Espresso Machine in Stable Condition Following Amateur Surgery, Awaiting Transplant

Espresso Machine, Just Out of Warranty, On the Operating Table

Out of nowhere, my Expobar Office Lever Plus espresso machine suffered a massive heart attack on Saturday evening.  It was plugged in and turned on, as it always is, heated up and ready to service coffee making whims at a moment's notice, when all of a sudden, the fuse blew.  We flipped the breaker, and it instantly blew again.  "Something has a short," Bernie declared, and he set about sleuthing to uncover the culprit.  Eventually he determined that my darling espresso machine was to blame, since everything was fine if he reset the fuse with my machine turned off, but the fuse blew immediately when he switched the espresso machine back on. 

At first, I begged him not to touch it.  Visions of, well, what you see pictured above, tormented my imagination, and the machine's manual warned us in big, bold type: THIS MACHINE CONTAINS NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS.  I had a vague fear that Bernie would come up with some kind of MacGyver solution involving duct tape and a plyers hanging out of the side of the machine.  However, preliminary research uncovered the stark and ugly facts: This espresso machine was manufactured in Australia, and sold to me by an internet company out of Rochester, NY.  It weighs as much as Anders.  It is no longer under warranty, I did not save the original shipping carton, and even if I had, it would cost a fortune just in shipping to send my espresso machine to wherever the nearest authorized service center might be located, and it would take a small eternity to get it back again.  Reluctantly, worn down by caffeine deprivation and despair, I conceded and authorized Bernie to commence amateur exploratory surgery yesterday afternoon. 

My husband ripped off the sides of the machine, poked around in its mechanical guts, and determined that the heating element had gone bad.  He read through Internet espresso fanatic forums frequented by hard core coffee afficionados, and informed me that my machine's problem was "pretty common."  He briefly considered scouting around for something "that might work" from Lowe's or Home Depot, but when the smoke started pouring out of my ears and my eyeballs burned fiery red he reconsidered and promised to find actual espresso machine parts.

So here we are, Monday morning, and Bernie just got off the phone with the tech support department at Whole Latte Love, where I purchased my machine.  The good news is that it is possible to order a $75 replacement part to make my machine whole again.  The bad news is that the part is backordered until the end of the month.  Seriously?!  No lattes until April?  I'll be driving to Starbucks in my nightgown and bathrobe every morning at the break of dawn, before waking up the kids.  Don't you dare judge me, either -- that's why they have a drive-through!

Sliding Down the Slippery Slope: The Espresso Obsession Continues!

I ordered a new espresso machine.  Yes, I ordered a new one AGAIN, even though I just got a new one a couple of weeks ago...  In case you missed my earlier posts on the exciting topic of Latte Love, click here and here and then come on back to this post for my latest adventures in coffee obsession. 

So for the first week or so with my Expobar Office Pulser espresso machine, I was pulling consistently good espresso shots with a layer of crema on top.  The shots were running a little fast (ideally, it should take 20-25 seconds from the time I press the "go" button until the espresso is up to the little lines on the shot glasses.  If it takes longer for the shot glasses to fill, the shots taste bitter.  If they fill up faster, the espresso tastes weak and you don't get that caramelly crema on top).  The way you correct this problem is to adjust how finely the coffee is ground and/or how much pressure you're using to tamp (pack it down into the portofilter thing).  Not owning a coffee grinder, I always bought Starbucks' Espresso Roast a pound at a time and asked the store to grind it on #3 for my espresso machines.  But lately they keep screwing it up.  I wish I took pictures for you of what the espresso shots look like when you use coffee that is ground on #6 (particles the size of Folgers in a supermarket can for an automatic drip machine), but I was way too upset to think about getting the camera.  Anyway, after two separate Starbucks stores managed to screw up grinding my coffee beans three times in a row, I decided I'd had it with Starbucks and I needed to take the grind into my own hands! 

I headed back to my favorite online coffee store, Whole Latte Love, and read through numerous tutorials and reviews before selecting my grinder, the Mazzer Mini.  When I get my grinder, I will be able to grind just enough beans at a time to make one latte.  This means much better freshness, and it also means that I can make small adjustments to fine-tune the grind from one latte to the next until I get it exactly the way I want it.  I'm also not going to be limited to only Starbucks coffees anymore.  There are so many other beans out there, waiting to be discovered!  One key feature of this machine that appealed to me is that it's so quiet -- supposedly, when it's grinding beans, it's no louder than the interior sound level of a running BMW.  Since I have cathedral ceilings in my kitchen, sound ricochets off the walls and ceilings and amplifies considerably, so the last thing I wanted was a grinder that sounded like a jet plane taking off in my kitchen at 6 AM.

But wait, that's a grinder -- didn't I say I bought another espresso machine? 

Okay, so it turns out that when I was reading the manual for the Expobar Office Pulser machine and read the part about how the machine could be plumbed for a continuous water supply, I was reading about a different model, the Expobar Office Lever Plus.  It only costs $200 more than the machine I purchased, and when I made this discovery I was still within the return/exchange period.  Although I really enjoy the Office Pulser, the things I dislike about it are having to fill that water tank every day (which I can only manage with a funnel or else water splashes all over the place) and the fact that there's no way to tell how much water is left in the tank without removing the top of the machine.  There's a fabulous instant hot water dispenser on the machine that would be great for making hot tea or hot chocolate, except that it drains too much water out of the tank.  Plus, there's a little water softening filter thingy attached to the hose inside the water tank that I'm supposed to change every 300 lattes or so.  Who wants to remember to do that?  We're planning to change out the kitchen backsplash one of these days anyway, and Bernie wants to add a pot filler behind the stove, so adding a plumbing line for the espresso machine at the same time should not be a big huge deal.

This is the new EspressoBaby that's on its way, on some UPS truck somewhere between New York and North Carolina, carefully packaged and nestled in foam.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love how it's open at the top of the machine, too, for better visibility as well as aesthetics.  Plumbing the machine is optional, not required, so I can continue to fill the water tank with my funnel until we get around to replacing the backsplash tile.  I want to find some distressed terra cotta subway tiles, I think...  That will be another quest for another day.

Hooray -- My Espresso Machine Died! Meet the Expobar Office Pulser I Just Ordered from Whole Latte Love

I firmly believe that God invented espresso just to give tired working mothers a fighting chance.  Everyone else in the family gets breakfast in the morning before they head out the door, but I'd rather drive the kids to school in my pajamas than skip my morning latte -- so why am I doing the happy dance about my broken espresso machine?  It's because I have had its replacement picked out for a year, but couldn't justify the cost as long as my old machine "still worked just fine."

My newly deceased machine was the second of two Starbucks Barista machines, made by Saeco.  The first one cost $300 and lasted three years after paying for itself about twenty times over ("That's $3.46.  I'll see you at the window...").  The machine that just died was a newer model of the same machine that lasted about three and a half years and cost about 20% more than the first one, if memory serves me well.  Yesterday morning the steam function just petered out in the midst of steaming my milk, kind of like the air being let out of a balloon, or a car running out of gas.  Briefly, I toyed with the idea of going to the drive-through Starbucks (in my pajamas) and trying to purchase another espresso machine through the window, because then I would get a new machine instantly.  Now is nicer than Later.

But awhile ago, I did some research at http://coffeegeek.com/ and decided that, next time I was in the market for a new machine, I would upgrade to a model with a heat exchanger that can steam milk and shoot espresso at the same time.  The new machine will be a manual, like my old one -- no fancy electronic controls, this is a hands-on machine but easy to use once you get the hang of it.  My Starbucks machines, like others in their price point, need time to cool off in between steaming the milk (which needs to be done first so the espresso shots don't get cold by the time the milk is ready) and pulling the espresso shots.  That means that it can take 15-20 minutes to make a single latte, and 30-40 minutes to make two lattes.  I would have to heat the machine to steam milk, steam a pitcher of milk for one latte, then wait for the machine to cool down, then pull the shots for the first drink, then heat it up to steam milk for the second drink, cool it down again for shots...  The steam wand on the Barista machine also wasn't long enough to work with a larger milk pitcher to steam milk for more than one drink at a time, unless you're drinking cute little baby lattes and restaurant-sized cappuccinos.  We supersize our coffee at my house -- I'm told it's a Lutheran Thing.  All of this adds up to a selfish Rebecca drinking lattes in front of other people and not offering to share (see photo above of me not sharing my latte in 2008 -- and no, that's not my natural haircolor, either), so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make multiple drinks at once and rejoin the ranks of polite society.  My mother and husband should both appreciate that!

If you're in the market for your first espresso machine, check out this guide from Coffee Geek that covers all bases, How to Buy an Espresso Machine. The machine I selected is the Expobar Office Pulser, a Spanish machine that gets great reviews from every site I visited and seems to be the best balance between price tag and performance. It is annoying, however, to see that the price on this model has gone up several hundred dollars over the last couple of years. This is probably the inevitable result of so many elated coffee lovers blabbing all over the internet that the machine is worth twice what they paid -- of course the manufacturer is going to raise the price!  Where are Bill and Ted with their excellent phonebooth when I want to go back to 2003 to buy an espresso machine?

Overnight shipping would have been insanely expensive, and the machine cost enough on its own so I went with ground shipping.  I ordered my machine from Whole Latte Love, exlusive U.S. distributors for Expobar.  Their site contains a wealth of useful information on all things related to coffee, and they have a 30-day return period in case I turn out to be the first coffee lover who doesn't love this machine.  I'll let you know when it shows up, and if all goes well, maybe next time you come to my house I'll make you a latte!