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That's actually the brand I have, and I'm as plebe-y as they come! I even have a mining pick in my garage that I use for manual labor. I'm nothing like the guy

That's actually the brand I have, and I'm as plebe-y as they come! I even have a mining pick in my garage that I use for manual labor. I'm nothing like the guy in the photo, more like the guy who makes the coffee for the guy who makes HIS coffee. You can get Juras for pretty cheap if you go bargain hunting. There are also other similar but cheaper brands. As a category, they're called "superautomatic espresso machines". I don't know why they're not more popular, but it's been a total game-changer for me. I got my Jura A1 (their discontinued base model) used, third-hand re-refurbished, a decade ago for like $700. A chunk of change upfront to be sure, but since then it's consistently made like 4-8 shots of espresso a day, every day. If reliable mediocrity were a virtue, this thing would be the patron saint of saints. And if a cup of store coffee were $5 (which is cheap nowadays), the machine pays for itself in 3-5 months. Best purchase I ever made.

area_man 3y ago
It need not be mediocre. I have a Jura J5 which has, as of this morning, made 18,901 espressos. A few years back, I bought the tool to open it and recalibrated the conical grinder. There are now videos that can walk you through this process. The mediocrity disappeared. It produces a fantastic brew close to the quality of the shop where I buy the beans. Before attempting all this, I ran an experiment. I had my shop grind the coffee one notch back from where they grind for their in-house espresso. Then I put that into the by-pass chute and brewed it. This confirmed to me that machine’s grinder was not getting fine enough. If you grind truly as fine as you would for an espresso machine, you may get a very slightly better brew, but it will come with a 5% chance of clogging the machine and wasting the ground coffee. Best not to fly too close to the sun. A friend who knows a few things about coffee stopped by not too long after I did this conversion and asked if I had bought new beans, because “this shit is top notch”. It was a revealing experiment about the importance of the grind. It’s a fascinating machine to take apart. We’ve had it for 15 years and I’m optimistic it will just keep going. At this point my goal it see when the espresso counter will roll over back to zero.

area_man 3y ago

It need not be mediocre. I have a Jura J5 which has, as of this morning, made 18,901 espressos. A few years back, I bought the tool to open it and recalibrated the conical grinder. There are now videos that can walk you through this process. The mediocrity disappeared. It produces a fantastic brew close to the quality of the shop where I buy the beans. Before attempting all this, I ran an experiment. I had my shop grind the coffee one notch back from where they grind for their in-house espresso. Then I put that into the by-pass chute and brewed it. This confirmed to me that machine’s grinder was not getting fine enough. If you grind truly as fine as you would for an espresso machine, you may get a very slightly better brew, but it will come with a 5% chance of clogging the machine and wasting the ground coffee. Best not to fly too close to the sun. A friend who knows a few things about coffee stopped by not too long after I did this conversion and asked if I had bought new beans, because “this shit is top notch”. It was a revealing experiment about the importance of the grind. It’s a fascinating machine to take apart. We’ve had it for 15 years and I’m optimistic it will just keep going. At this point my goal it see when the espresso counter will roll over back to zero.