coffee machine for wife's 30th

grindz

???hi i have my wifes 30th coming up and i know she would lov a coffee machine i,m thinking of spending around$1600  i was thinkin about the gaggia titanium but it has gotten bad reviews
are semi automatic machines better?
i don,t drink large amounts of coffee but my wife ??? lives on it

askthecoffeeguy

Hi there, I've got a Bezzera semi-automatic at home, it's a great machine, capable (so the stats say) of producing around 90 coffees per hour! Unless your actually looking to produce, say 40 or more coffees a day, though, I would say save the money and get youreslf a Rancillio Ms Silvia single group espresso machine, and a matching Rancillio Rocky (doserless) grinder. Both machines are a lot more 'hands on' than the Gaggia Titanium, they also have less electronic fiddly bits, so there is less that can go wrong with them. And a good grinder is easilly (some say more) as important as the coffee machine itself, and you wont find a better grinder at under $1000 than the Rocky If you are dead set on lashing out on an exy machine, however, thaen you cant go past the ECM Giotto for around $1600 - but you will still need a grinder! ACG

Mad_Barun

$1600 for a (NEW?) Giotto WHERE????? The RRP is $2600 Approx

mattyj

yeah, I think that giotto 'fell off the back of a truck'

tommy

or was taken from the back of the truck! hehe

dan480

Hi Gaggia has an aluminium boiler...I don't recomend it to anyone. Any brass boiler machine will be good.Rancillio Sylvia is a good machine for the money. this is only if you want an manual machine.Automatics are more expensive and brake down more often...also I don't think you can buy one with brass boiler under 2500$. Daniel

tempestv8

At the risk of hijacking the original intent of this thread, why would you not recommend an aluminium coffee machine? Is it because Aluminium does not have stable thermal properties? Curious minds are keen to know why...  

gregpullman

Ooh wouldn't that make for an interesting discussion!  :-X For $1600 something like a Silvia or an ECM Botticelli would be a good buy, paired with a grinder such as the Compak K-3 series or a Mazzer Mini. Both are more expensive grinders than the oft-recommended Rocky, but they are better machines. Unless you're going to pay about $1600 for just the machine and get a HX machine such as an entry level Expobar, you won't find many functional differences with machines in the $700-$1400 bracket, at least not new ones. Silvia RRP is around $740, the Botticelli is $995. The Compak K-3's are in the $450-$570 range depending on the variant and the Mazzers are a bit more. Greg