The £299 Aldi Espresso Machine - How Bad Could It Be?
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- Published on Apr 8, 2020
- I'm not going to link to the machine, because I think that encourages the wrong sort of thing.
Coffee Giveaway: gleam.io/YcQCj/coffee-giveaway-7
Patreon: www.patreon.com/jameshoffmann
Edited by Michael Losada
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He's a true barista - he doesnt only roast beans, he roasts the whole mashine
m'shine
Machine
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Everyone is reading this in a Toronto accent right? Cause I sure an
"This is offensive to me as a coffee machine"
There we have it! He has, at long last, revealed that he is not human, and is in fact a coffe machine.
ESP-1000
Very clever
I always had a feeling
error 418...
@Tranquilo "His" pronouns?
There are nuclear reactors being run more sloppily than this man’s morning coffee.
🤣
Oy vey, that's not terrifying at all.
@tygonmaster well that joke went wayyy over your head
@James Wallace Nor do nuclear reactors. Not...really. Overheat and melt due to a failure of the cooling measures more often.
RBMK coffee machines don’t explode.
Im a little surprised at how many dislikes this video has. There are plenty of ways to make coffee cheaply that don’t suck that James is very supportive of. It’s not a snobbery thing, it’s a ready-made e-waste garbage machine thing.
Using the aforementioned extension, currently sitting at 39k to the 10k it was frozen at when dislikes were made hidden.
You can install an add-on to your browser that'll return the dislike count. Currently it's 37K likes to 10K dislikes. We had to replace a bean to cup machine in 2020 and would've considered this machine at the time. So glad we got a Sage instead.
Because of this comment, TheXvid removed the ability to see dislikes. I hope you're happy.
Last time I checked before TheXvid goes ape mode, it was around 120k. This video really blowed up the algorithme, and many, many people mistaken James Hoffman as a snob aristocrate. Which obviously he is not but I agree to some extent that "he look like it" if this is the only video one have seen about James
@clause’s perseverance In his video about the 17 GBP coffee brewer from Aldi he hinted at this video again and the like to dislike count was about 33k to 10k back then. So pretty controversial in comparison to most of his other videos. 😅
the man makes a very valid point about environmental issues caused by our species wasting resources on absolute garbage like this
@micho That has nothing to do with capitalism. It's the stupidity of the average consumer.
@Rokas Černiauskas It's as much the problem of the people, not just the companies. Just talk to your friends and other people you know, buying useless crap from aldi is trendy and most people do not think for more than 2 seconds about waste, product quality, manufacturing location or anything like that. Most people buy incredibly mass-produced clothing, created with inorganic cotton or even worse, polyester (that does not bio degrade and eventually ends up in our water). People don't want to spend $80 on a good shirt made with sustainable materials, by a smaller business from their own country. People are so used to a shirt being $10, that the $80 shirt seems like a rip-off, even when that's not the case. It's just how people think these days. They don't want an $800+ coffee machine when aldi has one for half of that; only the price matters to a lot of people.
@Tim I think you utterly missed my point... I'm all for sustainability regarding Mother Earth.
@Mindboggle100 literally every "lifestyle" impacts the environment. Dismissing the impacts of unnecessary e-waste simply because everyone has a proportional share of the impacts from a server farm is disingenuous and in bad faith. Do better.
This man is somewhere between 20 and 70 years old
Hair is odd colour. Well spoken, bit obsessed.
@Drazen Babich Antoxidants don't slow down overall metabolism. They do what their name suggests. They reduce ageing-processes that are caused by unwanted oxidative processes.
Bruh 💀
Fernando Partridge? The offspring of Alan Partridge
16 and 90, actually
The thing that I like about james is that he roasts this machine but tells you that you can get better coffee from a cheap mocha pot, instead of telling you to buy a more expensive machine 😂
I love my moka pot.
*moka pot
Yeah I don’t have espresso machine money sitting around or really more the issue is apartment with enough space for an espresso machine money, but I love my moka pot. Totally scratches the itch for delicious coffee stronger than drip.
@Allah Jonés EminEmfowar What? No way
“This is why we have climate change” - pretty damning summary of a coffee machine review
That pivot caught me off guard and was pure gold
*sips instant nescafe" ah yes, what an inferior machine
boycott Nestle
😂
@Ben Booth uh... That's complete bs, nothing about that is correct.
And that's fine if you enjoy nescafe, but he bought an espresso machine to make good espresso. He didn't get that, so he has every right to be mad.
Fucking brilliant how they built in a grinder than can grind coffee magnitudes finer than the machine can handle for brewing. It's like they put a bugatti gearbox in a toyota aygo; if you go above 3rd gear your car actually starts slowing down 😂
@Tommy The engineers who designed this machine have probably never drank espresso.
@Khoa Nguyen Yeah this machine can't do those beans, it shouldn't offer the ability to handle those beans
Some beans need finer grind than others.
And it will straight up implode in 4th gear😂😂😂😂😂
it reminded me of a stupid car build too
The seething anger being filtered through a stiff British upper lip is actually a great visual metaphor for espresso
ah yes, james hoffmann at 9 bars of pressure
"I hate this stupid machine."
"This is offensive to me."
"Terrible, terrible espresso of terribleness."
James is amazing😆😆😆
*Everything I hoped it would be. I love the simplicity of this Keurig **MyBest.Kitchen** I’ve had the old school “original “ keurig for forever, I decided to upgrade to buttons lol. Same great quality without having to measure your water, this keurig does all the thinking for you. I also love not having to put water into the machine every time I want to use it. Simple and perfect 👌🏾*
I've watched this now four times. It's just fun to watch James Hoffman completely destroy a product.
James: Our 17 grams yielded 74 grams of liquid.
Me: Wow, that's pretty good.
James: So of course we are not drinking that one!
Me: OF COURSE WE ARE NOT! THAT'S DISGUSTING!
@Erectoralporicy well he was the baristas world champion so he would definitely know
@Erectoralporicy we're talking about a £299 espresso machine that can't even pull a shot at the grind size you need for espresso of course it's gonna be easy to distinguish from espresso made properly lol
@Peter Vansan I'd argue that it is under extracted also. If the water runs through it that quickly you're not going to extract much from it. You're going to have 74 g of sour tasting watery mud. Not drinkable.
17 to 74 is overextracted to hell
@Erectoralporicy He's not at all pretentious. Is it that he speaks proper English but makes you feel that he's pretentious? Or is it that he is willing to evaluate something fairly? This machine is a waste of money. If someone buys it they've thrown away a big chunk of money that they could have used to buy something a tenth of the price that would make them good coffee. It offends James that a company puts time into manufacturing something that is junk. It's a waste of material, resources and most importantly money from people who can least afford to lose that money.
It's actually the opposite of pretentious. If he were pretentious he would tell people to spend 3 or 4 times the money and buy something good. He recognizes that you can make excellent coffee without a machine. If you spend several hundred dollars on machine like this you've thrown the money away and that makes him angry as well it should.
Well done mate, you deserve a prize for persisting for so long with it, and for the wonderful roasting you gave it! 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for that, it was a nice reality check and a good laugh!
Thank you. This is the correct response to a bad product. Badly designed products are unethical.
I'd be afraid that thing would blow up. High pressure devices are not something you want cheaply made.
The use of the cake's resistance to regulate pressure probably would make users think their ability to tamp, the grind size they chose or anything at their end is the problem, not the machine's. It makes for a frustrating experience.
Yes, this is why I’m just as mad as James. I have been in the position to have a cheap espresso machine and I wasted hours of my life thinking I was too dumb to make a good drink. I feel for the people scammed by this grocery store chain and blaming themselves while the CEO laughs all the way to the bank.
James: fills the bean hopper to the top
Everyone: that's optimistic
I dare someone who owns this machine and thinks it good to post a comment. 😆
The hoppers are designed to be full, they need the headspace pressure for bean contact on the grinder. Might have been in one of James other videos. The term for a low fill when the beans don’t make contact is called popcorning
James I'm new to the channel could u please review the brevile bambino plus please. I know us not a fancy machine but i trust ur honest opinions on it.
I am not alone ! :D
@Rhys Moore That's garbage on garbage.
I don't like coffee but watching a man critique a poor quality coffee machine offers endless entertainment. Thank you.
James makes a fair point about the wasting of materials etc just to manufacture a subpar product, seemingly for the heck of it
Am I the only guy who suspects the dislikes came from Aldi social media team? James gave his usual honest + professional review and the comments here siding James.
It’s bloody 299 pound machine. Better spend well than wasting it imo. 🤷♂️
That or people who have been assigned 'aldi wine drinkers' by the algorithm got this shoved in their face heard James doesn't shop there, and disliked
First of all, thanks for the informative video I agree with you definitely!
We bought the same machine on eBay one week ago and I have to say…it’s such a horrible thing! Since we bought it we still can’t find out how to make a proper portion of coffee. I’m just exhausted…😓
Thanks for your effort, James, to bring us these video, with all the pro's but also the con's.... My feeling is, our speciality coffee beans, in South Africa are just too expensive to waste on a cheap coffee machine and equipment. Thanks again.
£299 sounds extremely expensive for something youd fish at Aldi
The 9k dislikes are the people who bought the espresso machine
@Cody Chasteen How is James pretentious? He's warning about a product that cannot do its job
I think people just hate other pretentious people. It's ridiculous and not needed. People who get snobby about coffee like this, have such a disconnect from the world. It's pretty hilarious
@MrApacis You can't expect logic from peoples who buy Aldi WIne for sure lmaoo.
and enjoyed the espresso ;)
It's the Aldi wine people
He mentioned the moka pot and I thought of my 2 cup brikka. That thing makes strong but tasty coffee that is better than any mediocre espresso shot. I like my bialetti express all the same, but the brikka brews coffee with more espresso like characters and I`ve had people who only drink coffee with milk and sugar actually liking and enjoying a double shot (~70ml) of brikka brewed coffee.
I need to see more videos of James using horrible coffee machines... this has to be a new thing. This changed my life
I know!
Check out yhe IKEA coffee paraphernalia video 😂
@RiotPunch and
Notice how James liked every comments above and below yours... And yet you got more upvotes from us than most of them^^
It's delightful watching an expert on a subject analyze a product thoroughly and mercilessly like this.
@Marl Karx why don’t you tell us what this mistake is? He’s pretty well regarded so I’m genuinely curious what mistake he seems to be making.
@Sonny Rynsaard OK bud. I realised I've stumbled into Elon Musk type love fest. Leave ya to it.
@Marl Karx the only error in front of me is you
@Sonny Rynsaard it's right in front of you.
@Marl Karx so are you gonna elaborate or just pretend you know better than an acknowledged 'champion'?
I have not laughed this hard watching a review in a long time. Legend!
This felt surprisingly close to the same reaction my father had when i offered him for christmas a Lidl Parkside battery chainsaw when he always used religiously his 50cc Husqvarna
@chris For now. One more generational leap in battery tech and all these small-engine internal combustion appliances are dead. Even now, I couldn't go back to a 4-stroke lawnmower, it's just so much more convenient to press-and-go on the electric. And two-stroke? Fuggedabowdid!
Husqvarna is one of the tops, stil is good too.
@Armchair General yes I get that. But if you ever want to sell the battery c/s will be worth nothing and a good quality hardly use c/s is worth a fortune
@chris I bought a DeWalt 18v chainsaw a couple of years ago and it's replaced my old Stihl in my recovery truck. Obviously I'm not a professional lumberjack the amount of times I need to use a chainsaw in a year I can count on one hand since I only need it when someone has crashed a car in such a way I need to cut branches or whole trees to get it out.
sorry stihl chain saw every time ha ha
Probably my favourity review - ever. That includes every Radiohead AND Randy Newman review done by Pitchfork. So much hate and truth and love for mocca pods. Adequately satisfied, thank you.
In fairness to some of the exterior design frustrations (grinder "pincers" and portafilter locking clearance), most users won't be operating it from behind with their left hand.
Always in fairness the double espresso dose should be 14/15 grams not 17.5, too much powder
@Seb K - Exactly. If you're going to position yourself as some sort of authority ("I'm a former barista") and then *_incorrectly_* start criticizing a World Champion barista (not even mentioning calling tamping; 'tapping') then you can expect some snarky remarks back.
Also the Starbucks machines are fully automatic; there's no tamping going on. They've got no time for that. You just press a button for the number of shots and the machine does all the work. At least at the regular stores.
Anyone reading this a year later. The guy who said "As a former barista I barely tapped the espresso grind" wasn't emphasising he was a barista once upon a time, he was saying that previously when he worked as a barista, he didn't tamp the espresso much. The people in the comments just failed to understand the sentence correctly :L
@Nubianbeautyandlove You should check your ego at the door. We should all be thankful you are a former barista now...
Nubianbeautyandlove oh please don’t apologize to trolls. It encourages them even though courage has nothing to do with it. Thanking Herry Izzard was the right thing to do. I tend to agree to the general comments that James was a little unfair. Not criticizing his conclusion about making good espresso or the general performance of the grinder but he acted like some of the problems the machine presented didn’t exist elsewhere. This may not have been his intent.
I’m the owner of a Breville (Sage) Barista Pro and can provide some of the same comments. I grind 18g and have never been able to fill the porta-filtre without stopping half way through to adjust the coffee so that most of what I’ve ground stays in the filter basket. Not much better. The connical burrs in the Pro’s grinder aren’t that great and don’t tell me it’s because they are conical to save space. It’s because they are randomly able to give an inconsistant grind. They needs to be constantly cleaned because of the unground bits and pieces that stay inside the grinder. I find after four or five double shots, there is a pile of ground coffee sitting on the drip tray. Also, with all the adjustable repeatable parameters that the brain of this machine offers, the loss of the pressure gauge from the express is a mistake. At least with this machine, James had a pressure gauge to be able to read and arrive at his conclusion It would have been easy to add this in with a readout on the display of the Pro. Finally, the finish is plastic clad stainless steal (s.s.). I don’t know where or how they produced this but it’s the first time I’ve seen s.s. so cheap that it actually stains and won’t come clean. The drip tray which is solid stainless, in less than six months, has been worn down by just sliding cup bottoms on it. After owning a Rancilio for more than twenty years, I find it’s stainless is spotless and scratchless. Is this machine better in this respect. It’s not it’s thickness but it’s quality that’s the problem. I keep being told it’s a lot of machine for the price and I agree but there is so little stainless on my machine that they could have done better. They should have also maybe put out a few models with different options. I would have payed more for better s.s., better burrs and a pressure reading on the controls. So you see if one really wants to teardown a machine, it’s easily done and I’m not even a expert. What’s harder is to explain why a better machine would be better or not. When American Test Kitchen tested machines from the cheapest to the more expensive, they could not find much of a difference in the espresso results after blind tasting by over forty expert and novices alike, so let’s try to keep the espresso hype to a minimum. I have nothing against people who will spend 5000$ for an espresso machine but let us not kid ourselves it isn’t necessary. This is marketing gone rampent. The reason that Italian machines are so well built is because they meet the needs of a typical Italian coffee shop that needs to quickly put out hundreds of shots a day. At a regular morning coffee shop, in the Stazioni Termini Roma, you will get a great espresso for 1.25€ and despite the line-up in under a minute wait. It’s incredible but you don’t need to do this in your kitchen. I for one though enjoy listening to James’ posts. Entertaining and informative.
I use this machine, and i have to say
for the first 2-3 weeks, i found it hard, to get good results, not really hard, but not easy also.
but after that, i started to try different ways, and it is a really good machine. Of course, not the best, but for the money, it IS good.
I made delicious espressos with it, even with light roasts, overheat with steam, and it is working just fine.
but for darker roasts, it is really good.
The steam also. If you are patient, it makes perfect, yes, perfect milk texture.
So, anyone who did not try this, but want to, give it a try, and be a little patient, it works really good.
I don't really care for coffee over and above how quickly I can make it, but this is fascinating. The fact I'm unable to turn off a video about something I don't really care too much for other than convenience factor and know very little about is testament to your presenting ability. 10/10, subscribed.
Thanks James, this was by far THE Best review of cheap inexperienced companies espresso machine. Producing espresso machine is not a joke i was always wondering how these cheap machines with standard 58mm portafilter work. I mean if anyone wants to spend les than 200£ , just bye a Flair or Delonghi , it would be useable at least
Sir, you are by far the best product reviewer I've ever seen on TheXvid. You tell it like it is!
I just watched 13 minutes of a man roasting a coffee machine and I don't regret it 😂
I do regret it lolol
He went past second crack for sure.
That was a dark roast
🤣
*French* roasted it
Strangely I'm intrigued to know if the pressure problem was fixed, would it be a decent combo unit, and if they did fix it in a V2 release would it then be worth it for the price?
I wish he had delved a little more into the grind quality and burr construction.
If it is a capable espresso grinder then that alone is pretty hilarious to me considering it would be one of the extremely few at that price range. (electric)
Imagine some bizarre scenario where you walk into someone's house and there's 2 espresso machines and you ask why and they reply, "oh this one I just got for the grinder".
James, Love the channel. What do you recommend as a great starter setup? I'm thinking breville bambino plus 1zpresso jmax to get my feet wet. Then I can upgrade the bambino down the line, and the grinder further down the line. Would that be a decent starting point?
This was the first video I ever saw of yours and coincidentally my official entry into the world of specialty coffee. Wish I could Like it multiple times.
I'm curious, have you ever reviewed machines like dolce gusto or tassimo? They have the one big downside that you can't use your own coffee beans but given they are a fraction of the price sound like they would be a much better investment than this machine, especially now that there's a variety of choices in pods
Color me oblivious, but I never thought of James as a snob…but I am here for it! Didn’t know I could have so many laughs watching a review of a coffee machine…James: “Cheap bad coffee machine = Climate Change”. Me: “It all kakes sense now”. 😂
With the amount of coffee beans you filled in, the value of the machine just doubled 😂😂😂
Him and that grinder!!! Lol 😂 I like your reviews! Very accurate and detailed but funny as hell! Thank you! I may have fallen for this at Aldi!! I got taken by GEVI. I’m looking for something reasonably priced but actually works! This machine is part of the reason for climate change!! I’m dying laughing!
I had a similar experience with another coffee machine. Pretty much exactly the same result as this. Turned out that the machine was very fussy when it came to the level of the tamping. If it was slightly uneven then it would produce a poor espresso but now that I pay attention to the level and try to get it as even as possible it produces much better espresso. The dead giveaway of an uneven tamp is when you see your espresso pour come out one side before the other and that's exactly what happens in this video.
Has anyone seen James enjoying a cup of coffee? At this point I really doubt that he even likes coffee.
@Joseph Priestley ❤️
Coffee to James seems like the magic unicorn, always striving to find it but never getting to see it. For me there are some base standards that must be met, but I am far from snobbish. As long as the beans are fresh and the ratio is right (pour-over, espresso, whatever) I am happy.
@Dušan Barlík I get it, but are you talking about like latte art or some other specialties? What I mainly do is as you described it. But those machines u talk about also require to first grind your coffee and then make it '(semi-automatic) that seems like a lot of work to me :p anyway I enjoy milk drinks with coffee but mainly cold I prefer, mostly I even buy those in the supermarket, somehow I can't get mine right with the good taste I like. But that might not be specific the taste of coffee, which I didn't really ever like lol, just learned to drink it.
@Neel Beke how to explain that you are looking at a vastly different perception of value.... "the best coffee" and "ALL" milk specialties... for that price you can get a hand lever that will, after right practice, crap on almost everything DeLonghi has ever produced or is going to in the near future, the automatics for sure.
But if all you want is pull solid coffee and the occasional striped milk+foam in a tall glass automatically, then by all means enjoy.
@SumRose79 To describe it as life changing seems to amuse my friends, but it has been true! Pulling a shot has been something to look forward to at the moment during difficult lockdown times.
I find it rather expensive, at LIDL I've found the same machine for 75 euros. I have at home a philips EP2220/10 for which I paid 243 GBP and is a true coffee machine.
The Gordan Ramsay of coffee. Give him a show called "Cafe Nightmares".
"Finally some good fucking coffee"
Instead of yelling he just whispers....
"No..!"
And
"I'm not enjoying your attempt at good espresso if I'm being honest"
Throw in some overly dramatic music.
@Mr Smith’s World Good one!
NesCafe Nightmares
I had this machine, the steam was amazing. But i have the same issue with the pressure with finer coffee, usually i used the griender around 7, and go with 30s brew. Thankfully it had programable button. So yeah i dont really know coffee and just starting to learn. I dont hate it, but i will replace it with a better one for sure
I got a reconditioned Sage barista pro espresso machine for £350 with a 2 year warranty.
I'd feel nervous boiling an egg for this dude
can imagine him like "this is insulting to me as an egg"
Imagine working as a barista and this guy comes in. Apparently one barista just said "Oh no, not you" and bolted
You can definitely easily fuck up a boiled egg
Sensational 🤣
You should be nervous, steaming is the best way to cook your egg 🙄
What’s so funny is after a few months of trial and error I’ve landed on exactly what you said ( a mocha pot and one of those Electric milk frother whisk things) Unfortunately that was after spending quite a bit of money on other things
no wonder it's bad if it's an ambiano. tried a filter coffee machine by them and it was god awful, took 8 cups of water before it would start dripping into the cup
As a store manager for Aldi, I apologise for this machine's existence.
Absolutely dreadful! I am outraged just looking at it! They ought to be ashamed quite frankly. Unbelievable.
As someone who has never used an espresso machine, I'd have assumed the max fill line was pre-compression. Maybe that's why the pressure was high, it expected a thinner puck?
I think this is, hands down, my favourite product review 😂
So surprised about the like to dislike ratio. When James Hoffmann talks down on something, it really means it's something you should never use your own dime on it.
@J H he's designed machines over 10x the price of this and used ones just over 1/10th the price. I'm pretty the world batista champion has got the credentials to use and accurately critique any espresso machine he comes across
@J H Becuase if you like espresso this machine is a huge waste of money because it's fundamentally flawed lol
@J H omg you have never had espresso have you
Maybe it's his character
This is what I experienced with my old sunbeam twin thermoblock. Sure it had two thermoblocks but everything about the pour quality was the same as this one! Argh I just thought I was the dumb one 😂
Aldi: Releases espresso machine
James: This is why we have climate change issues
He's not completely wrong. Producing products that are going to quickly end up in a landfill... especially complicated ones like this is a problem.
@Kris You can't blame consumers for their behavior, because their behavior is influenced by companies and the ways they commercialize their products. Apple and Samsung, for instance, make a very big show about revealing their new smartphone every year, which creates this innate desire for many people to celebrate this new phone like it announces a new year.
Some people are susceptible to hypes, or they even know it's bad for the environment but just buy it anyway for other reasons like peer pressure, so you can't dumb down a cultural problem, this obsession with new and exciting things, to just consumers. Everyone is involved.
It's also a mindset that has permeated everything we do, consumerism has become a lifestyle for many of us. We're always being encouraged to look for new things and conquer the world like it's a personal achievement, with the least amount of effort required, because we already work so hard and we have earned it. We pity ourselves so much we don't care that our phones are tainted with child labour and Chinese slaves, we don't care our chocolate is unsustainable despite the froggy on the packaging telling us it's all right. We don't care our fast food is bulldozing rainforests, who could deny that soylent taste? Why should we care about all these problems we don't have anything to say about if our lives are already so hard? We're aristocrats pretending to carry all the pains our slaves have to go through to provide us with riches. We're a culture that produces superstitious snobs and people here complain this guy is a passionate snob because he knows what makes a good cup of coffee and quite eloquently makes the statement that companies producing trash products aren't being held accountable for the terrible destruction they're causing for the sake of profit. Being productive is a higher value than being creative, being profitable is more important than being sustainable, if people don't force this change, there is little hope for our culture to survive.
*wait, that's illegal*
Kris Konsap the suppliers are as much at fault as the demanders. If anything, they’re worse because they’re offering a substandard product to unsuspecting consumers who don’t know any better. Back when stuff was harder and more expensive to make, you knew you were getting something decent. Now, you see something cheap and you think, this must be okay; it’s not. I personally would research something like this product before buying, but many people don’t. It’s not them who are exclusively at fault for not doing their research
I’ve watched it again and it’s still entertaining. I think they did not expect it would fall on your hands, their customers wouldn’t know how or where to test it if they could tell the difference from instant.
"Anyone who's able to withdraw their portafilter without spilling coffee is a jedi master of sorts." Facts.
Apart from the machine, Aldi has been actually pretty amazing in any country I have lived
Their wines are often very well reviewed, better than other shops. Aldi and Lidl have buying power and low overheads.
11:32 I agree with that on so many levels and there are so many circumstances where I see products that make me feel exactly like that.
It’s funny when non specialty coffee drinkers find James’ videos and just automatically think he’s this stuck up dude when in reality he’s one of the genuinely great guys in the industry
@Iceman 11 he really isn’t though
he is stuck up
@Matt ahh. My apologies
@Chris I'm not talking about him I'm taking about the guy raging in the comments
@Matt I don’t think that’s particularly fair. James won the World Barista Championship in 2007, and is an owner of Square Mile Roastery (roasters?). He has plenty of videos going over how to make great coffee on a low budget (you can get a Gaggia classic for about £250 on eBay, and I saw in another comment that this machine was around £300 - not sure if that’s correct). So, I don’t think he’s trying to “justify” his expensive purchases
You’re on point about products like this and their environmental impact. Our species is screwed in the head. Doubly so, because we produce cheap crap and because we buy cheap crap, knowing full well what the cost to our planet is.
Good on ya, James!
Sometimes shops like Aldi can be good because they really put a lot of pressure onto manufacturers and just buy it really really cheap and a high quantity from them and than put a cheap rebranding on it.
If you happen to find something that comes out of the same factory as a well known good machine you are good to go.
But yeah there is also a lot of crap in Aldi etc.
Surprisingly, the coffee beans sold at my local ALDI are of decent quality and inexpensive too ($14/kg), much better than those you can get from other supermarkets.
With every ounce of my being - I doubt that.
I keep watching this on and on,
And i feel terribly sorry for what you've gone through with that piece of scrap 🤧
This is by far the angriest I've ever seen James. I want more.
Do the Mr. Coffee Steam Espresso maker next. It's a $50 (USD) machine that only has one knob on the side for a control (so at least it won't get into a positive feedback loop...I hope?).
It's so cheap I will personally send you one with absolutely no strings attached if you don't want to spend your money
"Steam espresso" is a misnomer. Those machines only produce 2 bars of pressure, and espresso requires 9-11 bars. Plus, it's ridiculous how you have to wait 20 minutes for it to depressurize before you could make a second cup! LOL
@Mapobapo Doufu I've owned one. You're exactly right; it's an automatic Moka pot with a (somewhat frustrating) steam wand attached.
Tim Crocker i actually do use pressurized baskets. I picked some up at goodwill and they happened to fit. I think my most drinkable shots come from putting around 7g finely ground coffee in the "1 cup" basket without tamping at all. I try to preinfuse too
armando, the best descaler is citric acid. expensive descalers (dishwashers, coffee machines etc) are typically citric acid, but in very tiny print or on a website somewhere. cheap citric acid in the supermarket baking section is the same thing. you can use it hot and strong without harming most metal
@David Williams have you thought of fitting a pressurized basket? these issues of extreme grind sensitivity are what i've seen when i swapped a pressurized basket for a non-pressure one. (it made superior coffee on the occasions i nailed the grind and tamp.) afaikt 16 bar is too high for unpressurized ... the grind must take the brunt of that force, so the grind required to control the flow is right on the edge of blocking it. i can't stop wondering whether it was properly designed for one basket, but marketing thought it would be great to go with the other type
This man knows what he likes, and he likes good espresso.
Surprised the grind AND the amount was changed between tries. I think I would have rather changed one parameter at a time.
This is the greatest review I’ve ever seen.
Thank you for showing this review - saved lots of people a lot of money.
Being a hardware hacker, you read my mind. I would never buy that machine, but as a freebie, it'd be a great base for experimentation.
It's clearly designed to rip off Breville, but with the cheapest, crappiest parts possible.
Off*
Generally i think Lidl/Aldi are doing gods work with their price to quality but this is probably a lesson for them on what is worth replicating at the cheapest cost possible. Still good to see they're trying.
I like these review videos.
Maybe the machine deserved some more testing?
Maybe the manual had to be read? 🌝
I guarantee this man did a double dose of hand sanitizer immediately after leaving the Aldi's
Sent his butler?
hahahaha
One does not "Go to Aldi"
That's what the day staff are for.
@experiment54 hahahahahahahah
he sent his elderly neighbour to get it
I swear I come back to this video once a month bc it's so entertaining.
This was one of your most entertaining videos. Gave me a chuckle. Thanks!
This has to be - hands down - the highest level of frustration we ever saw by James. He's past beeing angry at the machine ...
Brilliant! We need more machine roasts...
James: this coffee machine is dreadful
Me:*sips nescafe*
Nescafe Indulgence works for me. I use my pod machine now just to dispense some hot water for it 😂
@Stephen Pollen lol I guarantee most coffee drinkers don’t even care about high quality as long as it tastes good to them. Most people I know drink coffee , but literally most make it from a Keurig or just regular carafe. It’s still good. I love the donut shop one when Im in a hurry 😂
I’d like to make good coffee, but the Senseo machine on my desk just makes life so easy
In his defense, at least you didn't spend nearly $400 for it :P
you ... monster ...
I think the biggest mistake of this video was not incluing any alternatives such as the lelit
This was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while, thank you
To be fair I can get this sort of behavior out of my Sage Barista Express pretty easily.
I find Aldi’s whole bean coffee pretty good.Though, I’ll drink almost anything.
Roasts coffee beans by day, roasts coffee machines a little later in the afternoon. What a legend.
Very posh roaster.
Hes a full on roasting machine
@Antonio Pineda 1 bb] b
Hahahahaahah
Hi James, great videos, just subscribed to your channel! I'm new to the more sophisticated espresso/coffee drinking world and have currently the KOENIG Finessa Milk Kaffeemaschine Vollautomat as my coffee maker. I'm looking for some good beans for my espresso, I really like the dark chocolate, sweet and rich flavour with the lowest acidity / bitterness possible. Which beans would you recommend?
I have the mini version of this and it was 60$ in the U.S. and it works like a dream so this was just funny to watch
Jeez even my $50 Faberware espresso machine brews better than this. In fact it’s actually quite good. It brews right out the box an almost perfect shot of espresso. Thought the steaming wand isn’t all that great and the steam smells and tastes a bit plasticky.
But wait, they currently have an espresso machine for$89.00! How good is that?!
James I'd love to see your take on a "budget" setup for making espresso, like a good cheap grinder and machine that I don't need to spend several weeks' pay on combined. I've mostly kept to manual grinders and pourover/infusion coffee because of budget restrictions so far and I'd love your opinion on this.
Would be nice if he could bring himself to shoot a video like that. I doubt he will tho.
Antonio Riojas are manual espresso machines like the flaire any good? I’ve been interested in those for a while as I’ve not really got a nice cafe nearby and making your own espresso leads to some pretty big savings in the long run
Seraph He’s said in several videos that he’s just not a fan of home espresso because you need expensive machines and lot of time and resources (e.g., cleaning, dialing in) to get proper results. Thus, he would rather go and pay a few dollars to get espresso at a coffee shop and have someone else deal with all that. In any case, it would be interesting to see what’s his recommendation for a budget setup.
I have watched so many of your videos and appreciate all of your content.
That being said, I only want to watch a series of you trying to buy use bad machines
I think a lot of those silly machines are generally unreliable ridiculously expensive pieces of junk that only last a couple of years before coking out. You are better off with with a grinder and a cafetiere
I feel like a coffee child who is chasing after the approval from my big coffee daddy , the more I watch his video ...I'm not coffee worthy 😭😭😭
How more I watch, the less I know and the happier I am with my mokka pot haha. Thanks for the great video's!