/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Eat a piece of fruit once in your life, amerilards.

>2016
>eating with your hands
What are you, an Indian?

>>6517838
Save your money, you won't find a good machine for 100-200 dollars. At most you can find something sold at a discount that still only manages to make something vaguely reminiscent of espresso, i.e. shit crema, no depth of flavor. Good machines are unfortunately still fairly expensive.

If you're okay with barely-passable-but-not-great espresso, you could find a machine that goes for 200-300. For a decent machine you're looking for an at least 300-400 price tag - for a good machine, 400+. Once you get to machines that go for 600-800 you're starting to reach to the point of diminishing returns where it gets difficult to taste the difference from cafe or restaurant grade espresso, provided your technique is good (i.e. you know how to tamp and use the proper grind size).

Also, unless you get one of those automatic machines with an integrated grinder (don't), you'll need to buy a separate coffee grinder. You are using freshly ground coffee, right? Good ones will run for at least a couple of hundred dollars. You definitely don't want to save on the grinder if you're already paying a lot for the machine, since the quality of the grind is just as important as the quality of the brewing.

If you're on a budget, get a French press or an Aeropress, a hand-cranked grinder and an accurate scale. You can probably get all of that for below 100 dollars.

>>6518451
2/10 got me to reply