I was on and off about whether I want to have a “normal” espresso maker. For many years, I was pretty happy with my mechanical espresso machine, which my kids gave me for Christmas many years ago. I liked its authenticity and uniqueness, but at some point, two things started to bother me: it took a long time to make two espresso shots (technically, you could do two cups in parallel, but then you would need to run the machine twice in a row) and the fact that boiling water is not steam, so the espresso would end up colder than I would like, especially if you want to make cappuccino, or just two espressos.
At the same time, I didn’t want to clutter my kitchen with more appliances because I felt I already had too many, and I don’t need to make espresso at home very often. I would love to be able to make a proper cappuccino, but I knew that this requires some skills, not only the equipment. For the past two years, I have started shopping for an espresso machine several times, and each time I decided I didn’t need it. That was all, until a couple of weeks ago, when the Shopsale app threw a $35 espresso machine in my face. I could not resist. I decided I could throw it away if it doesn’t work for me.
This weekend I finally unpacked it, read instructions, and set it up. At first, I experimented in the dining room, but I quickly realized it was not a great idea. Fortunately, this appliance is really small, so I was able to put it on a kitchen shelf (and moved the ROK to my home museum shelf side by side to the old German meat grinder). It produces an amazing espresso. I still need to work on making a cappuccino, but even the first attempt wasn’t a complete failure!
Hettie's Reflections 