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My advise: buy a grinder (can even be a manual grinder, like the Rhino Hand Coffee Grinder) and a Quick Mill 820, which is a semi-automatic. Perhaps you can get

My advise: buy a grinder (can even be a manual grinder, like the Rhino Hand Coffee Grinder) and a Quick Mill 820, which is a semi-automatic. Perhaps you can get a used one - they last over a decade without wear. A new one is around $600. Making a cup of coffee from scratch in the morning takes takes less than 2 minutes (incl. the heating cycle). Regular maintenance is required every 5-6 months, but that's only for flushing the machine three times for removing calcium from the heat exchanger. I've got one Quick Mill for over 8 years, and never needed to see a service guy. My parents in law have a automatic machine, and the amount of manual attention is similar, taking the cleaning cycles and service jobs into account. (And when you want to make a cup of coffee, there's a 10% chance that the machine needs some kind of maintenance, and you'll need to wait for 5 minutes.) And a Nespresso or full-automatic espresso machine can be nice and convenient, but you give up some flexibility in discovering alternative coffee brewing styles. This month is (overnight) Cold Brew Coffee Month at my house :-)

me2i81 11y ago
I have a Gaggia full-auto and use it multiple times a day. The first one I bought lasted 10 years before I replaced it and pulled something like 30,000 shots. (Yes, that's an average of 8 shots/day, but I use two shots per cafe latte in the morning, and there are three coffee drinkers in the house). It makes pretty good espresso, which is to say, better than probably 7/8ths of the cafes in Seattle. I used to have a manual espresso machine, and used it about a week before giving up on it. Some of us are just lazy. I used a Nespresso machine when I was staying in France. The supermarket has a surprisingly large selection of pods--dozens to choose from. Gets expensive, but much cheaper than getting France's usual nasty excuse for an espresso at a cafe.

me2i81 11y ago

I have a Gaggia full-auto and use it multiple times a day. The first one I bought lasted 10 years before I replaced it and pulled something like 30,000 shots. (Yes, that's an average of 8 shots/day, but I use two shots per cafe latte in the morning, and there are three coffee drinkers in the house). It makes pretty good espresso, which is to say, better than probably 7/8ths of the cafes in Seattle. I used to have a manual espresso machine, and used it about a week before giving up on it. Some of us are just lazy. I used a Nespresso machine when I was staying in France. The supermarket has a surprisingly large selection of pods--dozens to choose from. Gets expensive, but much cheaper than getting France's usual nasty excuse for an espresso at a cafe.