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After a year of extensive research and going down the rabbit hole of specialty coffee hobby it’s finally time to get a decent (not referring to the decent brand, would love to try one out someday though) espresso machine. Overwhelmed by internet research and all the different options in terms of price, color, functionality - you name it, I remembered there is an espresso machines shop just around the corner (coincidence?!..) and headed there to get some human advice and a visual and sensory impression of some options I’ve picked out. Here are some I found attractive during my research:

A collegue at moba coffee, the local shop I mentioned was extremely helpful, explained a lot about those machines, let us try espresso from most of them and gave tons of advice. That is also where Profitec 500 PID came into consideration, since I haven’t come across it much in my research. Hand assembled in Germany, heat exchanger machine with PID temperature controll for the stainless steel boiler, E61 grouphead, very nice design. I think this is also when I started considering a heat exchanger machine seriously, with the aim to be as efficient as possible when making milk drinks which I knew I would be making a lot (latte art skills don’t come easy). Also PID was a big pro in my decision making since I definitely wanted more controll over temperature to play with different roast profiles. I was convinced I need the rotary pump too, but I didn’t find any prosumer machine in my budget range offering that and the reasonable part of me managed to convince my very excited self this would be an overkill for my very first espresso machine too.

Soo, one gloomy February afternoon I’ve made up my mind and ordered the Profitec 500 Pro PID from Moba Coffee. And a Cafelat Knock-Box, because how can you do without it, right? It arrived 2 days later and here you can see my very happy excited self unpacking the huge box that got dropped off at my door step (corona safe).

The small kitchen doesn’t offer a lot of counter space, so I had to come up with something else for this 23kg heavy, delicious-coffee-producing beast. A high bar table in industrial style with solid wood tabletop to fit the interior of our living room was my choice, but it was extremely hard to find one that would be big enough to fit just the espresso machine and grinder alongside and have some extra space in the front for tamping, since I didn’t want it to take up too much space. Considering the weight of the coffe machine, it also had to be very robust and stable to avoid any possible risks of it falling down. I managed to find a perfect one in some weeks, here is how it looks like:

As eager as I was to try it out, I most certainly had some fresh beans ready to dial in. What I didn’t realize was how much time it takes the very first time and how frustrating it might be to spend some 100gr. of good beans and still be nowhere close to the desired 25-30 sec. shot time. Oh well, “Übung macht den Meister” as they say here in Germany, so here it is, my very first drinkable shot (actually, two) that made me very proud and very caffeinated at the least appropriate time of the day:

I like the possibility to controll boiler temperature and thus brew temperature, the programming is pretty easy and straitforward - the matching table can be found in the manual. However I am a bit frustrated over comparatively long heating up times. It takes 45-60 min. for the grouphead to warm up to the desired temperature, which is quite long. I grew a habit of heading straight to the coffee machine the moment I get out of bed in the morning and flipping the switch. Ok, most of the days my partner does it before me.

I am overall very happy with the choice, the device is in use every day and is getting the best care I can provide. This includes backflushing every months and descaling once per year. For these maintenance purposes I use backflush cleaner and descaling solution from moba coffee compatible with Profitec 500 Pro PID.