Coffee machines (sage barrista)

[MikeJSmith]

The chap I mentioned above now has a 15% discount code on Sage appliances.

https://coffeeblog.co.uk/?__s=308vkpzqi85ngzollbxj

[Pretzel]

Purchased the Sage Bambino Plus, it certainly seems to produce a more consistent pleasant coffee with a good crema compared to my Aeropress. Still using a small Porlex mini hand grinder, so hopefully even better results once I move to a decent burr grinder.

[Middo]

Purchased the Sage Bambino Plus, it certainly seems to produce a more consistent pleasant coffee with a good crema compared to my Aeropress. Still using a small Porlex mini hand grinder, so hopefully even better results once I move to a decent burr grinder.

Nice - mine is all still boxes uk as I have not really been home.

Enjoy the new machine

[MattH]

So thanks to this thread and a rabbit hole of YouTube videos.. I have made a small step into coffee…..

I picked up the larger Alessi 9090 10 cup for the weekends - its a lovely design - though so far controlling the brew so it does not push the coffee through at lightning speed is taking some work.

Then I needed to try real beans (though I like the passalacqua I have been using… as its very convenient) so some beans have been ordered from rave with a couple of airscape containers.

Lastly I needed a grinder - now tbh for the amount I drink (which is not much) a hand grinder seemed like a sensible idea….and the usual man logic kicked in (a bit like when choosing watches). A lot of YouTube / forum posts later - I got carried away and have ordered a Mazzer omega…

Just as a FYI I ordered the grinder yesterday morning at 10am from the Mazzer website.. to my surprise UPS are delivering it today and the customs invoice has already arrived.. so that was a bit of a surprise (though a good one).

So why this one - well the usual suspects were all possibilities - C40 / Kino and 1zspresso (prob the K Max or K Plus). Other than the C40 the others only seemed to be available from one or two places in the UK.

C40 - plenty of places - found it (as I missed the couple of Black Friday deals - as I was not looking then) for £220/£235 depending on the colour/wood finish. This was the one I kept going back to.. nicely put together - not a fan of the plastic top on the handle. Good path to upgrade if I went the espresso route with the red clix
Only thing I dont get is the huge box they ship it in ?

Kino - loved the all metal sturdiness of the classic, though I would have probably gone for the simplicity, this would have been between £250/330 for a kino - the classic is very heavy - but seems to be one of those buy once never again solutions. Found one classic on ebay and that disappeared before I made a decision.
Not 100% sure on the plastic catcher on the mid/low models but at least a storage case was included by default unlike the C40 (though you are paying more).

1zpresso have way too many options… these were the cheapest of the options - the Kmax with its case was £195 - or £215 for the Kplus. There was also the J series one of which had the super small grind options.

For my current brewing (moka) any of the grinders would be great - the kits you get from 1zspresso give you all you need - I like the magnetic features and the easy external setting.

Lastly is the Omega… there is not much about this on the web - a few YouTube videos and you could say its a odd one.

It’s expensive
It’s up there with the C40 in terms of grind size
No UK resellers that I could find
Its expensive..

But this is where heart overruled head. It’s a beautiful device - I like the fact it take up little space - that the handle and bar neatly latch onto the main body.
It’s well designed - with excellent materials. I love the fact you do not lose the settings when you dismantle it. So you do not have the fiddle about resetting it to zero like some of the 1zspresso models.
It’s easy to take apart - and once striped it’s very straight forward to clean out. Did I mention its very nice to look at :)
I am no expert when it comes to burr and burr design but in this case I did decide on the “slow” burr rather than the “fast” though not entirely sure how much difference in the real world it would make.

I also went for the slight add on in cost to get the case with bean funnel and cleaning brush as well.

If anyone is interested it ended up costing about £360 all in (so shipping and customs fees) - only about 30 quid more than the kino classic.

Could this be the start of a slippery slope…… oh and whilst browsing too many websites - I did read that Mazzer maybe about to launch a single dose electric grinder which sounds like a direct competitor for the Niche - but this was only in one comments section of a Omega review….

The upside to this coffee lark is that its cheaper (so far) than watches !

cheers

Matt