Espresso Machines

The morning begins quietly. The apartment is still asleep, the window is ajar, the birds are trying out their first notes. Then the soft hum of the pump, the hiss of the steam wand, the dark stream flowing into the pre-warmed cup. Five minutes later, you're sitting at the kitchen table, and the day has its first ritual.

A proper portafilter machine changes something. Not just the coffee – but also your relationship with the morning. A drink becomes an action, an action becomes a ritual.

Two German Manufacturers

Profitec and ECM Manufacture are both based in Baden-Württemberg, and they build their machines with components that are otherwise only found in professional gastronomy: E61 brew group, rotary pump, real steam boiler, stainless steel housing. The result is not a capsule machine with design pretensions, but a piece of engineering that, with good maintenance, delivers perfect espresso for twenty years.

The differences between the two companies are subtle – both deliver in the same quality class, both are at home in the European barista community. The choice between Profitec and ECM is often a matter of design and small details, not technical performance.

Which Machine for Whom

• Single-boiler machines – for two cups a day, for beginners. Heat must be switched between espresso and milk foam.
• Heat exchanger machines – for the ambitious home barista, espresso and milk foam possible in parallel.
• Dual boiler machines – for the serious home café, with independent control over brewing and steam temperature.
• Lever machines – for the coffee enthusiast who wants to extract manually.

The machine is only half the battle: The other half is the grinder, and the coffee. Anyone who combines a good entry-level model with a good grinder and uses freshly roasted coffee drinks better espresso than someone with a machine twice as expensive and supermarket beans. Priority in this order: coffee, then grinder, then machine. This is the most important insight for the home barista.

See also: Small Appliances & Accessories, Cups & Mugs.