A few of months ago, I dived into the world of espresso brewing
Before anything else, I'm writing this post a couple of days after owning a more expensive machine, which allowed me to offer a comparison of their capabilities and realize their shortcomings.
Like probably everybody else, I browsed through what was offered (back then) in my neighborhood electrical appliances shops -- with a fairly limited budget of MYR 600. Presented to me were a bunch of entry-level offerings from Philips and DeLonghi.
What held me back was their portafilter (the thing attached to a handle that holds your filter basket) assemblies have a common dodgy-looking rubber ring seal -- I just couldn't imagine pushing high-pressure hot water onto that seal repetitively.
On top of that, most of the entry-level machines have flimsy grouphead (the thing you attach -- i.e. twist -- your portafilter onto before brewing) that rattles even after securing the portafilter.
Then, I looked online
After searching through the online marketplace, this particular machine caught my attention -- EUPA TSK-826B4, a 15-bar (claimed) automatic espresso machine under MYR 500 without a dodgy-looking portafilter.
Note: not super-automatic (i.e. with built-in grinder)
Some quick specifications
- Single boiler
- "Italian" 15-bar water pump
- Single, double shot pre-programmed buttons
- Steam-wand with removable turbo frother attachment
- Removable water tank
- Pre-brew infusion
- Included accessories:
- Single shot filter basket (dual wall type)
- Double shot filter basket (dual wall type)
- Milk jug (100 ml maybe, just enough to steam 2 shots worth of milk)
- Plastic scoop-tamper combination tool
- Unclogging needles
- Manual with recipe for different espresso-based drinks
Build
Most of the parts are in plastic, including the portafilter, which is painted in chrome to look metallic, but is probably made out of a mix of plastic and silicone. Filter baskets are probably some kind of rust-proof alloy.
Onto brewing!
The brewing process is pretty much like what you'd expect from other machines -- load, level, tamp, twist, press, wait, voila. My dad and I were really amazed with the resulting cup of coffee -- it tastes so much better than what you would get from Starbucks, probably owing a lot to the freshly roasted beans I bought from Taiwan.
That's exactly how I dropped into this bottomless pit -- every pack of beans of different blends and origins gives you a different flavor. Goodbye, moolahs.
The resulting espresso has crema, which indicates you're not simply brewing an Americano, but the crema amount is probably half of what you would normally expect from a machine 6 times of the price tag.
I've spent each and every morning, almost religiously trying to perfect the extraction, staring at the color and flow of the espresso and tasting it.
How about latte?
Texturing milk is another story altogether. Ah, the countless nights practicing milk-texturing with soapy water -- and ranting how they made it seem so easy on YouTube (for a very good reason, explained later) -- just to get that latex-like consistency that's optimum for pouring latte art.
The turbo frother attachment is completely useless except if you want the result to be something like a super-automatic machine -- i.e. stiff, macro foam cap on top.
Once you got the specific-to-this-machine technique nailed down, you can indeed texture milk on this machine without issues.
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| Not too shabby 'lah', pardon the big bubbles, something was wrong with the crema |
Drawbacks
You get what you paid for -- this entry-level machine is entry-level for many reasons. Here is a list of quirks I found out:
- Single boiler -- you can't texture milk while brewing your espresso, because water for steam and espresso brewing are of different temperatures.
- You can't steam milk without brewing something -- for reasons unknown, you must brew something beforehand or you'll get a very weak flow of steam.
- You can't steam milk for too long -- related to the previous point, the steam pressure will drop after you steam your second jug of milk.
- Inconsistent steam pressure -- steam pressure is inconsistent, requiring you to start steaming on the "sweet spot" time-window (explained later in tips).
- Low steam pressure -- holy shit almost everything is related to steam! Yep, after using the more expensive machine, I now truly understand why it took me so long to learn how to texture milk -- simply because the pressure is lower than what they use in YouTube.
- Fluctuating brewing temperature -- it's easy to get inconsistent brews because the boiler is controlled via on-off signals (not PID controlled), requiring you to purge a bit of water before actual brewing to get consistent temperature
- Weaker and inconsistent brewing pressure -- if you're not careful with grind-size and tamping strength, nothing will come out, and brewing pressure will be inconsistent right after you use the steam wand, requiring you to (again) purge some water.
Tip and Tricks
I've gathered some techniques after using the machine for a few months, resulting from dropping into the pitfalls presented by this machine -- you can apply them should you decided to own this machine (it's still a great entry-level machine after all)
- Purge 2 shots worth of water after warming up -- this is a rather universal tip applicable to all machines -- to get rid of stale water in the boiler from previous sessions, and specifically for this machine, to get ready for steaming.
- Purge 1 shot of water right before brewing, every time -- before you load your filter basket with coffee grounds, purge 1 shot of water from the machine to stabilize the water temperature and pressure.
- Pay attention to grind size -- grinding too fine will clog the filter and you'll get drip-coffee or nothing at all. Adjust grind-size according to flavor and crema output.
- Two scoops of beans -- I found out in general you'll need only 2 scoop (the included scoop, full, leveled) of beans for double-shot.
- Don't tamp like a gorilla -- tamping too hard will clog up the filter, especially if you use finer grind sizes, you'll get drip-coffee (again). 20 lbs of tamping pressure doesn't work well on this machine.
- Position your cup slightly outward -- this is to let the espresso flow gently through the rim of the cup to prevent big bubbles from forming in your crema (yeah, that photo up there)
- Remove the turbo frother -- seriously.
- Pay attention to steam pressure -- the steam pressure is usually weak for the first use after warming up. If it's too weak, purge steam until the light blinks, then turn it off and wait until it stops blinking, then try again. Always texture milk after you make sure the steam pressure is okay.
- Don't steam more than a jug of milk at once -- alternate between brewing and texturing milk to get a more consistent steam pressure.
- Don't panic if your milk doesn't swirl -- it's perfectly normal, really. It takes a while for the swirling to occur on this machine, so don't move the steam wand around. Position your jug flat (base of jug parallel with ground), rest the wand on the spout, nozzle slightly below milk surface, angle towards rim of jug with nozzle almost touching the rim.
Observe the sound: - "bloop bloop bloop" - nozzle too high, position the nozzle down the surface of the milk (by moving your jug, along the wand, guided by the spout of the jug)
- hissing like some bomb charging before exploding with no bubbles seen (sorry, out of vocabularies to describe) - this is probably the correct position. Tilt the jug slightly to expose the nozzle, up and until you hear a high pitched hissing sound with small bubbles forming on the milk surface, then tilt back.
How much bubbles to make depends on the milk, you'll need to go through trial and error. Don't worry about the big bubbles, this is perfectly normal for this machine -- once the milk start to swirl, stop producing more bubbles and concentrate on eliminating the bubbles. - Base of jug must be flat -- or you'll get stiff foam on top and plain milk for the rest.
Conclusions
This is a great machine for curious people to start-out espresso brewing (and see what the bandwagon is about) with a hard-to-beat price (China powerrrrrr) -- it simply blows the competitions out of water with 1/2 the price. You'll never want to drink coffee from drip coffee machines (or Starbucks), or instant coffee, EVER.
If you have enough budget, then you might want to consider Welhome WPM-KD210S2 instead, which addresses all of the shortcomings listen here with its PID-controlled twin-pump-twin-thermoblock (TPTT) design and commercial-grade portafilter. I'm currently a happy owner of one :P
If your budget is even higher, I've heard good reviews of Breville BE920XL (cool LCD screen bruh).
