Manual Lever Espresso Machine, Maintenance Free Manual Espresso Machine, Build to Last Long, Portable Espresso Maker, Espresso Capacity -18 grams, Black

Super cool apparatus, requires investment in brewing technique
 This espresso press by SuperKop is really meant for coffee enthusiasts who are willing to put in the work with this machine, and less so for amateurs like me. This is an entirely manual process with a few parameters that need refinement and practice – not a plug-and-play simple contraption. I would like to say that it’s worth the effort to get this machine to work, but I have yet to pull a truly worthy espresso shot despite a number of attempts. Still, I have to acknowledge that the quality of this machine speaks for itself, and it has an inherent “coolness” factor that I find really appealing. For the right person, this manual espresso machine would be the perfect piece.Right when you open the box, you can tell that the premium price goes right into the quality of the Superkop’s components. The main press itself has an incredibly smooth mechanism that pressurizes perfectly. The metal housing is clean, minimalist, and aesthetically appealing. The wood base is also a nice aesthetic touch, and a great stabilizer for the heavy components on top. Included is one portafilter (a double shot capacity – only one filter), and the water cup that sits on top of the filter. What is NOT included is a tamp, which turned out to be necessary when brewing espresso. For this price point I would really expect a tamp to be included. There is some very minimal assembly required (2-3 screws) before you are ready to brew, and a few components to clean. I do appreciate how low-maintenance this machine is between uses – just clean the portafilter, water cup, and drip tray.To brew a shot, the company recommends 18g of freshly ground beans, and enough boiling water to fill the water cup up to the 2nd line. Put the water cup + portafilter into the press, and pull the lever slowly 6 times. Sounds simple, but here are a few tips I came up with based on my experience with the machine:- 18g of beans is REALLY tough to pack into the portafilter, and get the water cup to sit properly on top. I recommend 17g of beans.- Grind your beans very finely to help with packing, and reaching proper pressurization.- Use a tamp – this is necessary! Otherwise you won’t be able to pack the beans in enough for the water cup to fit.- Test that the water cup + portafilter fits into the espresso press before filling the water cup.- Fill the water cup slightly beyond the second line. Very slightly.The main issue I encountered was getting enough compaction of the ground beans so that the water cup could fit properly on top. It is really tricky to get the water cup + portafilter into the machine unless you compact the beans a lot, and refining this part of the process has been particularly challenging. I managed to get some shots with a decent amount of crema using these methods, and they were quite delicious. That said, getting all of the process parameters right is quite the hassle, and I’m not sure it’s worth it for me. I am still getting used to this machine, and maybe in the future it will be easy to consistently pull shots with less fuss. Ultimately, I do find this manual espresso machine intriguing, and think it could be a great item for the right person: a coffee enthusiast who wants a unique manual machine, and is willing to put in the work.

Amazing Expresso Machine, Lacks Some Accessories
Build Quality: Very good, it certainly feels like a premium product, it also only has 5 parts to put together, 2 screws on the bottom with a bottom plate, and two screws to mount the expresso pull. What bugs me although (and you can’t see) is that the top lips do not line up, they’re slightly offset… for the price point, this bothers me, I’d expect it to line up 100% perfect. It has a very nice butchers block on the bottom, however, please don’t tape the butcher block in shipping… If you need to tape it, first wrap it in paper because at this point I have to clean it to get the stick “ick” off which I do find a bit annoying but realistically it’s not a huge deal.The Accessories: Well, it comes with the plastic cup for your heated water to go in an an extremely high quality portafilter. However, what I find nearly insulting is that they offer up additional “accessories” like a tamper and you only receive one screen rather than screens of various sizes. Again, for the price point, I would expect this would have everything and anything that you could possibly think of for accessories included (well maybe not everything… but skipping on the tamper especially is just odd, you need that to make the expresso… and the screen sizes, well, still should include those because those screens play a major part in how you prepare your expresso)! It would also be a nice touch to include two shot cups which would follow in the design and construction of the overall device.The Pour: This is a strange contraption! It’s certainly taken me some time to hone in the grind size on this as my previous expresso machine could not handle the grinds being too fine, this one has had no issues what so ever. On my kitchenaid grinder, I’ve got it set to 59 which produces just about the perfect grind size, I’ve varied between around 55 and 65 but 59 appears to produce the just right taste / strength / pour. In pouring, you bring up the lever and pull it down slowly, then lift and repeat until you’re fully compressed. There is certainly a lack of control as when you bring the lever up to do another pump it looses a little bit of it’s compression and there is no dial to know the precise amount of pressure you are putting into it. Over time, I’ve been able to get a better “handle” on it and have been able to find just about the right pressure but it’s not scientific other than to describe it as you find the “feel”.The Taste: Oh dear baby jesus, Thank You. My first pour, I decided to pull a quad shot and wooooww! I don’t think I’ll be doing much for drip coffee anymore, it’s expresso for me all the way. This manual lever expresso machine delivers an extremely tasty cup of expresso!The Cleanup: Cleanup is somewhat simple but over the past few weeks of using this, I can say there are a few areas to watch out for and to clean up after use that was not immediately clear when I first started. First, you lift the leaver to the highest position which releases the hydraulic press. Pull out the plastic reservoir and portafilter, wipe down the portafilter and the bottom and inside of the resevoir. Next, wipe the bottom of the hydraulic pump and then give the pump a few pumps, sometimes water / expresso grounds will get in behind the seals and gets trapped on top, pumping a few times will allow you to wipe off the top area of the press.Overall, this is a fantastic expresso machine, it certainly delivers a tasty cup of expresso while being a great looking chic statement piece. There are two reasons for dropping a star on the review, first off the lack of a complete accessory kit being included, second is some of the slight inconsistencies within the body of the build and lastly I would say a 1 year warranty on this is really small considering how it’s marketed as a forever appliance. None of these affect the function of the expresso maker and the expresso maker is quite amazing. If you are looking for an expresso machine in this price point that is easy to operate, doesn’t require a lot of effort and doesn’t force the need of technical know how this is your machine to make the perfect cafe style expresso.