As alluded to in earlier posts, we're not claiming that Londinium I has new technology.  Londinium I is simply a refinement or a bringing together of many elements that already exist on a standalone basis, or have been poorly executed.

The spring lever group used by Bosco, KVDW, and Quickmill is the best in the world.  The double spring gives it some extra shove, the internal shoulder bearings mean that a group cap is not required, and the cam profile ensures an absolutely perfect extraction every time.  Whilst you might look on a spring lever group as 'low-tech' it is worth bearing in mind that it is the product of at least 60 years of accumulated research and development; tens of thousands of hours of human effort in total.

The Londinium I project pairs this superb spring lever group with a copper boiler that I hope you will appreciate the beauty of when you see it.  The group will be mated to the boiler in exactly the right manner for a thermosiphon (different from a dipper), and the engineering will be exact; with respect to the optimal distance between the boiler and group, and material selection

With the Bosco we've really grown to enjoy having a hot water tap on the machine.  Its useful for pre-warming cups, and is more energy efficient in the sense that you can make tea, hot chocolate, soup, or even just hot water without having to boil the kettle.

As soon as you decide to include a hot water tap in the design you have committed to moving from a simple closed boiler design, like the Cremina, to a more complex reservoir fed boiler.  So we are sacrificing some simplicity, but it results in a product that is going to appeal to a broader audience.  For the safety conscious you are likely to prefer being able to add water to the reservoir in much the same way as you do for your car's radiator, rather than having to wait for the radiator to cool before gingerly easing open the radiator cap.

Additionally we have been advised in the strongest terms that thermal protection, as found on the Cremina, will often not trip fast enough to prevent the boiler element from burning out.  This is consistent with our experience.  So again, we will sacrifice a little simplicity and include electronic low water protection sensors that can be relied upon to turn off the boiler element as soon as the water in the boiler falls below the sensor.

The primary motivating factor for bringing the Londinium I into being is our love of levers.  Secondly, in our experience a lot of people don't ever master manual lever espresso machines; a commercial spring lever brings ease of use and consistency.  One of the design criteria for Londinium I is that everyone who wishes to make an espresso feels comfortable using the Londinium I and is rewarded with high performance espresso for their efforts.  Thirdly, it should be small enough not to dominate a small kitchen.  The single group commercial lever machines on offer all have dimensions around 500mm cube, or 20" cube if you prefer.  An espresso machine of these dimensions looks a bit out of place in most kitchens, so one of the tasks is to shrink the dimensions down as far as we can.  To address this we have used a 2.3 litre boiler in an upright position, rather than the more common horizontal position.

A small boiler paired with a large element means we can get the machine up to operating temperature rapidly.  This has a secondary benefit which is important; we want Londinium I to be something that is used everyday in your household.  With a rapid start up time we really hope to hear that you are using this machine every single day, not just at the weekends.  Londinium I will be built to take the rigours of everyday use as we really want you to get the maximum amount of enjoyment from your purchase.

Finally, although such issues are highly subjective and you may find yourself vehemently disagreeing, in purely aesthetic terms we are trying to move on from what we would call 'the stainless steel box'.  The stainless box design has served the market well for decades, but we can't help but wonder if it can't be improved on.  We're not sure you'll like what we have done, but we hope that you'll at least acknowledge that we haven't followed the crowd.

In summary the Londinium I project will bring you the ultimate single group lever espresso machine; one that makes it easy to achieve consistently exceptional espresso.