[Wheaties466]

i can tell you that more often than not it will make 500% better espresso.

I've owned 5 machines from varying price categories and the number of features you get with a machine around ~1200 gets you the most consistent experience.

can you make a good shot of espresso with a ~250 euro machine? absolutely. can you make 2-5 back to back great shots? probably not. Can you use any bean you want and get a good shot? probably not.

its all about what you value in your experience.

[stiray]

Should I mention audiophiles? The first feeling when you turn on a new system, it will never come back, until you get an arguably better system...

And the rabbit hole is deep. How much did you pay for grinder?

I think this is worth (for espresso lover) far more than 1250 euro machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFsBqhpLes&list=PLxz0FjZMVO...

[2muchcoffeeman]

Audiophiles are a bad analogy since you can setup a blind taste test of coffee equipment. And different people will make the same identifications. Which suggests that we all tasted the same thing. Where as you can’t tell the difference between cables.

I’m all for being skeptical, especially with something as subjective as taste.

But it always amuses me that people never bother to check their skepticism. Has it ever occurred to you that you might one day be wrong?

[dessimus]

Someone actually did a blind study comparing flat vs conical grinders with over 150 coffee professionals [0] to find they could not discern a difference in how the coffee was ground before being brewed while controlling for other variables.

So it would seem that Audiophiles are the perfect analogy.

0: https://youtu.be/3XYTi6OBecA?t=2400 (Discussion on the study begins around 34:00)

[2muchcoffeeman]

I’d love to see what grinders and specific burrs she used.

We also setup a blinded coded triangle test, there was only 3 of us and four grinders: one $5k grinder, 2x$2.5k, one $700. 2 flat 2 conical. The flats have teeth supposedly for filter brewing. One coffee.

We picked the grinders correctly. Obviously we could have better methods, but the differences seemed obvious between the flats and conical. Within the same geometry, I think I just guessed the better tasting one to me was the more expensive grinder which may or may not be true. This surprised us. We didn’t think we’d pick anything. But all agreed on similar tasting notes for the flats and conical with no proper discussion or even looking at the notes for the coffee.

Brewing espresso I even observe psychical differences during the brew. I have two sets of flat burrs from the same grinder. Different teeth pattern. Same coating. One set allows me to go much finer to hit the same grams per second out and always leaves a soupy mess in the basket regardless of setting. The other doesn’t leave a soupy mess and grinds courser. I don’t know what’s happening. But this is easy to reproduce.

But then again, I also have a hand grinder that tastes more like my flats. And was quite cheap. So flat vs conical may not matter at all and it’s the shape of the cutting surface.

[BizarroLand]

I bet the temperature of the beans when they are ground and brewed make more of a difference than the grinder you use.

[2muchcoffeeman]

The same bean on my setup with 2 pre-weighed doses at room temp. One dose is vacuum packed and frozen over night.

When making espresso, the frozen beans straight from the freezer, must be ground finer for the same rate of output. And it tastes slightly more intense. I would guess that TDS went up but I can't prove that. All I can prove is that the space between the burrs is smaller.

This is a very different difference than between flats and conicals. If you brew for cupping, that is grinds straight in water, the conicals produce a muddier coffee. Basically more fine bits of coffee are in suspension and you can feel it.

This woman was serving up filter coffee. If she used good filter paper, and ground coffee appropriately, I can totally buy that almost all the fines were removed from the final product and no difference can be tasted.

[klausa]

I find it cute that you think people arguing that 1250E is not that much for a quality espresso machine don't know Hoffman's videos like the back of their hands :)