What espresso maker do you recommend?

I have finally gotten to the point where rather than make a pot of coffee at 9:30pm I'd rather an espresso or cappuccino. I grind whole beans anyway, so I think this is a logical progression. I'd like a machine that can pump out 1, perhaps 2 shots, doesn't have to be super fast as I'll wait for my automatic drip machine. I'm going to say price-wise I'd like to spend under 400, and under 200 would be exceed expectations.

Also, what is a recommendation on whole beans, as I admit I'm pretty hooked on Starbucks Sumatra for my daily 3-4 cups.

Um toss the drip maker because that is wasting good coffee. I suggest an old school Gaggia for about $300 and the money you save on coffee put into the drip machine should pay for the machine within one year.

I’m sure you’re bound to find something buried within these 15 pages 😁

I have heard of these and they get a lot of play on YouTube especially the shorts. I might just have to. There's got to be a reason they're churning these out.

hard to beat a Gaggia Classic for a first espresso machine, I had one for about 10years and recently bought my daughter one when she moved into her first flat. It will need to be pared with a proper grinder, not sure what you are using at the moment but you need a burr grinder rather than a blade one, then you’ll need to look at your shot time and dose weight, etc, etc. it’s a rabbit hole but a nice one, I really enjoy my morning ritual and the resulting flat white, my better half reckons I make way better coffee than any of the local coffee shop. Enjoy

I have the same (my second), Bambino might be within the OPs budget. I would check feedback on that.

i had this one for many years, and also bought one for my office.
https://www.delonghi.com/en-us/manual-espresso-machine-cappuccino-maker-ecp3630/p/ECP3630

It is cheap, its simple. it works.
although tbh, gonna be hard to get a good shot at 200 bucks unfortunately.
I ended up with a middle of the road, breville barista express, found it online on sale for around 500 and it makes great shots but still, I've had much better from higher end machines...
you have GOOD and you have CHEAP, but can only pick one... lol

I'm a bit of a coffee fiend, I always recommend Breville to anyone interested. Unless you want to spend four (or five!) figures, then the market changes - but even then, you're buying craftsmanship and reliability, not features. The Breville Dual Boiler absolutely dominates its price point on feature set. I've had mine for seven years, though it did need a new steam boiler at significant cost, but the new one has far better quality seals, and all current BDB's come with the revised design.

Your budget is tricky, because the grinder is just as important as the machine itself, arguably more important. If you can swing it, spend $200 on a decent used machine in good condition and $200 on a decent grinder. The Breville Smart Grinder Pro is good for the price especially on sale, but you can pick grinders up from other brands too like Baratza or Eureka. Don't cheap out on the grinder, it really is important. ESPECIALLY don't use a blade grinder, they are garbage for espresso. In your segment, you want conical burrs. Flat burrs are great but I don't think they exist at that price point.

For whole beans, no recommendation as it depends a lot on where you live and what you can get, but for good results, buy fresh roasted beans from specialty roasters. Supermarket beans are usually very old and while they are completely food safe and don't really go "off" for years, they do go stale and you get worse results out of them. Good roasters will be roasting to order pretty regularly. Old beans you'll just be forever fighting them trying to dial in a shot that will never come.

I've had a lot of luck with this grinder from Kitchenaid, it's survived a yellow-lab induced fall also. It has multiple grind settings for espresso, and you can remove the top and fine tune the settings on the burr grinders inside also.

We’ve happily owned a Breville Barista for about 5 years now. We run ~6 shots per day. Once we adjusted settings for our preferred bean choice, I couldn’t tell the difference between my Americano and that from the local drive-thru. Sure, the higher end coffee shops provide a better product but I doubt that can be duplicated at home without spending several thousand dollars.

We did need to send it in for repair, on year 3, for a repair on the thermo coil but overall we’re very happy.

It's above your stated budget range, but going to echo the Breville Barista express support in the thread. We bought one four years ago and it's seen daily use since. It's held up extremely well and has only required the self service cleanings. It takes a few grinds to get your settings dialed in, but after that, it's largely a quick and easy process.
The Gaggia Evolution is cheaper and well within your stated budget, but you would have to either get a grinder or use pre-ground coffee (which might knock down taste a bit).

Tend to agree. I've spent a few k on my equipment, and I believe I can beat most cafes I've tried in Australia. I've been using fresh beans pretty much since day one, but I really stepped it up when I invested in a higher tier of grinder and to a lesser degree when I changed up how I had been preparing the puck. I think you can do a lot with a cheaper espresso machine, but you can't escape garbage in garbage out when it comes to the actual coffee grounds.

That being said, there are a select few who make a coffee I just have never been able to replicate at home, even with the same beans. I suspect that last edge is just a lot of experience, trial and error dialing their parameters in every morning that a home user just can't compete with. And as those places roast their own beans, they're generally serving the beans always at their peak, whereas at home you can't really go through enough to have them always in that zone.

The best coffee I ever had was at ONA in Sydney. They were single dosing their beans out of capsules stored in a freezer, directly into a Mahlkonig and using a dosing funnel to swirl the grounds into the portafilter for distribution. I'm not a huge believer in all these various tasting notes generally, but man did that coffee remind me of rum & raisin ice cream, it was amazing.

It’s fair to say I take my coffee seriously and I have a top-notch manual lever espresso machine. But with having a toddler around the house I wanted an alternative that required less effort - and I picked up an Italian moka pot from Bialetti.

For anyone who buys/grinds their own beans, I highly recommend it - top quality coffee and much cheaper than a machine:

https://www.bialetti.com/it_en/moka...4AJq5ZeGwFWk1eQJnu1gmLx6qWycavu6GScPDbMRevr6P