icedlatte.com

I have a confession.

I’ve had the same espresso machine since 2000.  A Starbucks Barista machine.

Okay, there, I said it.

A wedding gift, actually, from my Aunt. (Which I appreciated very much!)

Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing to have the same espresso machine for 8 years, but the machine has definitely been going downhill in the last year or so. Since the closest Starbucks (or any coffee house, for that matter) is about 10 miles away, I was missing my iced latte’s.

And, when your website is icedlatte.com, you have to have iced latte’s.

So I started looking around on Ebay to see if I could find any deals on espresso machines.  After looking and looking, and even bidding on a few, I did a “Buy it Now” for a Saeco Easy Espresso Machine.

I was originally looking for another ‘manual’ espresso machine, one where basically you have to do it all manually.  However, I got a pretty good price on this super-auto model.  That means that on this one, you just press one button, and off it goes:

1. Grinds the espresso beans.
2. ‘Drops’ the beans into the portafilter.
3. Forces water through the portafilter to make the espresso.
4. Pushes the espresso grinds into the dump box.
5. Is ready to go again.

Now, just because it’s a super-auto doesn’t mean that you can’t adjust anything.  You can adjust:

1. The grind (fine/course)
2. Amount of espresso per shot.
3. Amount of water to run through each shot.

Once you get all that adjusted, you just press the button on the upper left, and wait for it to make the sweet, sweet espresso.

All in all, I’ve been pretty happy with it for the week or so I’ve had it.  I’ve used it everyday, pretty much, and the espresso it makes is very good.

The downsides?  Yeah, it has a few:

1. Just one ‘red light’ to tell you about 3-5 things that could be wrong.  I’ve pretty much figured out that depending on when the red light comes on in the process, I can figure out what’s wrong.
2. A little bit of espresso drops down into the drip tray at the bottom.  That’s pretty common with super-auto’s, I discovered, though.
3. The size.  A super-auto is a little bigger on the counter than just a manual one, but again, that’s just something to get used to.

All in all? I’m very happy with this purchase, and I hope I’ll be keeping this one for 8 years or longer.

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