Housewares Reviews

First of all....

CONS

- Neither it makes good espresso or cappucino with its present design (so, if this what you want it for...DON'T BUY IT)
- does not heat up your espresso or coffee with the steamer / frother, it is a piece of junk
- very hard to turn the knob

Pros

- makes excellent lattes
- no need for filters

But if you like strong coffee (lighter than espresso) or caffe latte (adding milk to the brew) this does a very good job. Better than all the other coffee machines I have used ($15 - $25 ones you find at walmart)

My wife likes only lattes (with stong brew and milk), she never used to like it from any other coffee maker. But this was an instant hit with her.

One hint - you do have to REGRIND the coffee powder you buy off the shelf to get the thick strong brew. This is the way to check it - If the coffee drips ar more than half a cup in one minute, your powder is too coarse, you need a finer grind.

This makes excellent Madras Kaapi (might help any south Indian from tamilnadu)

I picked this product up at a local store for mid $20's after getting sick of making my coffee with a stove top espresso machine. I couldn't see spending $100+ for something conceptually as simple as an espresso machine. I know someone who got a simple Krupps machine for about $40 years ago and it still works just great. But since I couldn't find anything else in the sub $40 range, I settled on this one.

It makes a fine cup of coffee if you just want to use prepackaged coffee grinds or you use a basic coarse to medium grind. BUT, when I tried to use a very fine grained "espresso" grind on my beans, almost nothing came out. It seems that too fine a grind stops up the filter holes and the machine just doesn't have the oomph to force the water/steam through.

Also, it does suffer from
- a very difficult to turn knob (don't get this product if you have arthritis)
- a caraf lid that won't stay on let alone stay properly oriented

So basically, it's good for making a medium to fairly strong cup of coffee (by my subjective measure), but if you really want something strong and sludgy, this machine won't do the trick unless you want to wait for an hour for it to eventually push enough liquid through.

I guess now I understand why espresso machines aren't cheap. Years of using a really simple stovetop espresso maker led me to believe that they're really simple machines. But perhaps when you try to package it up as an appliance it isn't so straight forward.

I have read so many negative reviews of this wonderful little moka machine, I must put in my 2 cents. First, this is a stream machine, meaning it makes moka not espresso. If you like Bialetti but want cappuccino instead of cafe latte, then this is perfect. The grind must be close to espresso, finer than for Bialetti, and you must tamp it down, but no tamper included. There is only 1 knob, yes it is stiff, but i don't have arthritis. The round design makes it easy to handle even though it is very light. It descales with...vinegar! How about that, actually a traditional machine. The panarello works, just put in extra "cup" of water for steaming. Make 2 "cups", not 1 or 4, and always start with cold machine, or use very, very cold water. Stop the brewing as soon as moka hits 2 "cups" or it starts to steam instead of brew, then switch the knob to steam for the milk. If you don't, coffee will taste slightly burned. I have owned espresso and moka machines from USD5 to USD1,000 over a period of 40 years. If you like moka, don't waste money on anything more expensive. But, like any machine, read the manual, and experiment if things don't work the way you want. Finally, garbage in garbage out. If you want great cappuccino, use good organic coffee and organic milk.