christopher's lives (v5.3)

So, I opened it last night and set it up. There has been much debate about whether to go ahead and open it or wait until Christmas morning. The final deciding factor is that, much as it seems to surprise people, this is my first REAL espresso machine and I have firmly believed it is going to take me some time to learn to use it and we want to be sipping on a drink Christmas morning while we open presents.

I was definitely right about the learning curve. I started by not even being able to figure out how to prime the pump. The manual says it should take a few seconds, but it took several minutes. But, I didn’t know what to trust, so, it was unnerving to have it sitting there pumping with nothing happening, so, I kept switching it off and staring at it, scratching my head. This took almost an hour of switching, staring, scratching, reading, Googling. Then, when I finally got all that figured out, I had to flush the system several times and that was at least another half hour. All of this would have sucked on Christmas morning, when I want to be enjoying Christmas with the family.
I won’t go through all I did last night, but, I ended up with very hot water spewing all over me and the bar at one point, hitting buttons in the wrong order and getting very unpleasant surprising results, and plenty more staring and scratching, asking myself just what the heck I was thinking getting such a nice espresso machine for a hack like me who has only ever used a $45 Mr. Coffee and a seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time Bodum Granos.
This is just a whole new world for me.
On top of everything else, I have no tamper that fits the group handle (that’s a REALLY big deal) and the frothing wand is little bitty – a fact I admittedly knew when I purchased it. This machine is well-known for lacking when it comes to steam, but I decided that good coffee should be the primary consideration and I’d figure out the rest as I go. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it, but it is a price issue – a machine that does everything perfectly costs quite a bit more. And besides, I’m used to working with far-less-than-perfect equipment and getting results that probably exceed what anyone would think the equipment is capable of.

I should note here that I have no good beans, and am waiting until money is a little better to place an order. As with anything, you want as few variables as possible and all I pretty much have at this point are variables and no constants, so it’s hard to know where in the process I am going wrong. I hope to order some good beans in the next couple days.
Anyway, when I finally worked up the nerve to pull a shot with my substandard beans, I was STUNNED! I have a VERY cheap grinder, lousy beans, a tamper that is too small, and I’ve never used a machine of this quality, and the shot was almost pure crema pouring from the spouts! I says to myself “It can’t be this easy – it may look great, but how will it taste?”. Well, the mouthfeel was sweet and almost syrupy. That faded almost immediately into a very smooth, albeit thin yet pleasant taste! Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t a great espresso shot, but, as I tasted it, I marveled that, if it comes out this good when so much else was wrong, what will it be like when everything is right?!
For so long, I have used equipment that, even when you have made what should be your best shot ever, it can still come out flukishly bad. It seems that even this thing’s bad shots are acceptable shots! So, maybe I no longer have to worry so much about getting a decent shot – it will pretty much always come out decent and I can now focus on the variables that produce perfection instead of constantly worrying about safeguards against potential disaster. After how ever many years of being a hobbyist barista, I am THRILLED at this prospect.

Well, I spent about six hours last night trying to learn it. This morning, I attempted to make Terra a vanilla latte and then a cappuccino for myself.
Um. Hm.
Ok, the frothing is as bad as I feared. Her steamed milk came out ok. But, apparently, you have to switch over to brew mode and then pull straight water BEFORE you try to pull a shot immediately after using steam. And I found out the hard (MESSY) way. The manual DID say to do this, but I thought it was just a helpful tip for people who didn’t know what they were doing. Hrmph. So, while her milk is sitting there getting cold, I now have to start over with the shot – beans, grind, dose, tamp, load, pull, etc.. A five minute drink turned into a ten minute or worse drink.
With my new found knowledge, I then proceeded to attempt a cappuccino. Well, the milk was hot, but, no foam (a cappuccino should be 1/3 foam). And I know I’m not that bad – it’s that little nub of a wand. So, mine was a latte in a cappuccino cup, so the drink turned cold really fast. Blech.

Eleven hundred words already??? I knew I shouldn’t have written this after having so much coffee :P

The bottom line so far is that this machine knows a helluva lot more about making coffee than I apparently do and I have to get up to it’s standards before I can even think about refining my own technique.
And therefore, I am SO glad I didn’t wait until Christmas morning to open it. I have a couple days to try to make passable drinks before Christmas morning.

I would now like to give some public credit where public credit is most certainly due.
Firstly, thanks SOOOO much to Terra’s parents. They did make it financially possible for me to get this. I have wrestled so much with their wish that this be a present opened on Christmas day, but if they read this, I think they may understand. Plus, this is a gift not only to me, but to Terra as well – we have concluded that she is one third owner of it and that math would take too long to explain :P And, speaking of Terra, I owe much thanks to her as she is the one who pushed me so hard to actually order it when I fought so hard that it cost too much and the money could be better spent. In fact, I was so humbled by the gift of her parents, I didn’t want to accept it and Terra (and my mother) pushed me on that, too. And I want to thank my mother who also fought me, for different reasons, to go ahead and get it. She has to wait on her biggest, most-coveted present so I could get this at the holiday sale price. It is safe to say that my mother paid the highest price for this. And, finally, I thank my brother and sister-in-law who, like Terra’s parents, have come to our aid when we didn’t know if we were going to be able to have a Christmas after Terra lost her job in November. Knowing there would be gifts for mom coming from them has helped me to make the decision to spend a little extra Christmas money on the machine.

And that’s it for now. I will get some pics and video up soon. You are ALL invited for coffee :) You, uh, may want to wait a few days, though :P