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SOWTECH Espresso Machine 3.5 Bar: While my grandmother has been making Cuban coffee on her SOWTECH machine for decades, the espresso was watery, thin, and harsh-although it did steam milk beautifully because it uses steam pressure.Nespresso Vertuo Coffee and Espresso Machine: Breville’s influence on this machine was clear with its click-in functions, clearly designed to be both ergonomic and pleasing to use, but I didn’t enjoy coffee from any of the Nespresso pods I tried the pods themselves are a particular style that can only be purchased at certain locations (versus Keurig pods, which are widely available) and its detached milk frother made the milk much, much more foamy than you’d see in any specialty coffee shop.But it’s clunky and fussy and at double the price of the Kompresso, it didn’t provide as much value. NEO Flair: It was close between the Kompresso and the Flair NEO, and I appreciate that the Flair comes with so many add ons, like a pressure gauge to measure how hard you’re pressing.Also, the filter is not very precise and I found a lot of grounds in my coffee.

Bialetti Moka Pot: The Bialetti is a classic, but machines that use steam pressure tend to produce harsh-tasting espresso because of the temperature of the water.This is still a great option for someone who wants an all-in-one espresso experience (but we do think that that, for about $150 more, the Barista Express Impress is worth it). Breville Barista Pro: I loved working with the Breville Barista Express, but it boasts a number of features I found unnecessary for everyday use and preferred using my own grinder versus the built-in grinder on the machine.Serious Eats / Ashley Rodriguez The Competition Instead of a general “citrus acidity,” with the Gaggia, I was able to get really specific notes, like orange with a sweetness like milk chocolate from the blended coffee, and cherry and candy sweetness from the Guatemalan one. There was also a level of nuance I couldn’t find in other espressos. Most of the machines were able to achieve some level of balance and acidity, but this is the only espresso in which I managed get sweetness out of the coffee. Did it produce the best espresso we had on any of these machines? Yes. To get the water to the temperature I wanted, I waited until the machine was fully heated (which is indicated by the second light on the three-button interface turning off), purged water until the light came back on, and then waited 30 seconds. The Gaggia has a single boiler and tends to run hot the very first shot of espresso I pulled was really bitter and strange.

What we didn’t like: We talked about temperature surfing earlier-and this is a machine that needs it. But when the pressure moves above nine bars, the water starts to compact the coffee grounds in the puck, which slows down the rate at which the water flows through the puck, and the flavor of the espresso is consequently worse. Most tasters will find that the flavor of the espresso gets better with each shot up until you reach nine bars, because as the pressure goes up, the water passes through the tamped coffee grounds in the espresso puck faster and faster.

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This is because, as 2007 World Barista Champion James Hoffmann recently explained, nine bars is the optimal pressure for espresso, a fact that can be demonstrated by simply pulling a series of shots, starting at three bars of pressure and gradually increasing the amount of pressure with each shot. If you ever have a chance to check out a commercial espresso machine at a coffee shop, nine times out of ten those machines are set to exert pressure at nine bars. One of the features we paid close attention to is pressure, since the amount of pressure with which water is passed through coffee grounds is an essential part of the process of making espresso if you’re not incorporating pressure into your brewing, you’re essentially just making strong drip coffee.

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