New Coffee Machine!

I love coffee. Arguably I drink "too much" of it (usually 4 cups per day) but I don't have many vices and there are at least some positives to caffeine.

I've experimented with lots of different types of coffee machines over the years. Until yesterday I had been using an integrated bean-to-cup machine by Bosch that I got when our house was renovated back in 2017. It made pretty good coffee but over the last few weeks it had started to fail in lots of little ways. Most importantly the coffee stopped tasting nice.

I had planned on just replacing it with a more modern version of an integrated machine but even I balked at the prices of them (about £2000!). The options are pretty limited as well if you get a built-in machine - I basically could get another Bosch or a Siemens (which are essentially the exact same machines). After discussing with Fi she agreed we could revert back to a counter-top machine.

I used to have a counter-top espresso machine (a Gaggia one) and whilst it made great coffee it was a real faff to use (grinding, pulling, tamping, extracting, etc) and Fi didn't really like having to go through the ritual just to get an americano! After a lot of research I decided to get the Sage Barista Touch Impress:

Essentially it's a "traditional" espresso machine like I used to have years ago but it has a lot of modern smarts. It grinds the beans and assists with tamping, grinding more beans if needed. It detects how long it takes to pull a shot and advises how to adjust the grinder to get the right level of coarseness. It even has a hands-free milk steaming function. It's so intuitive to use that I came upstairs to the kitchen this morning to find my wife had already made herself a nice cup of coffee having been guided by the machine. It produces wonderful tasting espresso and it looks pretty neat I think. So far I'm very happy with it.