Dear crema forum people, I am not in the espresso industry but having bought goods from china a lot I can tell you they have become very very good at what they do in the last few years. I agree with FC also here. Leon is also right about putting your foreman in the factory, its what we did and with outstanding results. He watched everything and the product after a few months was way better than from italy and way way way cheaper. My interest is in coffee machines too as I have a giotto. I know that makes me no expert, just an interest in coffe for the last few years and a growing one. The experts come out of the woodwork , and the guys running real coffee businesses for the last 20 years get left out. Dont worry, it happens to all industries that grow rapidly. Computers, everbody is an expert there, cars, tv,s,,, less margins for all is what I call it. Buying on the internet is killing lots of companies. You can order things from singapore ,US, etc and have them delivered to aussie within 5 days often for half the price, no service but thats the way it goes and its hurting my company and others a lot. I am amateur here in the coffee world not telling anyone how to suck eggs but here is my two cents worth., We used to get testing eqipment for electronics and various other things made in italy and also had reliability problems there. We now get them made in China and have very few problems and pay 1/5 of the price. If the machine has a problem and because of the "relationships" (or ongoing business) you have with the chinese they are very keen to solve problems. If a espresso machine has a faulty guage they will work out a solution to future machines. If they need a second guage in italy its another 50 dollars (example only) so the italians leave it off the HX home machine. For 10 dollars the chinese will add it on and sell more machines. And if you buy 1000 they will throw it in. If they need to source a new part they get it on the internet to source it immediately or will set about making one. I do mean immediately, i was asking about a new part I wanted on a machine, one of the men in the meeting jumped on his laptop, found it on the net, rang the maker,,,,and gave me a price for it to be added on future machines all within 4 hours. that would have taken 1 month in italy and most other places. They are very very can do people, and can manufacture something within weeks of ordering. If a new model espresso machine came from italy it may take say 12 months from design, (wild guess) the chinese could make it in 4 weeks from your blueprint, deliver it to you to approve or modify, and churn them out the following week. My companies profits are very lean these days but I take my hat of to the asian companies. Toyota cars are an example, very very reliable, more so than anything europeon. I actually look forward to a rebadged chinese machine, HX quality like my giotto. I am sure the first few will have a few bugs, but once they sort them out, the machine will be half the price with dual guages and anything else you can ask under the hood included in the price. Reliabilty will come. forever is a long time. Interesting to know what else you could ask for if this was the case. I see dual boiler home machine,, dual guages,, seems to be talked about. Dont really get all that Im sure someone can tell me. I enjoyed FC and Leon and others letters, good broad chat. changing topic slightly FC is right too, everybody these days is a coffee expert, the term barista is so so overused. work in a coffee shop for 2 weeks and your a barista. 6 weeks roasting beans and your a roaster. My local coffee shop has a master roaster working there. His been there 8 months after leaving uni. I am sure he will open a school soon. David joans is demonstrating espresso machines at the moment, but ask the lady anything there about boilers, copper or aluminum (example only) and she says she would have to ring the importer about that. try and find parts for all these 500 dollar machines made of plastic in 14 months. (ie end of warranty) yes the bread makers of the future. a question, if people on this forum who sell machines are into upper end machines too, have you ever thought of putting together a blueprint and getting a quote from china yourself and naming a machine, I mean get in on the ground floor and be the manufacture ,importer, and make some real money, I know its 12 months of slogging, but wouldnt it be worth it. the tiny starbucks chinese machines would have a big markup on them and a real machine in its place would sell well and you could make the money. one last note re price. a well known barbecue maker used to sell one of its large family barbecues for 600 dollars three years ago. Its now 260 dollars, reason, China. and competition, bunning order 1000 lots at a time, 60 dollars each, and sell them for 140 dollars. that hurt your local barbecue store a lot. they now sell for less than half what they did years ago, they sell a lot more but have tighter margins, and people throw away old barbies now. is there a motto there, well we are a throw away society now i guess. keep chatting Don
