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frognumber

This is nice.

If I were doing it, my design would consist of:

(1) A bike pump (goes up to >200 PSI)

(2) A pressure tank

(3) Two valves

I would pump up the tank to ~130PSI, getting my morning exercise in. I would exhaust it through the coffee. If I wanted to get fancy, I might have an extra intermediate stage so I can use fresh air, rather than air which has been through my bike pump.

I'd like to be able to buy something like (any) of these. My requirements:

- Cheap

- Reliable

- Makes good coffee

Nice-to-haves:

- Compact

Anti-requirements (which should make this possible):

- Fast to use and practical in a fast-paced environment.

I make one cup of coffee a day, and it's a ritual. I'm okay with this taking a while, needing to work a bike pump, or whatnot. Slow is okay.

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Get yourself a lever machine?

It's an espresso machine that's fully manual. You create pressure by using a lever. Water is manually poured in.

Cheapness is hard to have in a product that's big, heavy and involves big chunks of metal, but on the good side a well made one should last forever -- nothing much that can go wrong, and it's a purely mechanical device that can be taken apart.

+1 for a lever! I found a busted up old La Pavoni years ago, replaced all the seals and it’s been good to me ever since. There’s a bit of art to pulling a shot on a lever but once you get used to it, it’s a really fun way to make your coffee every day.

Another happy La Pavoni owner here! I was originally after a totally manual lever machine but found a great deal (~£200) on a second hand La Pavoni in miraculously good condition and couldn't be happier (apart from the occasional burned knuckle). Readily available spare parts and lack of any serious electronics means that hopefully this thing should last me a lifetime. My one recommended upgrade is a compatibly bottomless portafilter + 20g basket.

I live this life too - my La Pavoni has been going strong for over a decade! Multiple shots a day. Maintenance every once in a while. My additional recommended simple upgrade is to add a momentary switch to bypass the sensors, allowing you to quickly increase the pressure for steaming.

Pavoni owner here - they're simple, built like a tank, and you can do basic maintenance on it with a 10mm wrench and a few other small hand tools.

As long as you're willing to invest a bit of effort in the learning curve of literally pulling a shot, it's the perfect machine. I've made 3-6 shots a day on mine for 4 years now, and I know people who have used their machine daily for 20+ years.

This is sounding great to me. Probably going to go for the robot one :)

Love levers! I have three going on four, they're pretty addictive.

These days you can get a very good one (Flair Flex) for $99! That, some good beans and a bit of knowledge and you'll make coffee on par with any shop out there.

Everyone here mentions the handpresso but the picopresso is a better design IMO:

https://www.wacaco.com/collections/picopresso

I got a pico around a year ago. It is the best product easily made by them the others are watery sort of thicker normal black drip coffee. Pico when the grounds are grinded to the correct diameter(very small) makes espresso shots almost or in comparison to a cafe shot! It's one of my favorite purchases for 129 on amazon. Needs a scale for sure, I also got an extra Normcore 51mm puck screen to use in it as well. I would say this or the base flair is the best at home espresso that isn't a "machine" Also I can travel with the pico. It's really amazing!

I was looking at the Nanopresso, seems like a good middle ground between size and price.

The reviews I've seen of these strongly suggest they do NOT make good espresso vs. a proper machine. Have you found differently?

I haven't committed to a purchase yet.

They come halfway close, but not enough pressure in the end.

They are also not going to last you very long especially if you use it a lot.

The handpresso seems up your street:

https://www.handpresso.com/en/handpresso-pump-black-351.html

There’s also the Picopresso which is (I believe) generally regarded to produce a better result - https://www.wacaco.com/products/picopresso

Still hand pumped, looks a bit less like a bike pump though!

I second the picopresso. My buddy has one and, while the tradeoff of the small size is that it's a little more cumbersome, the espresso it can produce rivals that of the Flair and similar, larger machines. I wouldn't consider any other portable espresso machine.

Recently on prime day, the nanopresso and minipresso had great deals, but not the nanopresso, or I would have picked one up for myself.

I don't know if the reservoir is big enough but some pumps for tubeless tires do come with an integral tank for an initial rush of air to pop the bead in place.

A gotcha that hits me here is that, by using a pressure tank, you will likely run into a cleaning/humidity problem. You need that air to be flawlessly clean and the act of pressurizing and depressurizing the tank would make that difficult. Additionally, you need to pressurize near-boiling water as well so you'll need a boiler/water mixing tank. Finally, the temperature of the actual brewing environment is important, otherwise the outer edges will be lesser extracted.

On the other hand, a Flair Neo works fine

Flair is a line of inexpensive, fully-manual lever espresso machines with varying degrees of portability. Excellent designs.

> - Cheap

You’re ignoring the grinder, which in my opinion is the most important part of home espresso making. Add at least 200USD for a good quality manual burr grinder.

You can find a Baratza Encore used for ~$100. Gives a surprisingly uniform fine grind (not as good for coarser grinds like french press, though).

Out of the box it's not perfect for espresso because the grind level is in steps that aren't short enough to easily dial in. There's a "stepless" mod and that makes it much easier to work with.

You can find the Timemore C2 for 50 to 60 euros and it is a pretty decent manual burr grinder. And for around ~100 euros you can find decent burr grinder from more known brand. If you are going to spend more than 200USD, you might as well buy an electric one.

I don't think C2 or a $200 electric grinder are going to be great for espresso. I have a 1ZPresso JX-Pro I got for like $150 and at the time at least sounded like a much better option vs C2 and cheap electric. I'm happier with it than the C2 and cheap electric I've used.

If you live in a city it's relatively trivial to buy pre-ground from a good roaster. Not the same as grinding in the moment of course but for a week's worth it's generally ok. Especially for the first coffee of the day.

For home espresso you really want the ability to tweak the grind size for each shot. Small variations in grind size can significantly change the flow rate, which dictates the peak pressure & shot time you can achieve. When you buy a new bag of beans it can take a couple tries to "dial in". The appropriate grind size depends substantially on the coffee variety, roast level, age of beans, etc. If the pre-ground coffee doesn't hit the mark then you are SOL for the batch -- including if it is too fine and doesn't flow at all. Even if you hit the mark in the beginning, the shot behavior will change over time as the beans age.

Honestly with a lever machine I just don't notice differences in grind size that much, as long as it's reasonably fine. Could be that my palate isn't that great, but I've pretty much settled on one universal grind size and adjust my pressure profile instead.

depending on your definition of cheap, sounds a lot like the Portaspresso Rossa Air (https://portaspresso.com/shop/ols/products/rossa-tr-air-espr...).

You may also like the Espresso Forge, which manages to go even more reductive than what you propose, forgoing the pumping, or any sort of leverage, in favour of a piston for you to push on with a basket on the end.

You can buy one already - handpresso :) The original was based on a manual hand bicycle pump.

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