Crossings Coffee Corner: June
Home Espresso Machines
Topic: Home Espresso Machines
Coffee Smarter Expert: Alden Hozouri, Crossings Coffee Roasters
Connect: www.crossings.coffee • @crossingscoffee
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Home espresso machines are an instrument for brewing excellent coffee.
The biggest difference between a consumer, prosumer, and cafe-worthy machine will be durability and the tech inside the machine. A cafe’s espresso machine needs to be able to take a beating!
Determine what your use (espresso, milk drinks, etc) and budget are, and adjust accordingly. Think about what you might want in the future.
Moore’s Law refers to the projected rate of growth doubling consistently over time. Originally, engineer and Co-founder of Intel Corporation Gordon Moore proposed that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years.
LISTEN!
Alden explains the differences in home espresso machines. He covers single versus double boilers, and models featuring a heat exchanger.
Listen to this short clip, featuring Alden Hozouri.
INTERVIEW*
R!WC: Hey, Alden! Welcome to the first Crossings Coffee Corner chat, where we start teaching people about coffee...How are you?
Alden: I'm good, Ryan. Thanks for having me.
R!WC: I'm not going to ask you that every time because, frankly, I already know how you're doing. You're always great. What I am going to ask you every time is, what am I learning about coffee today? Because you are our coffee expert.
Alden: Yes! Today, I really want to talk about home espresso units. You know, there's a lot of words being thrown around—prosumer, consumer, single, double, heat exchanger—like all these different words that mean something. I think in the whirlwind of someone just trying to buy an instrument they can use at home, it's a little bit like, where do I start? What do I need to know so I can make my own appropriate decision for my needs?
R!WC: I really liked that you used the word instrument. It is kind of like an instrument for coffee. Musically, you would buy the right instrument to play the right notes to play the song right and make it sound right. Same with coffee, you're gonna buy the right tool to do the job, the right instrument to make it come out [correctly].
You said a [phrase] there that I don't even know, which is heat exchanger. So I'm glad you're going to talk about that. Let's get started. What's the difference between prosumer and consumer?
Alden: Consumer is going to be anything consumer grade. It is what you and I can go out to the store and buy right off the shelf. Over the last handful of years, there's been such a huge push in trying to get the best out of what our beans have to offer. And most people don't have the access or ability to go to their store and pick up a double grouphead LA Marzocco* or, you know, a Cimbali,* or something that's gonna be substantial and give them that real sharp experience.
Enter the prosumer line. So it's kind of like a hybrid between the two. It's a step up from what you find on your Target shelf or Best Buy or something in your local neighborhood, but not quite swinging for the fences, like an industrial unit, as you'd find at your local [coffee] shop. So they're gonna have a little bit more home features. They're gonna be a little more oriented for people who are pulling their shot of espresso at home, but definitely have bigger guts to give you a closer experience to what you find at a shop.
R!WC: Can I just real quickly guess that maybe one of the differences—besides the price, assuming that a prosumer machine is going to be more expensive than a consumer but less expensive than, say, a shop machine—would be based somewhat on the materials they use to create durability? Because a shop espresso machine is going to get used hundreds of times a day. Whereas your one at home, maybe doesn't have to be quite that tank-like because it's getting used a couple of times a day, maybe at most?
Alden: That's exactly right. Yeah. So not only is durability one of the factors, but also the tech that goes inside. And over the years, we've seen concrete trickle-down effects with technology that was previously only available on professional units now making its way into home units, things like PID,** better thermal stability, and a whole bunch of others. Over time, I think we'll see that trend continue with. It’s Moore's law, and an increase in affordability.
R!WC: Using fancy terms already! Let's go to the next thing on that list that you sent me, which is single versus double versus heat exchanger. What does that mean?
And why do I care, if I'm just making espresso at home for myself or trying to make something with milk, which is a whole ‘nother level beyond my skill set?
Alden: These are just some of the ways that you can kind of filter out what kind of machine might best fit in your home. When people say single, double, or heat exchanger, they're probably referencing the boiler type.
The espresso machine is like a box. Inside this box, there's a bunch of little capillaries and pipes. You know, all sorts of things that when you put coffee in, espresso comes out. So this is one of the areas that we can kind of look under the hood to see what are the differentiating factors from one machine to the next.
A single boiler is going to be an espresso machine that has one single boiler kind of buried inside. This boiler is going to be responsible not only for generating heat but it's going to heat up your grouphead and push water through your puck to pull the espresso.
But that same boiler is also responsible for powering your steam wand—if you have a steam wand on that machine. So that right there is where people might want to differentiate what kind of use they're gonna have. If your interest is only to push out espresso, and you're not interested in steaming milk or anything like that, a single unit is probably going to be just fine for you. But if you like a cappuccino or a latte with your coffee a heat exchanger or a double boiler might be more suited to your needs.
The reason being is if you have an espresso machine that has a single boiler and a steam wand, the boiler has to heat up. The grouphead pushes water through that puck to pull your shot of espresso. Then, it needs to re-boil and transfer that heat to the steam wand so it can power your steam wand. By the time that happens on most consumer or even prosumer-level units, your shots have gone cold, and you're kind of left with a bit of a discombobulated experience.
Enter the heat exchanger, which is not new tech. This tech has been around for decades. A lot of your appliances at home already use a heat exchanger. Basically, it's a process of thermal exchange. So you have a metal, usually copper, that will take the heat from the boiler and transfer that heat into another unit, which is holding another reservoir of water and heating it without having to have two independently powered boiler units. It's not as fast as having two dedicated boilers. However, it is a lot faster than having one single boiler that has to heat one and then transmit, you know, change gears, and then power the other one.
So a lot of the more affordable prosumer units will probably start out at base level with a heat exchanger. For example, the Breville Barisa Express, those lines of espresso machines use a heat exchanger, which makes pulling a shot and then switching gears to go pull your steam your milk a lot faster than your standard single unit.
R!WC: It sounds to me like it's important when you're going out there looking for [an espresso machine] for the first time, or you're trying to make a decision whether you're going to get one, to have an idea of where your use is going to max out.
So like, if you are that person who's just pulling espresso in the morning that gives you a lot more options. Also a wider range of different machines because you don't have to worry about that extra heat or that extra steam wand needing extra power.
But if you are the person who's going, I drink espresso, and my partner drinks, you know, lattes, you’ll want to keep that in mind when looking on the shelf. Which takes me to [this situation}, I'm that person, I'm in the store, or realistically I'm online, but I'm antsy. I want to buy something now even though it's probably a bad idea because it's not on sale yet! What one tip can you give me to kind of guide me in the right direction.
Alden: I say at the end of the day—this might be bad advice—buy the thing that you can afford and stokes your fire. It's one thing to buy the thing where you're like, Okay, this is a big purchase. And you know, it checks most of my boxes. But I don't want to splurge because I want to be reasonable. And then you wake up a year from now or two years from now. And you're like, Man, if I only swung that extra 300 bucks to get the machine that like excited me in the mornings and made me proud to pull my shot of espresso!
I think that differentiating factor is just as important to your overall morning coffee ritual experience as any other thing. You know, especially these days, the machines are all pretty competitively built and priced. And yeah, there are outliers everywhere. But I think you're not going to...How do I say this...you get what you pay for. And I think your overall experience, including your engagement and interface with that product, matters, too.
R!WC: I do find that when I visit someone who has an espresso machine at home, they get really excited to pull me a shot and show me their machine. There's very rarely somebody's like, Oh, like don't worry about that. It just takes up space.
So quick recap: What's our one-sentence breakdown of this whole topic that we've gone through today.
Alden: If you are pulling just espresso, a single boiler is probably the unit for you. If you're interested in steaming milk with it and if you've got the cash, a double boiler is gonna save you a lot of time and effort in the long run, but a heat exchanger is not a bad way to go either.
R!WC: Thank you, Alden, again for coming here and for setting the bar low by saying you were giving us bad advice for the very first Crossings Coffee Column. I'm looking forward to connecting again and figuring out what I'm going to learn about coffee that day.
Alden: Thanks, Ryan. You know where to go if you ever want some more bad advice. I'm happy to be here.
*This transcription has been edited for length and clarity.
*La Marzocco and La Cimbali are brands producing professional models of espresso machine.
**PID stands for Proportional Integral Derivative, or temperature control.
WHERE YOU CAN FIND CROSSINGS COFFEES
Online! Click to shop CrossingsCoffee.com
San Diego-area vendors include: Plus Six One mobile cafe, Wayfarer Bread, Cafe La Terre, Mesa Rim Climbing Gyms
MORE ALDEN:
Alden has been on the R!WC podcast before. He often appears on Coffee Smarter. Check out this episode on other coffee gear you may or may not need (you probably do, though).
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