Italian Coffee – it’s different

That’s the new coffee maker. I hadn’t noticed how reflective it is; auto-focus is finding it overly reflective, too. smeg is an Italian brand (that doesn’t want its abbreviation capitalized, from what I can tell).

The Bosch never worked and – after months waiting – they finally decided it was the seller’s fault, who gave us an in-store credit. Less than ideal, but it’s a furniture store, not just an appliance store, so we’ll eventually spend it (probably on mattresses). We bought this one from Amazon, mainly because it fits in the same cupboard, which only exists because we bought the Bosch (at a discount) and had a cabinet fabricated for it. Sunk-cost fallacy for the win!

It makes a bewildering variety of coffees I’ve never heard of. I’m slowly figuring it out – and they’re all small. The “extra large” size is about 10oz.

• Espresso is just that. We have espresso cups (because of course we do). I generally just slam those down while standing in front of the dishwasher. This is contraindicated. Not so much because of the caffeine buzz, but because of the crash afterward.
• Americano is an espresso shot and water. These are OK.
• Coffee is an espresso amount of grounds with an Americano amount of water, but the whole thing is brewed (not just water on top of espresso). This is quite tasty, although very strong compared to drip or French pressed.
• Long is two coffees. This – in the extra-large 10oz size – is my (current) favorite.

I haven’t been making the milky ones, but The Laird has been. It’s pretty spiffy. The milk container plugs into that (blurry) fitting at the top right of the dispenser. It has a nozzle that points into the cup and frothy milk comes out. That’s all I know.

It goes through coffee beans like mad. We’ve been drinking Black Rifle coffee for the past several years. It ground up our reserve in three days. We’re using something (relatively) inexpensive from the grocery store, right now. The taste difference is noticeable, but even (relatively) cheap fresh-ground is better than pre-ground drip – not that I won’t drink that; I have several pounds of Folgers in the pantry in case of emergency. Speaking of pounds, when did a pound of coffee become 12oz?

The little crock is there because when it auto-shuts-off, it flushes its pipes. The idea is to catch the water in something easier to empty than the drip tray. That works fine, but there is another flush cycle that happens mysteriously that nearly fills the drip tray, so it’s rather pointless to catch the small one in a dedicated vessel.