We think that the old adage of the bad carpenter always blaming his tools is alive and well in the world of espresso.  Learn to get the best from what you have.  The key elements are checking the pressure-stat on your espresso machine is set at the correct temperature and securing some carefully roasted and fresh coffee beans.

Then, the tip;

From our sales patterns we can see that a lot of you by 1 bag of this and 1 bag of that.  This is holding you back.

We can not emphasise enough the importance of running the same coffee for say, at least a month, and really developing an intuitive feel for the coffee.  After a couple of weeks you shouldn't be weighing anything or using any kind of instrumentation.  You should find yourself developing an intuitive feel for the coffee.  A feel for the right amount, a feel for the correct grind for the climatic conditions of the day, and so on.  This point was really driven home to me with a visit to Bosco lever espresso machines in Napoli on Wednesday this week.  They didn't have a set of scales in the building, but they intuitively knew the right amount of coffee to load into the portafilter, they knew the correct amount of tamp pressure, and so on.  Why? How? Well they just run the same coffee week in, week out.

I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't develop your palette and try different coffees, but spend a month with each one to really develop your intuition and feeling with the coffee.  You will be the beneficiary as the quality of your espresso will soar if you spend more time with one roast rather than doing 250g of this, then 250g of that.  250g is nothing.

To help you our pricing structure rewards you if you buy multiple bags of the same coffee as we know the customers that buy in this manner are the most discerning espresso drinkers.

Try our suggestion, you might be surprised at how good you get if you just 'stick with the knitting' for a while rather than bouncing from roast to roast and never really getting the best out of anything, concluding that your equipment must be at fault.