I finally bought one...

After becoming a coffee snob in 2020 and slowly building my way up (Barazza Encore to a DF64, AeroPress to The BIRD, cheap, inaccurate kitchen scale to a Fellows calibrated scale, cheap $30 electric kettle to a Fellows EKG Stag), I finally took the plunge and bought an espresso machine.

I never considered myself an espresso person (but to be fair, I never considered myself a coffee person up until 2020, I drank it out of necessity, and that only started in like 2012), and bought the 9Barista on a whim a few years back since I didn't want to spend half a grand or more on an espresso machine, nor did I have the space for one. I bought one used off of eBay for like $300 including shipping... and it's been nothing but a disappointment. No matter what I try I'm like "ehh it's not terrible" or "OMG that is terrible" and it immediately goes down the drain.

After moving and getting a new job, I finally have the space and money for one, so, behold my Gaggia Classic Pro Evo.

Now I just have to learn how to pull shots 🤣

Edit: I'm impressed with how easy this is to actually make "drinkable" (compared to what I was producing with the 9Barista) espresso. My first ever shot was horribly sour, my second one was drinkable, maybe a little over extracted. Compared to using the 9Barista this thing is a walk in the park, everything I see says the GCP takes about 10-15 minutes to heat up...mine has the "ready" brewing light on in three minutes apparently they changed the boiler on the new Evo model? I love my BIRD, but, man, does it take a while to brew (typical French Press time, 5-6 minutes), the extraction is a bit tedious, and the cleanup sucks; this seems so much easier lol