Bought in April 1989 for £39 in Cambridge, England, my first espresso machine is this Russell Hobbs. It is manufactured in Switzerland.

I bought this Krups machine in 2000. This is also a very simple machine in which steam is used to force water go through the coffee.

In 2001, I bought this simple Krups to the country house. Notice that the portafilter is made of plastic. The price of this machine was 295 FIM (49€).

My first machine with a pump was bought in 2005. This AEG EA 150 was a reliable German Espressoautomat. The price was €148.

I needed a machine with a pump for the country house. Therefore, in 2006, I bought a Krups XP 4000. (The machine in this picture is not my machine.)

This cheap machine is my worst experience. I bought it in 2010, and it broke completely almost immediately. I did not go to complain in the shop because I did not want to operate such a machine again.

As the earlier machines in the country house broke, in 2010 I bought another AEG EA 150. This was a second-hand machine which I got for €40.

Gaggia Baby Class is a machine I bought in August 2012 as I wanted an Italian machine. In reality, this machine was made in Romania, but it made better coffee than my earlier machines. This machine has a quite large portafilter. As my earlier pump-driven machines, it comes with a pressurized filter basket, and thus requires less skill in coffee making.

Then, in April 2013, I bought the second Gaggia Baby Class. The price of this machine was around €300. The machine was cheaper than the first Gaggia as I bought it from Germany.

In March 2016 I bought an ECM Casa IV, which is shown here with the second Gaggia. This machine comes with a non-pressurized filter basket. With this machine I have finally started to learn something about the making of really good coffee. (It took me only 27 years to learn these things.)

Then, in April 2017, I had to buy another ECM Casa IV for the country house as I could not stand the coffee I was making with the older machines. These macnines cost €850. They are made in Germany with some Italian parts.

To make espresso coffee, you also need a suitable grinder. The grinder must be a burr grinder which can be adjusted for pefrect coarseness of coffee. Here are the espresso grinders that I have used. They cost something like €200 ... €300.

Crema is the foam that is formed when espresso is made. I make milk-based coffees so that I first heat the milk in a microwave oven, and then I let the espresso coffee go directly over the hot milk. Usually the crema stays on top of the drink. This picture shows coffee made with Gaggia Baby Class, which has a pressurized filter basket for coffee.

Here you see crema of coffee made with ECM Casa IV which has a non-pressurized filter basket for coffee. When you compare this to the previous picture, you can notice that the bubbles in the crema are smaller.