I was recently trying to help a family member purchase their first machine and I almost said don’t bother. The number of machines out there that are just features and bells/whistles but can’t reliably just make simple, consistently great coffee and steam milk and/or feel like they were manufactured by someone with a blindfold on for under £1000 is shocking.
Honestly I’d take a machine without the colour LCD, the wifi, no profiling, no gimmicks or programming, some kind of saturated or similar group, rock-solid stability in pressure/temperature during extraction, fast and powerful steam and then where money is saved on everything else just make it as mechanical as possible and very very well. No rough edges, fancy designs, factory scratches or foil-thin parts… just a simple, quality machine for as close to £1k as possible.
I guess it’s like cars. Features are selling points, the more there are, the easier it is to sell the proposition to someone.
It’s crazy to me that the above doesn’t exist. And it doesn’t, if we’re honest with ourselves. I praise the LMLM because it’s the above, and it’s brilliant. But it’s 4.5 grand, and that’s wild, but if someone who wasn’t LM made something that does the job for sub-£1200 I think that would be fantastic.
Controversially I just don’t value profiling at all, pressure or otherwise. You can get incredibly good espresso from dark-med without it and absolutely enjoyable light roasted with just a stable pump/group. I also think (hope) we’ll see a shift away from light roasted espresso as (again, controversially) I think it’s a roast level suited far better to brew methods rather than espresso. Hopefully that will also signal a shift away from the obsession with profiling.