Gaggia Brera Super-Automatic Espresso Machine, Small, 40 fluid ounces, Silver

UPDATE: I’ve had this machine for nearly a year and I love it. I use it every day and it makes great tasting espresso and has been working well without any issues so far. The milk frother works great- I took the auto frother off to make it into a manual frother so I could get microfoam and a smoother, sweeter milk. Once you get your settings dialed in so your espresso tastes the way you want and you find good, fresh (non-oily!) beans, this thing works like a dream. I’ve almost completely stopped going to the coffee shop.Original review: I really want to like this machine. I have been using an inexpensive Nespresso U for years and it did a great job, but I was tired of being a slave to pods and was looking forward to getting a little higher quality of espresso at home, so I made the investment. Upon opening the box, I discovered my drip tray was cracked and the dull drip tray indicator was broken into pieces. A couple of calls to Gaggia and Amazon and they took care of that issue and paid to send out new pieces. Good customer service on both ends so far.The machine looks nice, and is fairly easy to use and set up. My issue is the espresso... I was disappointed the first day for sure. I had read the first few shots you pull could be watery, due to the unit’s “adapting” process, so I pulled shot after shot of under extracted espresso- like 12 shots. After speaking with Gaggia customer support again, they suggested I customize the single shot setting to pull less water through, lowering the fluid oz amount of the shot. This DID help slightly. The shots started tasting more concentrated, and I got a slightly better crema. However, it’s still missing that syrupy, concentrated bittersweet espresso flavor. I spoke with customer service again today, after noticing it was only taking 9 seconds to extract the shot. No wonder they are lacking flavor. The support personnel I spoke to said that the timing is irrelevant with a superauto machine, since it’s doing all the work for me. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, maybe it is. Maybe my expectations were too high for what kind of espresso I could get from a super automatic machine but all the other reviews I read had basically rave reviews about the espresso the machine produces. I’m hoping that it’s either user error or that my machine is still “adapting”.I’ll keep at it for another week or so... and update the review as needed.UPDATE: I’ve had this machine for about 5 months now. I really do love it. It makes a coffee shop quality milk based drink (usually a latte) with great frothed milk for way less than I was paying for my daily Starbucks run. I would even say that it tastes better than Starbucks does. I’m changing my original 3 star rating to a 4 star rating. It works very well- and has held up well. (I do a weekly maintenance cleaning: rinsing of the brew group, cleaning the interior as much as I can, washing the dispensed pod container, water container and the drip tray. I feel that helps contribute to a good tasting espresso). The convenience of a one touch machine makes this a worthwhile purchase for sure. I wouldn’t say it creates as good of an espresso as a semi automatic, and I don’t get a lot of crema with my espresso (even after switching my beans to a more local, freshly roasted bean) but it makes a killer milk based drink. Worth the money.

TL;DR: avoid this piece of junk unless you have lots of time and money to spare, and a second machine or French press to actually make coffee with once you lose patience. 8 months in and we're lucky if 25% of our attempts are successful; the rest is just wasted beans. Whole Lotta Latte are poor at support and we're considering just junking it now instead of trying to get their help.We've owned this for eight months and it seems like a good time to update my review. The TLD;DR is we would not purchase it again in hindsight. We bought it to replace a $90 manual machine (DeLonghi) and a burr grinder we got from Costco. Those served us well for years but we we thought we'd splurge a bit at Xmas and get one of these.This is more work than the old setup, and we waste huge amounts of beans by this machine failing and just tossing the grind without actually producing any espresso. Furthermore, the beans I really like really clog this up so I'm now drinking a brew I like less than before. Here are the issues we have had so far:- we have the water filter, which is expensive, and takes up a lot of space in the water tank which is small to begin. So we do about 3 refills a day. The bean compartment is pretty small too, and needs frequent refills.- the descaling light came on after only about 3 weeks. I have descaled it (quite a process) and followed the instructions to clear the light but it seems like it is on permanently (update - finally fixed this but required time with tech support)- the magnet that keeps the side door closed came detached and the door stands ajar. Minor annoyance but it looks crappy.- I have to clean the brew unit every night, or we will just have a mess in the mornings. This has been the case from the start. This despite changing to a less oily bean (that helped a bit but not enough). If we don't do this then the morning becomes a lot of work.- oftentimes cleaning the brew unit is not enough. It needs to be left out to dry, relubricated, sometimes multiple times, before it can be coaxed to actually work. All this time you are grinding and wasting beans with all the failed attempts.- the grounds container needs to be emptied frequently. If we're lucky we can get three double shots before emptying; often it is only two. The pods pile up high on top of each other rather than filling the container.- even though I keep a cup under the dispenser, the bottom tray collects a lot of water and needs frequent emptying. There's obviously quite a bit of water leaking out under the brew unit.We've gotten into the habit now of cleaning the machine every night, including rinsing the brew unit, filling up the water, and the bean container. If we do that we can usually get through the morning with just one water refill and two empties of the grounds container. That's about five double espressos between us in my family in the mornings. But those are the good days, which are increasingly infrequent. More often it just fails, we waste a bunch of coffee beans, and we fall back to our French press.Caveat: we don't use the milk steamer at all so I can't comment on that.Update: I ended up buying a second one to see if the first was a lemon. I am 3 days in and about half the time it is failing with “no beans”. I am using very non-oily beans. Garbage.

Really outstanding automatic espresso maker. Was rated highly and does not use plastic parts which is a plus. Minimal learning curve. Easy to use and consistently makes great espresso. I tried the semi automatic Breville and returned it because you pretty much need an engineering degree to operate it. And was not working consistently. The Gaggia is quick to warm up and does all the work with easy clean up.Does not make regular drip coffee but has a wand for hot water to make americano. Or froth milk.