Many baristas that move on from their job slinging lattes but hold onto a love of coffee. If that sounds like you then you might be looking for a great coffee set up to work with at home. It can be tricky to recreate the feel of the professional equipment you're used to in a cafe environment, but these combos get you pretty close!
Diletta Alto and Eureka Mignon Oro Single Dose Pro
The Diletta Alto is a machine that offers some nice features that former baristas will definitely feel at home with. The pro paddles for steam and hot water are especially reminiscent of commercial espresso machines. They activate with a quick tap, which feels very similar to the levers you find on professional equipment. The Alto also has an option that offers responsive but subtle flow control, which former baristas will appreciate as a way to better control their shots. Other features you'd expect to find on this category of machine like programmable pre-infusion, PID controller temperatures, and dual boilers provide a premium at-home espresso experience.
The Eureka Mignon Oro Single Dose is a great companion for the Alto. The single dose design of the machine makes it easier to get exactly the right bean volume for your shots. Single dosing also makes it easier to switch up your beans, something coffee professionals are sure to appreciate. Finally, smart design features like the canted base for less retention and a large stepless adjust knob round out the features that will help your workflow feel closer to what you were used to in a cafe.
LELIT Bianca and Fiorenzato AllGround Sense
For those who want a bit more automation, this pairing might be a better fit. The LELIT Bianca offers flow control like the Diletta Alto, but trades the snappy pro steam and hot water paddles for the programmable LELIT Control Center, or LCC. Using this interface you can program repeatable flow profiles, adjust temps and pre-infusion, and manage other aspects of the machine. While much of this is possible on the Diletta Alto, the programming here simplifies things and gets you your morning shot quicker.
For this setup, we've paired the espresso machine with the Fiorenzato AllGround Sense. This grinder offers some smart features that capitalize on the programmability and ease of workflow that the Bianca offers. The interface for the AllGround actually adapts to where you set the grind settings. For this machine you'll likely be working with espresso, but it's quite effective at grinding for other brew methods as well. The grind-by-weight design here means that you can just enter the dose amount and grind away, not having to spend time dialing in a grind length. This means that you get the convenience of a large hopper but with easier to manage programmability. Together this grinder and machine duo really does combine flexibility and precision with programmability and ease of workflow.
Rocket Espresso R58 Cinquantotto and Eureka Atom W75
For our last setup we're recommending a pair of options that really get as close as possible to the cafe experience. Our previous two setups combine varying degrees of convenience and quality, but for the former barista that wants something close to what they had in the cafe in terms of performance we recommend an option like the Rocket Espresso R58 Cinquantotto. This machine lacks some of the programming and automation of the Bianca, but it does offer power that more closely matches what you get from commercial machines. We also find that the aesthetics of the R58 help to bring that cafe feel home. Its angular lines and industrial design touches bring to mind a workhorse Italian espresso machine that you might find on the cafe counter.
The Atom W75 works great here because it's actually a commercial grinder that fits well in a home setting as well. The W in the name brings attention to the load cell built in to this grinder, which accurately weighs coffee and doses it with precision. The "75" in Atom W75 denotes the 75mm burrs - these are massive for a grinder to use at home and guarantee consistency and speed of the sort you'd find in a professional setting. Rounding out the package is a bright, responsive touchscreen that has an ultra premium feel.
Is there a machine and grinder pair you've had your eye? We'd love to hear about it in the comments! You can also check out the video below for a look at these setups and some more thoughts about them.