whoa... have you tried the Nescafe Caramel latte? I bought a whole 20 sachet pack, made a drink with 1 sachet, couldn't even finish that one cup.... left the remaining 19 sachets in the pack in the office pantry. Done my share of contributing to the Office Pantry

Do be careful of caffeine overdose though... more than 3.5mg/KG bodyweight could cause your lower esophageal sphincter (LES) to decrease in basal LES pressure and distal esophageal contraction, which is known to promote the reflux of gastric contents up into the esophagus.

I drank about 4 cups a day when I had my first kid to battle the fatigue and sleepless nights, it got worse after a year or two, and has been giving me GERD problems ever since.
I had to lower my dosage to 0.5-1 cuppa a day now

This post has been edited by Castreal: Aug 18 2017, 11:50 AM

Hi there, just read through from the front and you will find that quite a few here own our own espresso machines.
Are you doing a survey or?

Won't be available in groceries. Anyways, it's not really home barista friendly in the sense that once you open the carton, you can't really "close" it back, unless perhaps you empty it to another container.

I've owned the Breville DB BES920 for about 3 years now. So far it has been treating me well, no bad feedback about it.
Back then I chose the Breville over the Oscar (V1) because although the Oscar brews well, it was quite plasticky.
If given the chance to choose again today (with the Oscar 2 just launch a year ago), I would definitely go for the Oscar 2 and use the additional budget (Oscar is cheaper than BES920) on a better grinder.

For Oscar you could probably drop by Dankoff to take a look at the model itself, For Breville its widely available in most stores selling Breville goods (you could drop by Coffex and perhaps brew one yourself with the BES920 to test it out, and get your other gears - which is what I did).

I got mine as part of a promo for both the BES920 and Smart Grinder.
The Smart Grinder is overall a great grinder for espresso, and pretty much user friendly as well especially for fresh home baristas.

But I would perhaps upgrade a bit to the next level, perhaps a Baratza Vario/Sette for starters or some second hand Mazzer, or even the Eureka Mignon.

I'm usually brewing any blends of Sumatra Mandheling. usual suspects are Purveyor and Palladium from Bean Shipper.

Have anyone of you tried Tweedvale Milk from Australia? A friend of mine brought back a few liters (don't ask me how) from Australia last week, expiring 25th Nov. Apparently this brand won Gold in some Australian Food Awards.

I have a carton of milk (1 Liter) with me, if anyone interested to try for their café, let me know. I think my friend wanted to test the waters here in MY for these milk. She did her calculations, and could see it being old here around the RM 7 range per carton.

Anyways, interested let me know, I can share my Liter with you

p/s: just got it this morning, haven't tried it myself yet, if got time will brew a cuppa later.

I think la, she used dry ice in ice pack. Didn't ask cos they are used to these kind of stuff doing trading and sourcing for materials/ingredients.
Still can use

Tasting on its own, my wife said it's the best fresh milk she had ever tasted (very creamy, not sweet) she does have high standards for her fresh milk, drinking from a young age.
Brewed a cuppa and added the frothed milk to taste. My opinion, this is really fresh milk, you can even taste the rawness of the milk within the latte.

So questions is, to the latte/cappuccino milk based espresso lovers out there, would you guys prefer your coffee with a bit of "raw" aftertaste?

By weaker you mean the drinker should have an aftertaste of coffee, and not milk right? I'm used to magnolia and I think I don't really taste the milk in the latte.
The "Raw" I'm describing is the pure raw taste of freshly squeezed milk, and yes the milk taste is very strong, there is definitely a hint of raw milk aftertaste in the latte (sumatra mandheling beans).

I think the "Fresh" ones are probably the local ones, FarmFresh, Magnolia...etc
According to a source, those imported from Australia are rarely fresh, most if not all have been processed. One of the challenges for these imported milk is the freshness, if local FarmFresh delivers them from farm to shop in 2 days, its going to be more challenging (in terms of cost) for these imported milk. That's one of the points in which my friend is looking into.

Haven't tried Yarra, seems to be cheaper than Magnolia (most retails had increased Magnolia's price to RM9!) is it good with milk coffee? and Raw taste?

Congrats and welcome to the Breville Dual Boiler Club!

What do you mean maintenance? Are you reffering to the cleaning/maintaining the machine?
If so, you can clean it yourself:

1. clean the gasket at the end of the day with a group gasket brush.
2. Clean the portafilter/basket everyday in 1 tablespoon of Cafiza Espresso Cleaning Powder, then rinse.
3. Backflush (1 teaspoon of Cafiza) using the rubber stopper once a week/month.
4. Change the filter for water every year.

Perhaps you can try Coffex Coffee, they are one of the suppliers for Breville Espresso Machines, perhaps they have such service to maintain the espresso machine as well. Their place is at Hicom-glenmarie.

1. Can use Cafiza® Espresso Machine Cleaning Powder. Cheaper to get from TaoBao I believe.
2. I haven't seen anyone that sells them in Malaysia, even coffex don't have them. They say as long as you are using filtered water should be fine
3. Havent de-scale mine before. Most water sources from Syabas in the Klang Valley are soft water. Since the water I used for coffee has been tripled filtered as well, so I don't think there is much build up to de-scale. But in case you want to know how, check your Breville Hand book, or refer to Breville, check and see your batch code, and read-up accordingly.

This post has been edited by Castreal: Dec 5 2017, 03:23 PM

I think he was specifically asking about the Breville Water Filter within the espresso machine. Can try asking Harvey Norman here in Malaysia if they sell it.

Dankoff carries Nuova Simonelli.
Pulp | Papa Palheta carries Rocket.

15 gm -> 55 gm is a long shot? my usual brew is 16 gm beans -> 32-35 gm espresso, for my latte of course.

An espresso is a small 30 ml shot of coffee. High-pressure and extremely hot water is forced through finely ground dry coffee for 25–30 seconds to create a high-intensity, high-bodied drink. A ristretto will be anything from 15 to 25ml.
So, its an espresso!

Anyways, just following the brewing recipe for my beans, Brewing Recipe : 
Espresso
18g of coffee
32g of espresso
28 - 32 seconds extraction.

This post has been edited by Castreal: Jan 17 2018, 10:41 AM

Nicely put, how do you do a 7-8gm coffee - 30 ml yield - 25-30 seconds though? My one cup single wall filter will be dripping like water fall * remembering the days where I have insufficient beans for a full cup *