Guides
Most of what makes good espresso at home isn’t printed on the box. Before you compare models, answer a few questions about how you actually drink coffee. Then look at the handful of specs that make a real difference.
An espresso machine heats water, forces it through the coffee at around 9 bar and steams your milk. What separates a good one from a frustrating one is how steady it keeps the brew temperature, because that’s what lets you pull the same shot two days in a row.
ThermoblockHeats water as you need it, so it’s ready in under a minute.e.g. Breville Bambino Plus
Single boilerOne boiler for everything. You brew, then wait for it to heat up for steam.e.g. Gaggia Classic Pro E24
Heat exchangerBrew water runs through the steam boiler, so you can do both at once.e.g. Rocket Espresso Appartamento
Dual boilerSeparate boilers for brewing and steaming. Also does both at once.e.g. Lelit Elizabeth V3Single boilers and most thermoblocks have to brew and steam one after the other. Heat exchangers and dual boilers can do both at the same time.
It’s the difference between steaming milk while the shot runs and standing there waiting for the machine to catch up.
Look for: Whether it can brew and steam at the same time.
A small digital controller that keeps the water at a set temperature.
Your shots taste the same from one day to the next, and you can turn the heat up a little for light roasts.
Look for: “PID” on the spec sheet. Better still if you can change the temperature yourself.
The portafilter is the handle that holds the coffee. Most are 51, 54 or 58 mm across.
The size decides which baskets and tampers fit. 58 mm is what café machines use, so there’s far more to choose from.
Look for: The diameter in mm, and whether you can actually buy accessories for it.
Pressurized baskets have one tiny exit hole that builds pressure for you. Standard baskets leave that job to your grind.
Pressurized baskets are forgiving with pre-ground coffee, but there’s a limit to how good the shot can get.
Look for: Standard (single-wall) baskets in the box, or sold separately for that model.
How strong the steam wand is, which depends on the boiler or heater behind it.
With a weak wand, silky milk takes longer and is a lot harder to get right.
Look for: Reviews that time how long it takes to steam milk for one latte.
Who sells parts and handles warranty repairs here.
Sooner or later every machine needs a new gasket or a repair. And a 230 V European import won’t run on a 120 V outlet.
Look for: A Canadian dealer, and a 120 V model.
15 or 20 bar pumps
Espresso is brewed at about 9 bar. A bigger number on the box doesn’t make a better shot.
“Professional” and “café-quality”
Anyone can put these words on a box. There’s no standard behind them.
A built-in pressure gauge
When you’re starting out, a scale and a timer tell you much more. It isn’t worth paying extra for.
Buying a machine with a built-in grinder.
The grinder is usually the first thing people outgrow, and on these machines you can’t replace it on its own.
Ignoring your water.
Hard water leaves scale in the boiler, so use filtered water or descale regularly. Don’t switch to distilled, though. Some machines’ level sensors can’t detect it.
Testing with stale or pre-ground coffee.
Standard baskets need fresh beans ground right before the shot. Old coffee makes any machine look bad.
Getting started
You get
A compact single boiler or thermoblock that heats up fast and makes proper espresso.
You give up
You brew and steam one after the other, milk takes longer, and the portafilter is often smaller.
Step up
You get
A 58 mm portafilter, usually PID, and on a heat exchanger, brewing and steaming at the same time.
You give up
Longer warm-ups and more counter space. Heat exchangers also tend to need a quick flush before each shot to get rid of water that’s too hot.
Buy once
You get
A dual boiler with precise temperature control and strong steam.
You give up
It’s big, slow to warm up, and more machine than you need for two drinks a day.
The grinder controls how fast water runs through the coffee, and that decides most of what ends up in the cup. For espresso it has to grind very fine and adjust in tiny steps. Most people who’ve been making espresso for a while will tell you to spend as much on the grinder as on the machine.
Hand grinderYou turn the crank for every dose. The best grind for the money.e.g. KINGrinder K6
Electric with a hopperBeans sit in the hopper on top and you press a button.e.g. Baratza Encore ESP
Electric single doseYou weigh the beans for each shot and grind all of them.e.g. Turin DF64 Gen 2Burrs grind beans to a consistent size. Blades just chop them up at random.
You can’t make espresso with a blade grinder. Plenty of cheap burr grinders can’t go fine enough either.
Look for: Espresso listed in the grind range, and reviews that use standard baskets.
Stepped grinders click between set positions. Stepless grinders can stop anywhere.
If the steps are too far apart, you end up stuck between a shot that gushes and one that barely drips.
Look for: Stepless, or lots of small steps in the espresso range.
Retention is the ground coffee that stays inside the grinder after each dose.
It goes stale, ends up in your next shot and throws off your weights.
Look for: Measured retention well under a gram.
Conical burrs are a cone that turns inside a ring. Flat burrs are two discs facing each other.
You can make great espresso with either. Conicals tend to be more forgiving, and flats tend to taste a bit clearer.
Look for: Conical if you drink medium and dark roasts, flat if you lean light.
Whether you can get burrs and parts in Canada, and what happens if your unit turns out to be faulty.
Budget grinders can vary a lot from one unit to the next, so an easy return is worth having.
Look for: A Canadian store with a clear return policy.
Burr size on its own
Small burrs that are well aligned will beat big burrs that aren’t. Don’t shop by the millimetre.
The number of settings
“40 settings” doesn’t tell you how many of them are fine enough for espresso.
Burr coatings
Plain steel burrs already last for years at home.
Spending almost everything on the machine.
A good grinder with a basic machine makes better coffee than the other way around. Aim to spend about the same on each.
Copying someone else’s grind setting.
The numbers on the dial don’t line up between grinders, even on the same model. Go by shot time and taste.
Overfilling the hopper.
Beans go stale faster in there than in a sealed bag, so only put in a few days’ worth.
Getting started
You get
A good hand grinder, or an entry-level electric burr grinder built for espresso.
You give up
Effort with every shot on a hand grinder, or coarser adjustment on the cheaper electrics.
Step up
You get
A single-dose electric with stepless adjustment and low retention.
You give up
Quality varies from unit to unit at this level, and a lot of them are loud or need some tinkering.
Buy once
You get
Big, precisely aligned burrs, a solid build and an easy switch between espresso and filter.
You give up
The improvement over a mid-range grinder is real but small, and you’ll mostly notice it with light roasts.
Want a shortlist? Our recommended builds pair machines with grinders at today’s prices, or you can open the builder and compare any two side by side.
Photos: Tim Schmidbauer on Unsplash, Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels, Omar Al-Ghosson on Unsplash.