Lever vs Pump Vs Lever

JHCCoffee

I’ve seen a post or two extolling the virtues of lever machines. Apparently they are enjoying a renaissance.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a pump machine (lets assume with flow profiling) vs a spring driven lever machine?

What are the taste impacts, for various types of beans and roasts?

Lets further assume that one can only afford to own one espresso machine. Which should it be? Pump or lever?

And from a personal perspective: Should I sell my Lelit E and buy a lever? Fyi, I can’t afford to add alot of $ to the end result. So the price of a new (or gently used) lever would have to be the same as a Lelit E. Is that even feasible? Not that I’m considering this at the moment. Just want to put this in perspective.

tompoland

JHCCoffee What are the advantages and disadvantages of a pump machine (lets assume with flow profiling) vs a spring driven lever machine?

For me, they are more fun. As such, it’s an advantage but not in a in-the-cup sense, which is probably what you were after.

I can’t consistently pour an espresso that is as delicious as what I get from the Decent, on my levers.

And no, I’m not saying the Decent produces the best espresso in the world, just on my espresso bench and with my (limited) capabilities.

But I can and do get espresso that it sublime from the Nurri (La San Marco springs) but the main reason I use it so often is the sensuality of the thing. In other words, for me it’s not just about what’s in the cup; it’s also the journey to the destination that is just a whole lot more interesting and more physical with a lever, be that sprung or direct (e.g. Strietman, Flair, La Pavoni).

But certainly, there are legions that will swear by the abilities of levers to deliver the best espresso for their taste buds. More power to them.

That doesn’t answer your question head on sorry JHCCoffee and I can’t help you with a list of the pros and cons but in my book, the above is one advantage at least to put on the top of your list.

chlorox

JHCCoffee

I also have an e61 pump machine in the office but I always consider my main machine to be my Nurri hybrid lever which is at home. My pump machine is a means to an end which is good coffee but I enjoy using my lever as much as I enjoy drinking coffee I make with it. The spring lever was the first true espresso machine in rhe world, and to me will always define what an espresso machine is supposed to be. Once many people try a spring lever, they never look back to pump machines anymore and that cannot be an accident.

Amberale

First up, I refuse to consider your ridiculous assumption that one can only afford/fit/use one machine.😱

I shall approach your question instead as “which one should I buy first?” 😁

So far as impacts on roasts I shall leave that for others as I only drink med-dark roasts.
I believe that the vast number of machine owners also prefer this style (Not necessarily the majority of coffee forum members)

Apparently the majority of Decent and other profiling machine owners end up using a profile that mimics one of the top lever machines.

There is something about the naturally declining pressure profile of a lever (spring or direct) as the spring extends, solids
are removed from the puck and it becomes more porous, that gives a smooth espresso while extracting the full flavours.

Some levers are better than others at this and the main contributory factor seems to be temperature control.

Levers with good temperature control vary from cheap (Robot, Caravel, Flair) to expensive (Strietman, EVO, Vostok, Londinium, Nurri, LM )

To my mind shiny box machines like your Elizabeth and E61 machines are great for most folks especially with families and large friend groups as they are easy to use and can produce plenty of good coffee at a fast work rate.
Once you start searching for very good to great coffee then you will start to want a FCD on your E61 and tweak your workflow to get a stable group temperature.
Around this time one will start drinking espresso, no milk and start to see more flaws in your shots.

That is when the lever itch will really hit you.

Cuprajake

I’ve progressed quite quickly, and I’d say each new machine has provided an increase in cup

My machines went:

Gaggia classic, sage duo, Elba hx, acs minima, londinuim l1, crem profiler (1day) londinuim lr24 (1week) lelit Bianca, acs Evo leva

The big change came with the dual boilers and their temp control, it just gave quicker speed and more consistent results

The l1 was great at med/dark choc nutty stuff but it failed with lighter thing, too acidic not drinkable.

Then Bianca was great in that you could flow control and save shots or tailor the flow and as tom says you end up copying a lever profile, but these machines Inc the decent can’t truly copy a lever due to the puck slamming effect.

When I moved from the bianca to the Evo the shot in cup again increased, I got sweeter, fuller shots.

I find spring levers to be the easiest and most repeatable machines, and I can honestly say in nearly a yr of ownership I’ve sinked less than 10 shots.

I don’t know why they do what they do, is it the peak pressure, is it the declining spring, the thickness of the puck, the flow🤷 all I know is the leva is making the best coffee I have ever made,

: To add, to the consistency I had the major since the minima, and the SSP burrs were since the londinuim l1

JHCCoffee

So … based upon the benefits I’m hearing from this Forum, I’m starting to think about a lever machine. However I do not have the kitchen counter space or budget for two espresso machines (one pump, one lever); that would draw well more than rolling eyes 🙄from my wife. More like 😡

I am the sole espresso machine user in the household; I rarely have more than 2 guests that are keen to have an espresso drink. So I don’t need a machine that can produce multiple shots, quickly.

Moreover I have yet to produce an espresso only shot that I have enjoyed. They’ve been good enough for (and sometimes delicious in) milk drinks, but that’s as best as I’ve done. If a lever can help me up my espresso game (compared to what I can achieve with my Lelit E) and pour 2 shots for my before work AM coffees at a reasonable pace, I’m all in.

IF I were to head down this path (there would need to be significant net benefits to do so) I would need to sell my current Lelit E and then spend more or less the same amount of money as one would today pay for a new Lelit - say 1,200 GBP or so. I have my daughter’s wedding to pay this year so major machine upgrade costs are just not in the cards.

I know very little about lever machines but think I would need the following features:

Spring lever ??
Sufficient water reservoir
Brew water and/or group head heating and temperature control
Accurate pressure gauge
Temperature gauge
Steam boiler and wand
??

Do not know at all what is achievable within my budget range.

I’d also like to be able to keep/reuse my 58.5 mm baskets and tampers if possible.

Any thoughts on pros and cons of going down this path, and suggestions or links to further reading are welcome.

And what machines with what features should I be looking at?

Thanks all.

tompoland

JHCCoffee have my daughter’s wedding to pay this year

Theres your chance. Buy her a Nurri or Vostock as a wedding gift and let her use it every time she visits 😁

tompoland

JHCCoffee I’d also like to be able to keep/reuse my 58.5 mm baskets and tampers if possible.

That may not be possible 😪. Other than a Flair 58 but that has no steaming.

JHCCoffee

tompoland Theres your chance. Buy her a Nurri or Vostock as a wedding gift and let her use it every time she visits

It may be each time I visit. She’s marrying an Aussi boy, from way west of you (born and raised in a small beach town near Perth). He moved to Whister BC and stole my daughters heart. I now have an ankle biter (grandson) whose first word may be “mate”. They’ve bought a house in Margaret River, so we’ll also be drinking good cab sav when I visit.

JHCCoffee

tompoland I think the town is Mandurah, WA. His parents house overlooks the Peel-Harvey Estuary. He grew up surfing, crab and lobster fishing, camping and having cold ones by the barbie. Then took up snowboarding; hence the Whister connection. And has school teacher parents, so he’s no slouch. The wedding is on a small island off of Vancouver Island, BC.

Sorry to digress.

Amberale

My advice is to postpone your lever purchase.
Levers are good but not magical machines.
Spend time refining your techniques on the Elizabeth, it is capable of excellent coffee.
Spend some $$ on some seriously good beans, as with wine, they will make a difference.
Keep a search on Marketplace etc for : Robot, Caravel, Baby, Cremina you may well find one for a couple of hundred bucks.
Watch for the reviews on the Odyssey Argos due out very soon, if it performs as promised it will totally fit your requirements including price.

JHCCoffee

Amberale Watch for the reviews on the Odyssey Argos due out very soon, if it performs as promised it will totally fit your requirements including price.

Thanks for the advice and the Odyssey Argos suggestion. Out of curiosity, what does the Odyssey sell for?

Was it developed through a Kickstarter type campaign? Or?

Who is reviewing it?

The design features seem great!

Amberale

JHCCoffee

Ross’s aim is to sell the basic unit for under $1000usd.
Yes, pre-sold through subscribers.
Not sure about reviewers but I’m hoping DaveC gets one to look at, I’m not a fan of influencers.
There will be feedback from a lot of coffee addicts with decades of experience with levers who are buying their own.
These are the people I trust.

I don’t believe that this is a competitor to the EVO/Nurri/Vostok but I think it will cause a huge rethink on LA Pav et al in the small lever market.
For a start he is attempting to stabilise the group temperature, then there is the data for data geeks and throw in a spring and a direct lever in the one machine.

Amberale

Don’t expect much on a coffee front from Margret River, they are on the wrong side of the continent.
🙃

Amberale

Do you live in Letterkenny or are you one of the Degens? 😀

JHCCoffee

Amberale Do you live in Letterkenny or are you one of the Degens? 😀

I will ask my impending son-in-law .

I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Cuprajake

Edited because I cba

chlorox

Cuprajake

Jake, its good to be proud of the capabilities of our mschines and to want to share about their virtues to others. I am also having a very good opinion about the nurri which i own and i also often post about my nurri. But it is a different thing altogether to go beyond that to declare on a public forum that one’s machine is better at this or that than another named brand. We don’t see for example kvdw slim Jim owners saying on forums their machines are better at temperature stability than LM machines. Neither have i ever seen any nurri owner make any unfavourable product comparisons with the evo or the vostok on any forum…

Secondly the nurri can achieve and keep whatever temp that is wanted for any of the components in the machine. It is very stable at keeping the temp. So the nurri is doing its job perfectly fine for its owners just as I presume the evo is doing the same for its owners. Why should there be any need for the owner of either machine to assert that one’s machine is somehow better at that than the other?

Thirdly I believe that you have never operated a current nurri before - just like i have never operated a evo of any kind before. So I am not even in the position of making any product comparison between them. Because if I did do that based on whatever second hand basis, I may end up making incorrect suggestions about the evo - eg that the evo is noisy or vibrates a lot like you had erroneously suggested about the nurri previously…

Fourthly both acs and nurri are relatively small companies and they are the only companies in the hybrid lever market at this price segment currently. The market is big enough for both companies which cater to slightly different types of consumers and enthusiasts of levers. In order to grow this segment and make it bigger fot all players for the ultimate benefit of consumers like us, it is better for both companies to have a fair chance to prosper and both are needed to do this. It really isnt a zero sum game…

Amberale

JHCCoffee
Letterkenny is one of the funniest tv series since “The young Ones”
It is made in Canada and based around a group of farming/ice hockey/etc folks.
Not my pig, not my farm!

JHCCoffee

Amberale Letterkenny is one of the funniest tv series since “The young Ones”

Hadn’t seen/known of the show. Will check it out.