Current Espresso Machines and Grinders

Since their 'invention" around the early 1900's, many machines have been designed to created to produce espresso. While there are multiple version currently in existence, many of the machines share the same common design elements.

Varying the fineness of the grind, the amount of pressure used to tamp the grinds, or the pressure itself can be used to vary the taste of the espresso.

An espresso machine may also have a steam wand which is used to steam and froth milk for beverages such as the cappuccino and latte.

As mentioned, many machines share common elements, and fall roughly into 4 'main' categories:

Steam

Piston

Pump

Air-Pump

At present, my current machines all fall into the 'Piston-driven' category

The piston, or lever, driven machine was developed in Italy in 1945 by Achille Gaggia, founder of espresso machine manufacturer Gaggia. The design generically uses a lever, pumped by the operator, to pressurize hot water and send it through the coffee grinds. The act of producing a shot of espresso is colloquially termed pulling a shot, because these lever-style espresso machines required pulling a long handle to produce a shot.

There are two types of lever machines

Manual piston (La Cara's, La Graziella and Italianstyle CE14).

With the manual piston, the operator directly pushes the water through the grounds

Spring piston (La Riviera).

In the spring piston design, the operator works to tension a spring, which then delivers the pressure for the espresso (usually 8 to 10 bar).

The website will hopefully document the current machines I have, and detail any restoration work I do on the machines - While I try to capture all of the main work, I realizes there will be steps that appear to be missing to others - If you have any questions, please send me an email and I will try to answer your questions as best I can -

Just a side note, and a little piece of coffee related trivia, The modern day espresso street vending cart evolved from a Boeing Company shuttle cart, purchased from surplus, and was first utilized to serve people espresso at an arts and crafts fair in Edmonds, Washington, my current home town.