DiyPresso: DIY Espresso Machine

I love espresso. But I don't think I'd be interested in a DIY option.

I tend to use Nespresso, especially now that the cups are simply available in the shop (and cheap aftermarket options), it's pretty perfect.

I know the manual process is more environmentally friendly but when I wake up in the morning I have no headspace for fussing with coffee grinds. I just need good coffee right away. And I don't even own a car or anything nor have kids so my footprint is pretty low.

It sounds like you are the perfect customer for them but when your machine craps itself I would suggest checking out something like the Breville Barista models. I have the Pro version which has the grinder built in and I've found it makes far nicer coffees than the pods and there is minimal faffing around due to everything being integrated in the one machine.

I'm not convinced on autogrinders. One of my friends had one (A Jura) of 1000+ euro and the coffee was no better. Eventually the grinder crapped out and the replacement cost 3/4 of the machine price.

He's now drinking Nespresso like me :)

Breville doesn't seem to be a common brand here in Europe but I see it is a lot cheaper. Nothing like the 80 euro of a Nespresso machine though (which has also lasted me 10 years despite never descaling it).

You can get a De'Longhi Magnifica S super automatic for ~260 EUR on sale. Quite reliable. More convenient than an a Nespresso. Cheaper to operate. Less waste.

I don't know if it's really as convenient though.

What I tend to do is drink "half-caf", I take 1 pod decaf and 1 pod normal in the same cup. It looks like for this one I'd have to change out the bean reservoir every time (or mix normal beans with decaf beans somehow).

It would probably be cheaper though yeah. Even the aftermarket cups still cost me 25c. I'll have more of a look at it once my current machine fails (it's going on 10 years now).