La Marzocco Owners Chat (All welcome!)

Nice video!

Conscious of coming across like one of those Ferrari owners with their branded jacket and hat but there is something special about owning a La Marzocco, buying into the brand etc. I know it comes at a significant premium but I really like what they do. Obviously I’m biased but like buying a Harley, Porsche, Eames chair etc, it feels apparent when you see it first hand and use it that you’re buying something with a strong heritage.

To have effectively globally dominated the commercial coffee industry for decades and been well regarded in the home space, it’ll be interesting to see how they navigate the home market in the coming years. Personally I like that they’ve stuck to their guns and continued to just make no-frills, rock-solid machines that do one or two things very well. It will be interesting to see if they continue to do so or if we see some kind of Strada family machine enter the home space. Like a small GS3. Doubtful, but they’re obviously taking their home line more seriously.

I’m currently contemplating some Specht bits for mine. I’m not a fan of the LM branded customisation kits, but Specht do some amazing things and their custom Lineas/GS3s are works of art:

https://spechtdesign.com/

All this dialling in business makes me feel like a Luddite 😅

I literally never touch the temp control or use papers or screens etc. I use the stock 17g basket and always a ratio around 1:2. I dose 18g as a starting point and will tweak the grind to suit. Sometimes I’ll change the dose by .5g either side.

I’m pretty good at getting the grind close based on visual roast level by this point.

More variables than that and it just stresses me out. I’ve said it before but the LM is very forgiving and the sweet spot seems very large in that it makes a damn good coffee even if you’ve not got it perfectly dialled. Before the spec sheet warriors come at me, I don’t know why that is but you’ve got to own/use one to see what I mean.

I’m no super taster but having made espresso at home for the best part of 20 years and lived in London for most of the 00s/10s ‘third wave’ I like to think I know a good coffee.

I’ve no doubt there is a little more I could extract from the coffees but in my opinion ‘dialled in’ is the part between under/over extracted. Anything extra is personal preference.

When you’re paying £14+ for 200g bags it’s good to just get it dialled with as little waste as possible.

Some (mildly) interesting findings over on HB. Some people (myself included) noticed the panelling on the new Linea Mini R looked slightly thinner than on the original Mini. Turns out it is a lower thickness (about 3 gauges different).

On the face of it this is completely irrelevant as it doesn’t impact the espresso output at all. However, it feels like it’s definitely a shift from LM. Having used a commercial Linea, the original Mini accurately feels like a small version of it, whereas the newer machines seem more like a home specific line.

Also, on a machine with a relatively limited feature set, the build quality was one of the biggest selling points… I wonder how much of this direction is DeLonghi’s influence. I’ve said it before but if I was buying again, I’d definitely go for a used Mini over one of the new ones.

HarveyMushman - Are you saying you would not consider buying a brand new Mini (say, if you couldn’t buy used)?

MediumRoastSteam

I don’t think I would. It’s only subtle touches but the newer models feel like a progression towards home appliances which would make the price tag even harder to justify.

For me, I like having the robustness and utilitarian simplicity of a commercial workhorse in my Kitchen. Kind of like how a KitchenAid mixer doesn’t do anything a £50 plastic own-brand mixer would but just feels like it’ll go on working for decades.

That was always the appeal. We know LM’s are comparatively never going to be value for money, and especially not feature-wise so to lose an element of what they do have seems a shame. I guess it’s good timing on LM’s part. Espresso is having it’s moment in the spotlight thanks mainly to influencers having a huge stage online, people with the kind of wealth where they just want the biggest brand name to show off to their friends regardless of cost or quality are probably a growing market at the moment.

Hopefully the actual reliability hasn’t changed. It’s probably mostly the same internally so really the thickness of metal panels is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things.

I’m just thankful I managed to get a new ‘original’ version.