Espresso Machine recommendation

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by Blueface

Love my Rancilio.

Had my Rancilio set up going on 15 years and it's still running strong. All I have replaced is a thremostat and group head gasket (done that a few times).

Rancilio is as cheap as I would buy if I were doing it again. There is a certain level of base cost to really do it well, or you'll never be happy and end up buying it over... Espresso is an expensive game to get into, but once you have the set up, you are good to go for many years.

[OLS]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

Espresso is an expensive game to get into, but once you have the set up, you are good to go for many years.

This is the best point of all. ON THE FRONT END, you can't convince a brother NOT to spend a
hundred bucks on an Espresso machine, and not talking specifically about anyone here,
since it was only just brought up. But I am talking about the buying something three times
instead of once. Bottom line is espresso is good and espresso is expensive, for a reason. It's not
a cheap game, so looking for cheap buy-ins to an expensive game is a no-win sitcho. I think
its at least one of those deals where you can taste the money. When I first read this thread,
I went and shopped a bit. I realized by the time I had done as much research as I would have needed
to do, that I was being priced out. I LOVE espresso, but I do not drink coffee daily, much less visit
St@arbucks enough to make a machine practical. In fact never been into a St@rbucks. So if I wanted
strong coffee I would have to MAKE it strong. Now, maybe one day when I have a house and am old...
For now, saving money as hard as I am, I will just have to cold brew some strong coffee and pretend.

[Brutus2600]

Originally Posted by OLS

This is the best point of all. ON THE FRONT END, you can't convince a brother NOT to spend a
hundred bucks on an Espresso machine, and not talking specifically about anyone here,
since it was only just brought up. But I am talking about the buying something three times
instead of once. Bottom line is espresso is good and espresso is expensive, for a reason. It's not
a cheap game, so looking for cheap buy-ins to an expensive game is a no-win sitcho. I think
its at least one of those deals where you can taste the money. When I first read this thread,
I went and shopped a bit. I realized by the time I had done as much research as I would have needed
to do, that I was being priced out. I LOVE espresso, but I do not drink coffee daily, much less visit
St@arbucks enough to make a machine practical. In fact never been into a St@rbucks. So if I wanted
strong coffee I would have to MAKE it strong. Now, maybe one day when I have a house and am old...
For now, saving money as hard as I am, I will just have to cold brew some strong coffee and pretend.

I completely agree with this. If you do have the money (which it sounds like you do want to spend enough), get a good machine. I know mine will break sooner rather than later, at which point I will hopefully be able to get a nicer machine