How I got here
Through disappointment. In 2019 I replaced a capsule machine with a ninety-nine-euro set — espresso machine and blade grinder in the same box — and ordered a bag of beans from a roaster, convinced the beans were what mattered. The cup tasted of almost nothing. I concluded that speciality coffee was a story people told themselves.
Then someone lent me a burr grinder. Same beans, same machine, same water: a different drink. It was not the coffee that was overrated, it was my grinder producing dust and gravel at the same time. That is still the founding principle of this site — most disappointments blamed on the machine come from somewhere else.
What I use
A second-hand Gaggia Classic Evo Pro and a Baratza Encore ESP for espresso, mostly at weekends. On weekdays it is an AeroPress with a Timemore Chestnut C3, because it cleans up in ten seconds at seven in the morning. A gooseneck kettle and a scale, which are not collector's accessories but the only two ways to make the same cup twice.
I live in the Charente, where the water is very hard. I descaled every six weeks for two years before understanding that the problem is solved upstream, with a filter cartridge. That is also why this site gives water so much room: it is the variable nobody discusses and the one that kills the most machines.
What I am not
I am not a professional barista. I have not worked in roasting, I hold no cupping certification, and I have never competed. Worth saying plainly: plenty of comparison sites leave that question deliberately open, and the ambiguity is usually the most carefully written part of the page.
What I do
I read measurements rather than marketing copy. Temperature stability across a brew cycle, the genuinely usable adjustment range of a grinder, whether parts are still sold six years after purchase: these are checkable facts, and they are what decides the cup and the lifespan of the machine. The rest — the brushed finish, the number of programmes — sells well and changes nothing.
Every review says what it rests on: hands-on use, published measurement, or the weight of long-term owner reports. Where I have not had the machine in front of me, the review says so. How we test sets out the five criteria and how they are weighted.
Why this site exists
Because most coffee-gear rankings are ordered by commission rate, and it shows: the top pick is almost always the one that pays best, not the one that suits most people. Here a machine that makes a slightly worse cup sometimes outranks a better one because it can be repaired — an arbitration I stand behind, and one that earns nothing extra.
This site is funded by Amazon affiliate links, and it says so on every page rather than in a line at the foot. What that means, and what stops it from steering the verdicts, is set out in the affiliate disclosure.
Correcting me
If a review looks wrong, write to [email protected]. A demonstrated factual error gets corrected and dated. That is the only guarantee worth anything: not that I am never wrong, but that the correction is visible.
Last reviewed 10 August 2026