I’ve had this machine for over a year now and here are some of the issues I’ve seen:
1. After the machine has gone into standby, it seems to delay the pre-infusion phase. Meaning I could start pulling a shot but it takes longer as there’s a delay in the water. The fix is that after being in standby, I simply initiate an extraction without the portafilter and get the water flowing. Then I place the portafilter and pull a shot.
2. Occasionally the portafilter basket dislodges from the portafilter as I’m removing the portafilter from the machine. I believe I may have just received a looser spring…? I keep the machine very clean/flush after every shot and use the acidic cleaner regularly so I believed the issue is with the spring itself.
3. The steam wand on my machine is the newer shorter “not cool touch” variety. My boyfriend has an earlier model Popup where they were installing much longer but cool touch variety wand. I much prefer my shorter wand as otherwise it is really cumbersome to get your pitcher in/out from under the wand! Both machines however have the same finicky steaming action (see next)
4. Frothing took me forever to master!! What is shown on YouTube for frothing does NOT work with this frother. After a million cappuccinos, what I finally realized is, yes you must get a a good consistent vortex going and yes you should angle the wand in the pitcher, but being that the wand is rather short, you need to use the smaller sized pitcher for frothing, a maximum of 120ml or so. However the most important frothing suggestion I can give is to keep the frothing tip at the surface of the milk for the entire time of frothing, until the end when submerging the tip will help blend the foam/milk mixture. If you submerge the tip too far below the surface of the milk, you will end up with hot milk—no foam!! It’s as if the steam is too powerful for this wand…? I don’t know; all i know is once I corrected this tiny but important issue, I had consistently excellent foam/steamed milk.
5. For back to back cappuccinos, the problem isn’t waiting for the machine to reach steaming/frothing milk temp. The problem is if you make one cappuccino (extract then froth milk) there is quite a delay in getting the machine temp back DOWN to extraction temp. You can flush/release the excess steam but it is quite a flush of steam and it still needs some time to get the temp back down. It takes maybe 5 min to cool down… ? The best way I found to make two cappuccinos is to extract both drinks back to back, and then froth the milk, even froth in two batches so there’s enough milk. If you’re efficient (also preheat your cups with hot water) then the cappuccinos won’t be terribly cold. But it’s doable to make two cappuccinos at a time. If I’m making 3-4 cappuccinos then it’s quite cumbersome and for those folks if they are routinely going to make multiple cappuccinos, this might not be the right machine for you. For me, where I’m making myself a cappuccino or an espresso or maybe an additional one it’s the perfect machine for me.
All in all, I would buy this machine again. It has a more than sufficient water tank, which is easily accessible for filling which is great!. The machine is compact enough for a kitchen that already has plenty of appliances and limited counter space. It’s light enough to move around if needed (one of my criteria at the time of purchase)
It’s been a great machine!
