with getting everything dialed in and consistent results.

So wish me luck when my order actually shows up. I look forward working through the learning curve and maybe even my palate expanding to lattes, and perhaps even something like a flat white or macchiato. Most importantly, thank you for having a such a wonderful forum with such great information. It is refreshing to find a forum where the members are polite, helpful, and even in disagreements, courteous to one another.

Not cost you money, saved you money! Those seem like some great steps to skip and what you ordered will do very well for you. Fun times ahead.

Recently, through no fault of my own, I ordered a macchiato at a Peet's in the City. Undrinkable. And for me that's big because if I pay for something, I am not going to throw that thing away.
So now there's no going back to Peet's for you and that will save you money.

I did cost it out and it looks like my break even point, if we were comparing to getting drinks 3 days a week is about 26 months. If we cost out our use with having one at home (and now having two each a day, one in the morning, and an after dinner decaf), plus my son having his on the weeks he is here, we are down to about 5 months. I have a feeling that I will be purchasing a second grinder at some point to avoid having to swap coffees from morning to night and back and re-calibrate.

Hi Cary,
Welcome to HB and home espresso. Alas, you are on a slippery and increasingly expensive slope. In a year or so, you will find that you need to upgrade your machine, then your grinder, then maybe a machine again, etc. All at great expense. But your coffee will be much better! And you will save even more money by not being tempted back into local coffee shops, whose coffee will all be worse than your own.

I am hoping I aimed high enough to avoid the upgrade cycle. Famous last words.

Got it and all setup and dialed in. Mocha's are better than Peets and I expect with time will get better. Now the problem is that I have to re calibrate the grinder from regular beans in the morning to decaf beans at night. The obvious solution is a second grinder. The problem is my wife wants a matching Eureka, so $750 more to be invested.

Another solution would be to just have a single dosing grinder that is easier to calibrate than a Eureka.