My Current Espresso Setup

Around a year and a half ago, I wrote about my espresso setup at the time. This setup has remained almost the same during the last year, except for a few things here and here. More recently, we upgraded our coffee machine, which prompted me to write an updated post and spill the te- coffee ☕️.

The Breville Barista Express has been a reliable tool over the years, and has been with us since the beginning of our espresso journey. It was, after all, our introduction to this whole world. We have learned a lot since purchasing this machine almost three years ago. Eventually, we’ve reached a few limitations.

• Built-in grinder: it is reasonably well known that built-in grinders are usually not the best, and, despite having used it almost all of this time, we noticed that our choice of coffee was more limited. When we tried more medium to lighter roasts, the grinder just didn’t grind fine enough. And this was already after adjusting the machine’s internal grinder settings.
• Consistency: another issue was to do with consistency. The machine was almost fine for the first espresso, but the second one was always very different. When we had visits, it was always a struggle to pull a few espressos after each other. It was definitely possible, but the consistency of the output was very hard - impossible - to achieve.

We started by purchasing a new grinder: the Eureka Mignon Oro Single Dose. Why this one you ask? Well, there is not just a single answer. We read and watched some reviews, which were mostly positive. It is also a single dose grinder, which we wanted since we weight the beans for every coffee anyways. It has very small retention, and it looks stunning 🤩.

Some time later, we also decided to buy a new machine. It was already on the cards, but we hadn’t made the jump yet. We ended up deciding on buying a La Marzocco Linea Micra, which had already been in our radar for quite a while. We were initially torn the yellow and the regular stainless steel version. We ended up going for the stainless steel since it gives it quite of a timeless look.

With this new machine, the consistency issue has been resolved. Some times I even thought I was the problem, that I was still doing something wrong after countless read articles and watched videos. Something I read at some point was that the Breville runs, by default, at a higher pressure than usually is desirable, and it is possible to change that by modding it, but we never did it.

The new machine, besides looking stunning and being much more simple from an operation point of view, also comes with many improvements:

• Dual boiler: the new machine is a dual boiler machine, which means you can pull an espresso and steam milk at the same time. It also ends up using less water. The Breville used water to cool down after using the steam wand in order to be a few degrees cooler for the espresso.
• Standard portafilter: the portafilter of the Breville was slightly smaller than the industry standard, which means that coming by add-ons and other tools was slightly more difficult. The new machine uses a industry standard 58mm portafilter.
• Rotary pump: while the Breville used a vibration pomp, the Linea Micra uses a rotation pomp. This means that the new machine is also much more silent. The Breville was quite noisy when turning on, after using the steam wand, and just in general during operation. The Linea Micra is very silent.

Would I recommend everyone spending so much money on an espresso machine? No. Am I very happy we made this decision and with the machine so far? Yes. We’ve had a few people over during the past week, and we’ve pulled quite a lot of espressos. It is a delight to use this machine, and I its capabilities will allow us to explore a bit more of the coffee world!