Wonder is it just me, or delonghi is bad in making froth milk? Seems that temperature is not stable, and the wand could die in the midst of frothing milk! Not sure if my machine is faulty??

Just have to understand the machine more... my breville has the same problem too if you dont understand the machine well...

I assume yours is the same as my previous Philips Poemia. It didn't die, it just ran out of steam, no pun intended haha.

The reason is the steaming is controlled by a steam termostat say, 100-120c ( i can't recall the exact temp). When you turn on steam mode, it'll bring boiler temp to 120c (again, i'm guessing the temp here). So when you open the steam knob, it'll release the steam and the temp will drop. The boiler will kick in again when the temp has drop to 100c (guess).

The trick here is turn on the knob before it reaches 120c so that it'll keep on steaming but the temp can still catch up if the knob can't release the steam fast enough 

LOL I like steam pun, well played! 

Okay, I understand the part that the steaming is controlled by steam thermostat. And when I turn the side knob to steam mode, boiler heats up the temp to, for assumptions sake, to 120c, retain, and kicks in again after it drops lower to 100c? It's hard to agak2, coz usually the steam dies (or as you put it, run out of steam!), before the milk is even half-way to its intended temp. Not sure if letting the cold milk to thaw a bit would work?

And on the same subject, do I wait for both lights to turn on, or have one goes off before I start steaming?

If I may contribute: used to have a Poemia too.

What I used to do is do a few tests to estimate the heating time. Eg. After turning the knob to steam for the first time, wait until the light goes on (reached the max temp). Release the steam. The steam pressure will start strong then get weaker. At some point the light will go off. Start the stopwatch. Turn off the steam nozzle. Stop the stopwatch when the light comes on. This will be the high-end time before the stored heat exhausts itself.

Repeat a couple of times. On my machine the second time onwards the time will get somewhat shorter.

When you really want to steam, don't use the first cycle...too much stored water. After clearing the first cycle (light goes off), get ready your pitcher and TURN ON the steam a few seconds BEFORE the light comes on. This way, the heating coil will continue to pour energy while you are steaming, stretching out the steaming period.

Hope this helps.

You'll need to experiment on the timing. I found that the timing is crucial or should I say, only matters for making for a cup of latte than for 2 cups coz the boiler would catch up regardless of the timing when heating up higher volume of milk.

I can add 1 more info to this. Don't do it too many times or the boiler will run out of water haha.

in sequence of importance, what is it?

coffee machine/ grinder/ coffee bean/ <-- or not?

What's your focus?
Taste or speed?

And have to see at home appliance kind of machines or commercial grade machines

A good coffee bean is of highest importance, IMHO. For example, if you use a stale batch of beans, you can process it through an EK43 and pull a shot from a GS3, and it will still be crap. But please note I'm saying bean 'quality' not 'type' or 'price'. There's a lot of subjectivity in this area so comparisons are near meaningless.

When it comes to hardware it's pretty accepted you should concentrate on the grinder as priority. This makes sense as no matter what style of brewing you still need to grind fresh. For certain types of brewing like espresso, it is mandatory to have a grinder that grinds consistently (range of ground sizes is narrow), can be finely adjusted, can grind to the adequate fineness, etc. Generally you get what you pay for, But two factors change the equation. One is if you can consider a hand, manual grinder. This is especially the case if you research properly and take the time & trouble to consider China-made  models. The other factor is a set of laboratory sieves. If you are willing to sieve each shot to your specs (incur the time and wastage cost), technically even a relatively ok grinder can match a much more expensive model.

Lastly, machine. By saying 'machine' I'm guessing we are talking about espresso only. IMHO you can get a great shot from an extremely cheap machine. HOWEVER the issues are consistency, flexibility, dependability, speed. For example you can use a fully manual Flair lever machine to pull shots comparable or exceeding machines 5 times the cost, but there's effort and learning involved.

Thx bro

already have french presser

now using boncafe ground coffee & davidoff instant cofee + low fat milk

just play around with both coffee n try to make my own coffee

so far still doesnt taste good   

Fresh milk = skimmed milk?

noooo
Fresh Milk is the milk that didn't go thru any processing

For coffee blends, e.g. Kona blends, does it mean that they source Kona beans from diff farmers, or it means that only a % is Kona beans?

Usually the 2nd. These are design to ripoff customers

exactly!

Even worse in Myanmar/Vietnam

Friends visiting so nice of them bring back Hawaiian Kona and Panama Geisha named beans and not cheap at all!
But result was some bad coffee laced with flavorings (chocolate essence)
Just trying to milk the famous names as much as possible those unscrupulous shops

for kona 100% beans, best to go for french press or espresso?

go try both see which you like best

most ppl probably do drip/filter with Kona...should try this too

Mind sharing where did you source your Kona beans?