Espresso Yourself
It was a sad day when our beloved Faema Erica espresso machine was pronounced dead after many years of delicious, crema laden, make you want to get out of bed, espressos.
So I set out to replace her. We wanted to keep it under 300.00 but our first attempt at same with a Krups was pretty disappointing; plastic taste and acid tummy.
I was hard pressed to find a machine in our range that got great reviews across the board, I am a big fan of Alton Brown who soundly recommended the Saeco aroma, but when I saw it at Costco it looked very flimsy.
Enter the Breville Die- Cast Espresso machine from Bed, Bath & Beyond. It looked sturdy, stainless steel and got decent reviews.
She was “less that a pretty face”. The design was poor; the water tank comes out like a drawer on the bottom creating 2 issues, the vibration on the machine makes the “drawer” wiggle out of place and create a leak and, it is impossible to fill at the moment you are pulling an espresso and.. go “oops I did it again” and see you need more water for your shot least you fry your pump so I had to take out the portafilter mid shot to refill.
But the bottom line is the shots were not enchanting, the portafilter is smallish and less coffee in means less flavor out.
Back to the drawing board. If I had the bucks I would go for the much acclaimed in all departments Rancillio Silva but alas, the Miss Silva was out of my financial reach.
Peet’s carries the Gaggia’s, I had them do a demo for me and found the espresso tasty but the housing seemed flimsy. I read that the buttons give out prematurely.
I checked all the Macy’s sale days, but no love there. Then one happy day I found a Gaggia Baby Twin for $399, That is 3 to 4 hundred less than normal, with not tax or shipping to boot! whooo hoooo!
Quality construction, pretty lights and a very nice espresso. The steaming function was not right though, I called the company I bought it from and they sent me off to call the Gaggia Dealer. I did not appreciate the attitude, (we got your money so now you are on your own) but I got to Gaggia and they deemed the steamer feeble as it did not bring the milk to temp in one minute and quite literally “ran out of steam”
They notified the vendor and told me to continue the return process with them. That was the beginning of my decent into of the 7th circle of hell!
Four days in a row I called and was promised I would be sent a UPS return label within a couple of hours or the next day at the latest, I had to badger them repeatedly to get the RMA and finally a return label. And the little twit had the nerve to give me attitude after the 3rd call; “Well excuse us if we could not jump on your request immediately, it takes time” After seeing how they operate, I told them to cancel the replacement . I finally got the machine out of my hair and refused delivery of they “forgot” to cancel.
Had I taken the time to research the seller I never would have bought there as apparently this is “how they roll”, 8 out of 10 report dreadful experiences.
While returning the Breville, at BBandB, they asked if I would be exchanging it for another machine. I told them they had the machine I liked but at $300 more so I would shop around.
Then I learned that not only does BBandB have great customer service and return policy, but they do Price Matching!!
All I had to do was get a printout of the sale price and bring it in to the store. They waived the shipping as that was part of the offer but could not do the same with the sales tax. That’s a small price to pay for a company that provides such excellent customer service.
The moral of the story boys and girls, is like looking both ways before you cross the street; we need to look both at the product and the seller is we want to live happily ever after with our purchases.
A blog about experiences, curiosity and the never-ending search for ways to do better things better