Hi Samuel - it's much too early to despair about your machine yet. The first thing is that you have to realise that the freshness of the coffee you use makes a huge difference...already ground coffee is usually (by definition) not fresh; there may be nothing wrong with the GJ's beans, but again, you should check when they were roasted, as anything over a week old, is going to give an inferior result. Lastly, as John has implied, the result you get from an espresso machine depends very much on how you have ground the beans - that's the reason John is asking how quickly the water 'ran-through' the coffee (ie the 'extraction'). Many people who buy a home espresso machine think that's all they have to think about, but if you don't have a good grinder, then the coffee is usually ground too course, which means the water will be pushed through the ground coffee too quickly, giving a poor result. Cheers L
