Espresso

UPDATE September 2020: The Bialetti Diva I Caffe d’Italia is no longer available for purchase. There are several single-serve pod-style coffeemakers on the market: the ubiquitous Keurig that takes K-Cups, the Tassimo, and the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) Kaldi, just to name a few.  The most common use for these is for brewed-style coffee, […]

UPDATE September 2020: The Sherwood SMF-1000 Automatic Electric Milk Frother is no longer available for purchase. When I reviewed the LifStyl Milk Frother*, I thought I had found the perfect solution to steamed milk, without having to resort to using my espresso machine to make an entire pitcher. It also allowed me to make hot milk […]

Anyone that has had a great espresso or cappuccino at a local coffee shop, or while traveling to Europe, or even from their own semi-auto espresso machine, has probably dreamed of a machine that can do all that grinding, tamping, pulling, and steaming on it’s own. There are a lot of Super-Auto espresso machines that […]

Using the Rancilio Silvia Espresso machine can be a bit intimidating if you have never used an espresso machine at all or even if you have previously used a machine that controlled a lot of the variables for you. The machine to a large degree assumes you know what you are doing. If you don’t, […]

My coffee drink of choice for the past five years has been espresso. Straight shots. No milk and no sugar. In my opinion, espresso represents the best potential for coffee. If it is done perfectly it can be an amazing experience that is remembered long after the beverage is consumed. But getting a perfect shot […]

Russell Hobbs espresso machines are available in South Africa and the UK. I saw it at the local supermarket on a stand from local mass-market coffee purveyor ‘House of Coffees’. It was a prize to be won and I decided that I would win it whatever it took. There was a cardboard post-box for till […]