Café Roma Espresso Maker (ESP8XL)

get the café Roma by breville on classified ads for like 70 bucks... better control no cheap gimmicks I bet it has the same pump strength as these two

yikes I wont be trying 10 I tested all that with my old one and the old one was leaking at the bottom... I won't push my luck

I once had a roommate with a very expensive new Breville machine move out and I went to the thrift store and found this same one you have for $12.99. It makes better espresso than the much more expensive models in my opinion.

Can’t speak for nespresso, but 300 would be a tight margin to enter the espresso at home market. For years I did it with a breville roma espresso machine. It was like $200. But the key was I swapped out the pressurized basket for a non pressurized. Then I also used a breville smart pro grinder. You can probably find that one used on marketplace as people in this game get upgraditis. I used that setup for years, multiple shots daily. It worked so well that when the first one broke, I bought another. Then when that one broke I finally upgraded my setup.

I've owned this, and it's predecessor, the 860xl. They're decent machines. The grinder isn't the best, but it hits the "better than most" level of coffee than you'll get commercially (outside specialty coffee shops)

You can get way more bang for your buck with a hand grinder and those savings can go towards a better built machine. Hand grinding really isn’t that bad once or twice a morning. It can be a bit more tiring when doing multiple shots in a row to dial in but my way around that is to just dial in over a couple days by taking notes or just toughing it out. If a shot is bad, you can prevent waste by shooting it back or diluting with milk. You will also get more proficient dialing in over time. But if you really are too strongly opposed to putting in a small amount of extra work for each shot. You could get a cheap but sturdy machine such as a café Roma(mine is 7 years old and still chooching), and spend the savings on a nicer motorized grinder. You will still need to spend some additional money on a single wall basket, needle tool, tamp, dosing funnel and scale. And if you really insist that you must get a machine with a built-in grinder, then so be it, get less value for your money.

Breville cafe roma ($50-100cad on marketplace), a bottomless portafilter and self leveling tamper 70cad on amazon, and a good hand grinder like the J ultra, will be around a $500 setup that is capable, and then you can upgrade the machine later on once you have more needs.

I won a Breville Espresso Coffee Maker ESP8XL on Goodwill's auction site for like $8 and $30 shipping. I thought it was a good little machine and easy to learn. At that point I had a coffee grinder and pourover is my preferred brewing method. I ended up giving it to my brother and he still has it. It's been 9 years! So my opinion is Breville makes a solid product, and pre-loved is the way to go.