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Kitchen and coffee

Cafelat Robot

7owners with an opinion
100%of verdicts positive
3/0positive/negative since 2024
2 yrslongest happy owner
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and ease of use.

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Recommends itOwned 2 yearsStill going
Let me use the discussion of coffee to plug what I believe is the most beautiful and long-lasting espresso machine currently out there (you'll hand it down to your grandkids): https://coffeegeek.com/reviews/firstlooks/cafelat-robot-espr... I've pulled a few thousand cups of long espresso from this guy since we bought it two years ago. Much, much nicer and lower maintenance than a boiler machine. If one wants, you can go deep down the rabbit hole of heat control, etc. but even as a "just boil water and make espresso" machine it works great, with no fuss. Unfortunately, after buying this thing I can't justify buying other coffee objects that are beautiful but would probably make worse coffee than the robot, e.g., the Moccamaster and other drip machines.
Likes it
I have a huge Rocket espresso machine that I haven't used for 3-4 years, ever since I bought my Cafelat Robot. Honestly, I appreciate the engineering in this post but it's just not necessary given how good the Robot already is. The manual control makes it possible to do flow profiling with something like a Timamore Nano scale, by adjusting pressure in real time according to the flow rate reading on the scale. I've been making and drinking espresso for a long time and nothing comes close to the flow-profiled spro I've made using this method.
Likes it
I've used, but don't currently own, a Cafelat Robot ( https://prima-coffee.com/equipment/cafelat/robot-barista-gre... ) The Robot made great espresso, and I was just about to buy one for myself but then the Meticulous Espresso machine ( https://meticuloushome.com/ ) was announced on kickstarter and I splurged on that instead (deliver by end of year, or so they say.) If for some reason that doesn't work out, I'll get the robot
Likes it
Well, the automated ones. The manual ones like [1] are just the essence of what makes espresso and hence can in theory produce the exact same thing but at a fraction of the price. Main problem is that most parameters are controlled by the user, not the machine, so consistency is not easy to achieve. Especially temperature control is hard to achieve. On the other hand: want longer preinfusion? Just do it, no buttons needed let alone a manual. I have such machine and for that price combined with not having to wait for a Faema to heat up, take a rather large amount of space and whatnot, and given that I drink one max two espressos a day, and that those are so close to what a professional automatic machine produces: totally worth it and no regrets yet. I used to dream of an espresso machine producing those super tasty beverages which in my country are really hard to find (compared to Italy of course), now I just have one, and it's maintainance and hassle-free as well and is going to last a very long time (basically only one rubber ring which is replacable). Which cannot exactly be said of automatic machines. [1] http://www.cafelat.com/robot.html
Recommends it
In case you're looking for advice: I went from being a daily HX machine (rocket) user to a Cafelat Robot at the beginning of the pandemic & haven't looked back. It has zero warm-up time and I make better espresso with it more consistently than I ever could with the e61. I'm not sure I agree with you about 'most espresso machine owners', but if you do only care about the spro, I can highly recommend the manual approach.
Recommends itDoesn’t say they own it
If I was in a market for minimalistic espresso machine I'd just get a manual espresso machine, something like the cafelat robot [1]. No plastic, standard professional 58mm group head (compared to the 51mm here), pressure gauge, no need for any hot water tubes, no electronics [1] http://www.cafelat.com/robot.html