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This is a guest post by Chloe from Gaggia Coffee Machine Review.

Are you about to buy a coffee machine to make your own perfect espresso? If so you really ought to know how the professionals do it and the criteria your machine should meet to avoid the strong, bitter tastes you are presumably trying to avoid.

Espresso

So what is an espresso? It is the result of forcing 1.5 ounces of water heated to the ideal temperature of about 190°F through coffee that has been finely ground and tightly packed,at a pressure of between 9 and 15 bar. The idea is to take only the best parts of the ground coffee into the drink and to turn the gases that are created during the process into a rich, golden crema.

It sounds complicated doesn’t it? Well can a machine do all this? Some can but others will fail on either the correct temperature or the correct pressure. You can also cause the whole process to result in disastrous coffee by not grinding or packing your coffee into the filter baskets correctly.

As with everything, you get what you pay for and a cheap machine will undoubtedly have inferior parts and therefore inferior processes. With so many things to go wrong, a strong and bitter coffee seems a likely possibility. To help you overcome these problems you need to stick with a semi automatic or lever operated machine. The latter is better suited for coffee making professionals so if you are a beginner stick with the semi automatic pump machines.

Cheaper semi automatic pump machines, such as those from the Gaggia coffee machine range, will set you back between $300-$450. These will most likely contain aluminium boilers and plastic casings. Machines over $450 will have brass boilers and metal casings and are recommended if you plan on giving them daily use. Many semi-automatic machines now take coffee pods or capsules as well as coffee grounds for those days when you need great coffee quickly and easily.

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Written by Chris