100% agree that bean quality and freshness is most critical. No machine no matter how fantastic can ever compensate for poor quality or stale beans.

At some point you may want to consider home roasting, like a bunch of us have......

Best bang for buck and a setup which meets your budget and you won't regret will be a premium hand grinder from China, coupled with a Flair. In addition to generating great coffee and meeting your budget, the entire setup is portable!

True. The Flair people are coming out with a separate milk steamer in a few months, so that's an option.

You can also check out Dritan Alsela's video on how your existing French Press can do a decent foamed milk.

If wanna keep to budget, u can use that flair & then use french press to froth milk.

grinder suitable for espresso? what grinder you using at the moment?

I have the same grinder, and the answer is no.

If you are on a budget, do consider a manual hand grinder from China as recommended by lowkl.

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10....id=539696451330

You can read the comparison/ review for it against the more expensive german hand grinder Kinu m47 few pages back.

Get a good grinder first, the Taobao handgrinder just recommended is excellent for espresso due to its ease of adjustment and markings.

Trust me. it will take alot of frustration out of espresso making. The Delonghi machine you are looking at is a decent enough machine for making espresso from dark roast as dark roasted coffee are more forgiving with extraction and temperature.

However it is using a pressurised portafilter basket and many have done mods to remove this function as many claims it affects the taste, however the draw back is it required more skill in preparing the grinds before extraction( which is why a good grinder is always recommended before the espresso machine)

So in short, yes the machine does make decent coffee, but dun expect much out of it. Stick to dark italian roast and you should be fine.

Yes darker roast will be easier to extract and more forgiving on the equipment.

Can forget about using the delonghi for lighter single origin roast, you will highly likely be drinking face puckering sour coffee due to under extraction from the lack of temperature stability.

The pressurised filter PF slows down flow rate of the coffee due to its small exit holes which allows you to get away with bad grinds, while the coffee looks nice with crema, the crema is very different compared to normal portafilter NF, the PF crema is due to the mixing of air bubbles during the exit, making it nice and frothy which disapears shortly and lacking body and mouthfeel.

The NF slows down flowrate by the fine grinds, the pressure created within the coffee, leading to emulsion of coffee oils with water, kinda of like mayonnaise.

If you are the kind who likes to play with different coffee beans and roast level, skip the delonghi, get the 2nd hand rocket,

But if you are just wanting to make milk based coffee and not really fussy about it, the delonghi should serve just fine.

Lastly, its highly likely you will upgrade the Delonghi shortly after learning how to pull acceptable shots with it, cause you will realize the draw backs and short comings of it real soon...  

My first espresso machine was an entry level Phillips Saeco Poemia. Pressurised basket, thermostat-controlled, thermoblock, pannarello wand. Grew out of that phase really really fast, but not by spending more money (at least not a whole lot). Started modding the machine; depressurised it, installed a PID, drilled out the bottom to make it as bottomless as possible.

The Flair is coming from the other end; totally manual, but being lever-based, you have (subjective) control over pressure, timing, temperature. This allows you to explore a greater range of beans, roasts. Be prepared to put in some effort and trial & error.

If you need to pull multiple shots back-to-back, it's a real challenge for the Flair (though some say it can be done). But bang-for-buck, it is incomparable.

Plastic ver of V60 drips slightly faster than the Ceramic, and it doesn't hold temperature as good as Ceramic does. So It could affect the taste of the coffee indirectly.
However, when it comes to deciding which ver is better, I think it depends on how you like your coffee. If you prefer a bright and cleaner cup, you might find the plastic version to suit you better.
If you want your coffee bold and strong, the ceramic one certainly does a better job.

The Ikea coffee filter looks so nice..I've the same doubt too whether can it filter coffee residue or perhaps even better than cloth filter?

if you like less oils in your coffee, daiso has
dripper type too, <RM12 total. :thumbsup:
you can explore brewing with different grind
setting and water temperature to get the taste
you like.

Daiso paper filter seem good and cheap but flat bottom design not so good. Those paper filter like V60 is better with cone shape but expensive la

Just play with grind size and you can slow down your drip rate with your v60.

A good dripper should be versatile enough to be fast or slow depending on the user's need.

i have both v60 and daiso, both plastic.

the grind size and pouring rate will determine
the extraction/ taste.

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anyone used this milk before for your latte/cappuccino?

i've been using farmhouse all the while but the MCO doesn't really give me the luxury to go a little further to get them =(

I previously tried Dutch Lady's full cream milk and it is paaaaaaaale in comparison.

I am using KG89 too, there is a mod/hack to turn your KG89 into Espresso-grind grade entry grinder... youtube got demo...

Appartamento does not have PID and is terribly expensive for what it offers, among Italian machines. For example, Quickmill Rubino or Lelit Mara X are cheaper HX machines. I was contemplating the Quickmill Sunny, which is priced closed to the Appartamento. It has a thermoblock for brewing, a 1.5L boiler for steam, and has pressure profiling. It comes with a barista kit with a bottomless portafilter. It has quick heat up time since it is not a E61.