Ascaso Dream UP + Brew Head Upgrade

Written by Kat
The Espresso Afficionado
Published on Jul 26, 2010
Kat is a passionate coffee enthusiast and seasoned blogger. Read her posts for insights on brew methods, coffee recipes, and machine reviews.
Ascaso Dream UP + Brew Head Upgrade

The Ascaso Dream UP is considered a 'versatile' espresso machine, meaning that -- like its predecessor -- the brew head has been designed for use with both ESE pods and ground coffee. However, the stock brew head definitely favors pods and you don't get as rich of a shot using grounds as you can off of other machines in this class. When we did our review recently, we noticed that even though the new UP has a three-way solenoid valve, it didn't seem to perform that well, leaving really soupy grounds behind. So we decided to experiment with the machine by installing the Brew Head Upgrade kit to see if that improved the performance. It did! Watch Gail show us the different screens, talk about how they perform and demonstrate a shot. We even spliced in footage from the original review (accompanied by super sessy muzak!) for easy side-by-side comparison.

Link to share

Use this link to share this article