> Before you spend many thousands of dollars on a machine better suited to a coffee shop, consider getting a minimalist lever machine.
Agreed. I have a Pavoni Europiccola, and it's made approximately ~11,000 espresso shots (about half of those ended up as milk-based beverages). It makes excellent coffee, and I live in a place where there are a _lot_ of good coffee places around to compare to.
The maintenance is something I do myself, with a few small & inexpensive tools, and a few gaskets I need to replace. The machine will likely outlive me, which is a rare thing to say these days.
If you go back further than that, teams used to destroy entire engines for a single qualifying.
The BMW turbocharged M12/M13 that was used in the mid-eighties put out about 1,400 horsepower at 60 PSI of boost pressure, but it may have been even more than that because there was no dyno at the time capable of testing it.
They would literally weld the wastegate shut for qualifying, and it would last for about 2-3 laps: outlap, possibly warmup lap, qualifying time lap, inlap.
After which the engine was basically unusable, and so they'd put in a new one for the race.
Agreed. I have a Pavoni Europiccola, and it's made approximately ~11,000 espresso shots (about half of those ended up as milk-based beverages). It makes excellent coffee, and I live in a place where there are a _lot_ of good coffee places around to compare to.
The maintenance is something I do myself, with a few small & inexpensive tools, and a few gaskets I need to replace. The machine will likely outlive me, which is a rare thing to say these days.