Flair 58

A manual lever is like driving a stick vs an automatic car. The lever gives you all the control and the best shots I’ve ever had are with profiles only possible on a lever (or very expensive computerized machines). If you are a little adventurous go with a lever machine. Starting with a Flair/Cafelot/LaPavoni/Odyssey will let you learn a lot and make unbeatable extractions. If you don’t need to steam milk then a Flair58 is an excellent choice (I love mine!) and no temperature management like an LP. If a steam wand is important then LaPavoni or Odyssey Argos. If you just want you push a button and get a decent shot easy, then Bambino is for you. And don’t forget there is no good shot without a good grinder.

Go with a Flair 58 you don’t want milk drinks and only care about straight shots Go with a Gaggia Classic if you want milk drinks. Just for the love of god stay away from the cheap DeLonghi stuff (see flair) Also tell your dog s/he’s the bestest boy/girl

No. It’s better. I’ve had one alongside an LMLM, Slayer SG, Vectis, various Brevilles. Hands down, F58 bested them all for all beans/roast levels. Its workflow, however, was the worst. Not terrible (the preheated helps), but slow and janky. If you’re making more than a shot or two, the other machines make sense. Personally, I used the Vectis most often (next best in the cup), followed by the Slayer. The LMLM was relegated to the office, doing what it did best (medium dark flat 9 milk drinks all day every day.) Consistency is also tough on the Flair, especially for beginners who might lose their minds trying to dial in without the muscle memory to minimize shot-to-shot variables. To be h9nest, I preferred to dial in beans on the semiautomatics or spring levers, and extrapolate to the flair. For home I think the LMLM is not great value for money (unless you have a huge extended family demanding lattes every 2 minutes). The latest Mini R at least gets you proper preinfusion without having to plumb in. And the IoT integration+app is the stupidest thing ever. You can do better with ECM or Profitec, IMHO.

As the saying goes, You Will Eventually Own a Lever Yes, they seem to make the best tasting espresso. Yes, Achille Gaggia seems to have accidentally hit upon the best extraction profile in the 1940's when he first invented the spring lever espresso machine. Yes, it is notable that the most popular profile on the Decent is one that apes the Londinium's low-pressure preinfusion and declining pressure shot, by a country mile. Yes, I personally think we lost our way with the E61 and its flat 9-bar OPV + electric pump. Sure it improved temperature stability, came with a modest soft preinfusion ramp, and saved barista's shoulders and backs and workflows by replacing the effort with a button. But my favorite reason of all is a giant, steaming pile of irony: the ancient spring lever, it turns out, is monstrously good for ultra light roast espresso. You can prolong contact time with steam pre-infusion to push extraction, and the gentle pressure+temp decline ensures an even flow through finely-ground pucks. Sweet, syrupy goodness rains into your cup. I had a flair58, vectis, slayer and linea mini side by side for a while, with access to an R24 and Decent. The Flair made the best shots, hands down, but had the worst (most manual) workflow. The next best? R24 and Vectis, hands-down.

My hot take: Short answer is no. Even as a moderate discretionary expense, it did not represent great value for home use. It's very limited in capability (flat 9 bar, no pre-infusion without plumb-in, don't blather about pre-brew), but it does what it does extremely well. However, unless that is basically brewing a dozen shots back-to-back while steaming milk simultaneously on the regular, I don't see the value. So I installed it at the office, where 20-30 people abused it to the tune of 50+ shots per day and it was a champ. Easiest -- and the most heroically consistent -- with medium/dark italian style spro and milk drinks. On the other hand -- anyone who says the price premium is for the brand/badging alone hasnt looked inside. It is an exquisite piece of intentional and at times clever engineering. From the quality of the fittings and valves to the self-cleaning gicleur and cold water mixing at the grouphead -- this thing will outlive you if it's maintained well. It's just a pity that it seems to lack even basic modern niceties (proper pump pre-infusion, shot timer) There are other annoyances that soured me personally: the La Marzocco Home app and cloud integration is stupid stupid stupid. I mean just stupid. Why do I need the cloud to be able to schedule power on or set the fucking brew temperature? Don't bother, we all know the answer, and it is tragic that marketing dunces convinced someone at La Marzocco that IoTing appliances is a good idea. To add further (perhaps controversial) perspective: I had the LMLM on my bench alongside a Slayer Single, Flair58, and Londinium Vectis. Best in cup (but worst workflow): Flair58 for all roast levels. Next was the Vectis (for medium and light roast coffees), followed very closely by the Slayer. LMLM trailed except for darker italian style ristrettos that explicitly preferred flat-9 extractions. /end rant

Welcome to hell! It’ll be helpful to know any preferences, such as light vs darker roasts, fruity vs chocolate/nuts flavors, tea like vs syrupy textures,etc But in general: - K6 is a great hand grinder. In the cup it’ll do you fine for filter and espresso. At some point you might get sick of grinding manually, but outside of that it’s more than competent. - I hesitate to recommend manual levers to beginners. On the one hand, it’s probably the most intimate way to learn the nuances of extraction theory. On the other hand, it is probably the hardest way to learn. In the cup, manual levers in general (with good temp management) are pretty end game. I legit get the best shots out of my humble Flair58 -- yes, better than the Slayer and the LMLM. Such is the versatility of using your arm to read a shot as it happens and applying whatever pressure/flow you damn well please. - Workflow for the Flair is not speedy. While the modern versions of the F58 feature a passable group heater and the warmup time is decent (on the order of minutes), clean up of the puck screen and pump-n-purge of the brew chamber can get old. Couple that with manual grinding, and you might be asking yourself some existential questions. - If you are interested in milk drinks and medium/darker roast espresso, i would say the Bambino Plus hands down. If you can stretch a little bit, the Infuser is actually a more versatile machine, matching or besting the capabilities of machines that are 10x the cost, simply because you can pre-infuse at 3bar for as long as you damn well please. This makes dial in very forgiving for all roast levels, and super helpful for very light roasts. Steaming ain't great (slow transition, kinda weak) but completely serviceable.

TLDR because this became an essay: Wondering whether a machine will make a better shot than another machine is kinda like wondering whether one gas stove will make a better steak than another. You should be looking at the quality of your meat and technique before worrying about the cooking surface. Likewise with espresso, a machine might make it easier, but quality will come from what you put in (beans and grind) plus your technique. It's actually a surprisingly low barrier of entry for a machine to pull a shot as good as an end game machine like the LM. There are only a few factors that will effect espresso quality, pressure, temp stability and flow control. Lets go through them with a few example machines: Pressure: Pretty basic, can it hit the 9 bars required of a traditional shot. Nearly any machine sold will be able to hit 9 bar so I won't even bother listing machines here. Temp Stability: Decent > LMLM = BDB > e61 > flair Being able to hit (and adjust) the desired temp, Doesn't make too much of a difference if going for a classic shot, most machines will aim for around 93 degrees, and likely be close enough, but it's nice to be able to change this up depending on the bean. Decent is king here, not many machines allow temp profiling. Outside of that outlier, best in class would be proper PID control, both at boiler and group, LMLM does this, and the BDB does it in exactly the same way. E61s are relatively shit as they measure temps in the boiler and take a 'yeah about there' approach to whatever the hell the temp ends up with at the group. The flair is... well it's probably the biggest weakness of the flair. I've not found this to be too much of an issue, it's good enough, just takes a bit more work to get it where you want. Flow control / Pressure Profiling: Decent > Flair > BDB = LMLM > E61 Obviously Decent is king, I was going to put LMLM dead last, but looks like they might have added some amount of pre-infusion and pressure control (not profiling) recently. Only thing separating Decent and Flair is repeatability, you obviously have full flow profiling on both, and it not only lets you experiment, it can save most of your shots. This is what you might miss most going to the LMLM, and likely what would give the flair a bit of an advantage. That being said if you enjoy classic 9 bar shots, the LMLM will do it consistently and likely perfectly. I'm ignoring the slayer mod on the BDB, and E61s like the Bianca. Having said all that, yeah the Flair can probably pull better shots than all these machines, but what you lose is repeatability. The LMLM is prob best for repeatability, but only if you want to keep repeating the same thing. If you want a higher end machine, I'd probably recommend something like the Bianca if you want to keep the flair's advantages, or the LM if you just want to pull perfect 9 bar shots for ever. Or the BDB if you're a stickler for best bang for buck and live in Australia.

Manual espresso machines are pretty cool, but for a good manual grinder and manual machine you have to spend a few bucks, however, the results can be outstanding. The most adaptable rig is the Flair 58. 1Zpresso grinders are really good. I have the JMax with 8 micron steps for dialing in the grind size, which affects extraction time. I would watch a bunch of money on reviews and how tos before purchasing anything.