Equipment Recommendation Help

[chast]

Hey Butter
Contact Chris's coffee service from New York. For a variety of Espresso machines they have the best knowledge and customer service. I purchased my first from them several years ago. I emailed them on a Sunday afternoon expecting they would contact me during the week and the owner called me Sunday night and discussed options for 2 hours. I visit Quezon City once a year, how far away are you?

 

[slurp]

Hey Butter
Contact Chris's coffee service from New York. For a variety of Espresso machines they have the best knowledge and customer service. I purchased my first from them several years ago. I emailed them on a Sunday afternoon expecting they would contact me during the week and the owner called me Sunday night and discussed options for 2 hours. I visit Quezon City once a year, how far away are you?

I think Butter is in the Phillipiens. Goons be a long trip to New York. You are correct the best thing for him to do is find a distributor or trade show to check all this stuff out.

 

[chast]

yah but Seattle Coffee Gear was mentioned in an earlier post so I figured if they are contacting the states they could contact Chris's coffee and at least get an idea of what to buy. maybe..maybe not

 

[CCafe]

Thanks CoffeeJunky and CCafe! I'm going to respond respectively.


Now, reading your posts regarding about the boiler, it all makes sense now. Apparently, I'd still go for Epoca E1, this time with an informed judgment. I know it will not get me the optimum extraction, but the thing is nobody orders straight espresso in our town. All of them are either in Smoothie, or IceBlended or any milk based drink.

I'm going to tell you something that's going to piss off several people in this thread. It doesn't matter if you take a Synesso, Cimbali M100 HD, or a Nuova Simonelli Aurellia 2 and then put them in a blind taste test against a crapped out, over worked piece of junk that pushing 20 years old. Because in the end 95% of the people you blind taste test won't pick the same machine twice.

The high end machines that everyone are praising were born just a few years ago when people thought they had to PID out their home units to get an exact science. They wanted their own little Optimus Prime that they could call their own. No matter how much money or time they put into it they would tell you that their machine made far superior shot than anything available to you on the market. I laugh at the notion! People have forgotten the basics and become snobs over espresso. They hop on here without thinking and try to tell everyone else that if you don't spend thousands more for innovation then your just basically limiting yourself to a lower standard. These are the people who have forgotten their roots. Sadly commercial machines now have picked up what the home innovators have been doing and started to incorporate all this stuff. So now I ask you if all this is so important in producing the best shot possible, why do the manufactures continue to produce sub par equipment and then stand behind it?

That Epoca will produce a fine shot of espresso. A La Pavoni will produce a fine shot of espresso. A Cimbali will produce a fine shot of espresso. I'm going out on a limb and will say a Grindmaster Espressimo (You couldn't pay me to buy this thing) will produce a fine shot of espresso. Don't be fooled into thinking that you have to go high end to achieve success. The only thing a high end machine will give you is a small percentage of improvement.

As for your machine, you don't need to buy a Epoca just because it has a water tank. You can buy any espresso machine you desire. Anything that needs to be plumbed in can be connected to a Flojet water bottle pump. Bottled Water Pumps - FreshWaterSystems.com The great thing about this pump is you can pull the 1/4 water line that goes to the fountain hook up and hook up a 3/8 John Guest connection which will allow you to hook your espresso machine right up to it. So now you can have a 2 group full size Epoca or anything that floats your boat.

 

[chast]

Well said CCafe!! I believe it is mostly about show and status vs quality. But if my accountant says I need to spend 30K or give it to Uncle Sam, I will purchase a piece of expensive equipment that has proven itself if I was planning to upgrade. Slayer is asking up to 25K just because they put some exotic wood handles and Kandy Apple paint on their units, but refuse to get a UL/CE stamp. I started out and still have an Alex Duetto II and it does a great job for what I need. My only complaint is the flex in the metal when you crank the porter filter. They have since changed that and beefed up the back plate. It has paid for itself twice over! Bkon tea brewer 14K, AD steampunk 12K+ Does the average consumer and by that I mean your everyday customer that buys a large to go really notice that much difference. Having these toys produces a WOW effect from customers and a higher priced cup. I had a coffee snob in a couple of months ago and I listened as they told me about how they can tell the difference. I brought out 3 8oz cups of coffee from my coffee lab and said one was from a pour over, one from a commercial brewer and the last was a siphon. Automatically picked the siphon and then rambled on about the science of siphon brewed coffee. said the other two were average. All 3 came from a Fetco brewer!!

 

[CCafe]

Best espresso I've ever had came from a semi automatic La Pavoni Bar V that was dropped. The boiler was tilted upwards about 20 degrees. A guy bought it on ebay and dropped it off to be fixed. Just because I wanted to see if it even worked I fired it up. One heat exchanger was completely submerged and the other was mainly being heated by steam. The submerged side made liquid chocolate! I was enamored. I made shot after shot and each time was like someone melted me some dark chocolate and poured it into my cup with some creama to top it all off with.

The guy paid $500 for it. I offered him $3000 and he still refused. I've never seen that machine again. I would take that broken Pavoni over anything available on the market today.

 

[butterbescotch]

Thank you again for all of your generous inputs! We just talked about my supplier about payment terms.

 

[officecoffeeservices]

I will suggest Espresso coffee machine and grinder because it will provide semi-automatic facility.