I'm an ex-barista and these easy upgrades will make your cheap espresso machine brew like a pro
But not all hope is lost — some espresso machines are under $300, and they're actually really good. I recently tested the $149 De'Longhi Stilosa and I can't stop yapping on about it. Admittedly, I expected it to be trash, but it's the complete opposite.
There are a few essential upgrades, though. You cannot use pre-ground coffee, not under any circumstances. You need to get your ratios right. And, finally, you need single-walled portafilters.
The U.K. version of the Stilosa comes with single-walled portafilters, whereas the U.S. one doesn't. I'll recommend alternatives, tips, and tricks below — all from me, an ex-barista.
If you know even a little bit about coffee, I'm sure you already know that having a good grinder is the most important thing you can do. Most of them are very low effort — the Baratza Encore ESP and Breville Dose Control Pro ($199 and $139) respectively are electric, so you just press 'grind' and go.
Hand-grinders are more unique. You can adjust the grind size to the nth degree (we're talking literal microns here) and provide a more personalized experience.
My personal recommendation depends on your budget and coffee style. Got money to burn? Then get the Comandante C40 MK4. Want a decent grinder that's relatively cheap? Then the Breville Dose Control Pro is for you. Just make sure your grinder has a burr and not a blade.
Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.
The Dose Control Pro is one of the cheapest grinders on the market today. Not going to lie, it's not the best, but considering the price? Heck, it'll do. It has good uniformity and consistency and is one of the easiest grinders to use for beginners.
Why is a good grinder so important? Many reasons, but most of it is because of a) freshness of coffee results in good flavor, and b) too coarsely or too finely ground coffee will result in nasty espresso.
Shop-bought preground coffee will 99% of the time result in nasty espresso. It's not been ground fine enough for most home espresso machines and is usually stale after a few days. You'll never be able to achieve cafe-quality espresso with preground coffee.
Enter the coffee grinder. Even grocery-store branded wholebeans will taste better than premium preground. If you make sure you're grinding on the finest (or almost the finest) setting, your espresso will be so much tastier. Look for a texture around the size of baker's sugar or even as fine as icing sugar or flour.
With a good grinder, you'll be well on your way to brewing like a pro.
While some more expensive espresso machines have built-in dose, preinfusion, and extraction times (or volumes), cheap espresso machines tend not to. As a result, if you have a more basic machine, you'll need to measure these amounts yourself. Also, I've found that you can't always trust machines. I would much rather figure this stuff out myself.
So to upgrade your cheap machine, you'll need a coffee scale. Thankfully, I've tested loads of the best coffee scales, so without much ado, I'll tell you exactly which one you should get.
The Wacaco Exagram Pro is one of the cheapest coffee scales on the market and it's the one I personally use every single time I make a coffee.
The Wacaco Exagram Pro coffee scale is so good because it does what other scales seem to be incapable of — be affordable. Some of the premium scales can go for almost $300, so $50 for a scale of this quality is a steal.
If you're brewing espresso on a budget, then there's nothing I recommend more than the Wacaco Exagram Pro scale. It has an auto-detection mode, so it will automatically start timing once your espresso pours. The dial surface is water-resistant but has no IP rating, so while it'll be fine if a little splash falls on it during coffee making, I wouldn't go dunking it in the bathtub.
I use this scale every day and I have no complaints at all. It's reliable, accurate, and most of all, affordable.
My last point depends on what machine you have. Some machines come with both dual- and single-walled portafilters. You want single-walled portafilters.
Dual-walled portafilters (sometimes called pressurized) basically squeeze the espresso through a tiny hole, which creates air inside the espresso. While this means your espresso looks nice and the crema is thick, you'll lose a lot of coffee flavor.
Single-walled portafilters (sometimes called non-pressurized) have loads of little holes so the espresso can extract without being pushed out.
It's very easy to tell the difference. The left portafilter is a dual-walled, and the right is a single-walled. You want the right side.
So if your portafilters look like the one on the left, you need to get yourself some single-walled ones. Some budget espresso machines only come with dual-walled to try to cover up that the espresso machine isn't that good.
However, if you get a single-walled one, you can bring it back. It's salvageable, I promise.
First, you'll need to figure out what size your coffee machine's portafilters are. The De'Longhi Stilosa I mentioned earlier uses 51mm, and the Bambino Plus uses 54mm (but comes with single-walled portafilters).
Once you know the size, any third-party portafilter will do the trick. You may need to buy a new group head too, just to ensure you're getting the best you can.
As I promised in my headline, these tips are very low-effort. All you need to do is buy something — quite low effort if you ask me. However, there are loads of high-effort upgrades available, too.
The first is installing a PID controller, which controls the temperature of the water to prevent weak or burned coffee. You can also do things like installing a pipe into your drip tray and auto-draining into plumbing (obviously only do this if your machine's drip tray is big enough). On top of all of that, you can even replace steam wands with third-party steam wands.
Remember — these are very technical and very high-effort upgrades. They're not for the inexperienced or beginners. I would recommend staying away from these unless you precisely know what you're doing.
Also, if you've got a great grinder, a coffee scale, and some proper portafilters, there's no reason why that won't massively upgrade the flavor of your coffee anyway. For most people, following those 3 tricks will have you pulling shots and slinging lattes like there's no tomorrow.
If you have any coffee questions, please leave a comment and I will reply to you!
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tom's Guide
26-06-2025
- Tom's Guide
I just tested this ‘entry-level' espresso grinder and it's totally transformed my morning coffee routine
As I'm writing this, I've just come to the end of testing the Varia VS3 coffee grinder. If you're into espresso or partake in the world of specialty coffee, I've no doubt you'll have heard of this grinder. Striking in its appearance, and priced at a super attractive price (as espresso grinders go) of $299, the VS3 is a go-to first grinder for many coffee enthusiasts, and often touted as one of the best coffee grinders for beginners. Despite that, it's no stranger mixed criticism from the coffee community, and yeah, it has its flaws, which I'll soon be covering in my full review. The Varia VS3 is an 'entry-level' grinder, but don't let that put you off if you're looking for a competent electric grinder for espresso. This grinder performed incredibly well in our uniformity and retention tests, and is ideal for espresso lovers... especially if you're making shots during the early hours! The thing is, the VS3 has one feature that has totally transformed my morning espresso routine, and has me overlooking its (admittedly pretty minor flaws). It all comes down to decibels. There are two main types of grinder: hand and electric. And I'm sure you can guess the difference between the two. I'm lazy, so in the morning when I shuffle downstairs to make my coffee, I don't want to go straight into an arm workout grinding 20-odd grams of coffee for an espresso. So my preference is always an electric grinder (although I use the 1Zpresso K-Ultra hand grinder while I travel). I've used a lot of electric espresso grinders in my time — after all, I get to test them for my job. One of the main problems with electrics are the noise. These things get loud. I'm not talking 100dB, ear-damage-level noise, but the Baratza Encore ESP averaged 82dB in our testing. According to the Hearing Health Foundation, while not a risk to ear health, that's equivalent to being in a noisy restaurant. My Eureka Mignon Specialita is a "quiet" grinder, but still averages around 75dB of noise, equivalent to hearing someone running landscaping equipment outside your house. Hardly the kind of noise you want to be making at 6am. If you're a blade grinder owner (which you shouldn't be; they suck), you're likely in an even worse position. My dad's old blade grinder sounded like a turbojet firing up. By contrast, thanks to its DC power supply (more on this below), the Varia VS3 is one of the quietest electric grinders I've used, running at an average of 67dB. Don't get me wrong, it's obviously far from silent, but that's a hell of a lot quieter. If fact, it took me by (pleasant) surprise, the first time I used the VS3 for a morning brew at home. See, while the delta between 67dB and 82dB doesn't sound like much, it is. The decibel scale is logarithmic — a 10dB increase means 10x the sound intensity, while a 20dB increase is 100x the sound intensity. I'm no good at math (so correct me if I'm wrong), but 15dB as I understand it equates to a 30 fold increase in sound intensity. Or to put it another way, the Varia VS3 is, on average, 30 times quieter than the Baratza Encore ESP, and nearly 10 times quieter than my Eureka Mignon Specialita. That has made a huge difference to my morning routine. No longer am I wincing as I grind my beans. No longer am I waking one of our dogs (a light sleeper), and making her bark, compounding the issue. I can brew in peace. Yeah, there is a catch. The reason why the Varia VS3 is quiet is because of that DC power I mentioned above. Fed by DC rather than AC mains, the VS3 only spins at 170RPM. The much louder Baratza Encore ESP runs at 550RPM, meaning it'll get through a dose of coffee much quicker. Does that really matter, though? We're talking 10-20 seconds difference max for an 18g dose. I'd rather have a longer period at lower volumes than a shorter spike. And I reckon my partner would, too, as that's less likely to wake her. And at the end of the day, performance has to play a huge part too. The VS3 is an excellent grinder given its entry-level price tag, scoring very highly in our uniformity and retention testing, as you can see in the tables below. Grind size 300μm 500μm 800μm 1100μm 1400μm Super fine 20% 90% 95% 100% 100% Medium fine 5% 95% 100% 100% 100% Medium 0% 5% 80% 95% 100% Medium coarse 0% 5% 50% 80% 95% Coarse 0% 5% 15% 50% 90% Our first coffee grinder test is always a uniformity test, where we pass batches of ground coffee through Kruve sifters. The more uniform, technically speaking, the better. What we want to see here is large swings in variance, from 5% up to 95%. This means very few grounds pass through one sieve, but most pass through the next, showing low variance. The grinder is essentially doing a good job at smushing coffee beans into evenly-sized grounds. The VS3 performs very strongly in the mid range at medium and medium-fine grinds. At the finest end of the VS3 adjustment range, we see a slight step up in variance, with a 20-90% jump between the finest sifters. Overall, though, this level of uniformity is very high, which makes the VS3 an excellent grinder for espresso. Coarser grounds are a little less uniform, so if you're looking to make a variety of drinks, including pour overs, it maybe isn't the one. But I'm an espresso drinker first and foremost, so that's what matters to me. Coffee in Grounds out Retention test 1 20.0g 19.8g Retention test 2 20.0g 19.8g Retention test 3 20.0g 19.9g Retention test 4 20.0g 19.9g Arguably the most prominent of the VS3's physical features is its 76.5-degree sloping metal body. This isn't just for style. The pitch of the grinder helps grounds fall from the burrs and through the chute more easily, lowering retention. And it works. As you can see in the table above, the Varia VS3 averaged 0.15g retention per dose over four 20g doses. That's 0.75% retention. Not bad at all. As I mentioned up top, I'll be covering the VS3 fully very soon in a standalone review. This grinder has its flaws (mostly relating to that DC power supply), but for under $300, this is a seriously good espresso grinder. The Varia VS3 is an 'entry-level' grinder, but don't let that put you off if you're looking for a competent electric grinder for espresso. This grinder performed incredibly well in our uniformity and retention tests, and is ideal for espresso lovers... especially if you're making shots during the early hours! Sometimes, though, a single feature can make all the difference. And as someone who gets up at 5.45am to head into the office, that feature in my grinders is noise. I've never owned a properly quiet espresso grinder before, but now that I have, there's no going back.
Tom's Guide
20-06-2025
- Tom's Guide
I'm an ex-barista and these easy upgrades will make your cheap espresso machine brew like a pro
I know that many of the best espresso machines cost an arm and a leg. Home espresso machines can literally cost upwards of $10k, which is obviously out of the realm of possibility for most of us normal folk. But not all hope is lost — some espresso machines are under $300, and they're actually really good. I recently tested the $149 De'Longhi Stilosa and I can't stop yapping on about it. Admittedly, I expected it to be trash, but it's the complete opposite. There are a few essential upgrades, though. You cannot use pre-ground coffee, not under any circumstances. You need to get your ratios right. And, finally, you need single-walled portafilters. The U.K. version of the Stilosa comes with single-walled portafilters, whereas the U.S. one doesn't. I'll recommend alternatives, tips, and tricks below — all from me, an ex-barista. If you know even a little bit about coffee, I'm sure you already know that having a good grinder is the most important thing you can do. Most of them are very low effort — the Baratza Encore ESP and Breville Dose Control Pro ($199 and $139) respectively are electric, so you just press 'grind' and go. Hand-grinders are more unique. You can adjust the grind size to the nth degree (we're talking literal microns here) and provide a more personalized experience. My personal recommendation depends on your budget and coffee style. Got money to burn? Then get the Comandante C40 MK4. Want a decent grinder that's relatively cheap? Then the Breville Dose Control Pro is for you. Just make sure your grinder has a burr and not a blade. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The Dose Control Pro is one of the cheapest grinders on the market today. Not going to lie, it's not the best, but considering the price? Heck, it'll do. It has good uniformity and consistency and is one of the easiest grinders to use for beginners. Why is a good grinder so important? Many reasons, but most of it is because of a) freshness of coffee results in good flavor, and b) too coarsely or too finely ground coffee will result in nasty espresso. Shop-bought preground coffee will 99% of the time result in nasty espresso. It's not been ground fine enough for most home espresso machines and is usually stale after a few days. You'll never be able to achieve cafe-quality espresso with preground coffee. Enter the coffee grinder. Even grocery-store branded wholebeans will taste better than premium preground. If you make sure you're grinding on the finest (or almost the finest) setting, your espresso will be so much tastier. Look for a texture around the size of baker's sugar or even as fine as icing sugar or flour. With a good grinder, you'll be well on your way to brewing like a pro. While some more expensive espresso machines have built-in dose, preinfusion, and extraction times (or volumes), cheap espresso machines tend not to. As a result, if you have a more basic machine, you'll need to measure these amounts yourself. Also, I've found that you can't always trust machines. I would much rather figure this stuff out myself. So to upgrade your cheap machine, you'll need a coffee scale. Thankfully, I've tested loads of the best coffee scales, so without much ado, I'll tell you exactly which one you should get. The Wacaco Exagram Pro is one of the cheapest coffee scales on the market and it's the one I personally use every single time I make a coffee. The Wacaco Exagram Pro coffee scale is so good because it does what other scales seem to be incapable of — be affordable. Some of the premium scales can go for almost $300, so $50 for a scale of this quality is a steal. If you're brewing espresso on a budget, then there's nothing I recommend more than the Wacaco Exagram Pro scale. It has an auto-detection mode, so it will automatically start timing once your espresso pours. The dial surface is water-resistant but has no IP rating, so while it'll be fine if a little splash falls on it during coffee making, I wouldn't go dunking it in the bathtub. I use this scale every day and I have no complaints at all. It's reliable, accurate, and most of all, affordable. My last point depends on what machine you have. Some machines come with both dual- and single-walled portafilters. You want single-walled portafilters. Dual-walled portafilters (sometimes called pressurized) basically squeeze the espresso through a tiny hole, which creates air inside the espresso. While this means your espresso looks nice and the crema is thick, you'll lose a lot of coffee flavor. Single-walled portafilters (sometimes called non-pressurized) have loads of little holes so the espresso can extract without being pushed out. It's very easy to tell the difference. The left portafilter is a dual-walled, and the right is a single-walled. You want the right side. So if your portafilters look like the one on the left, you need to get yourself some single-walled ones. Some budget espresso machines only come with dual-walled to try to cover up that the espresso machine isn't that good. However, if you get a single-walled one, you can bring it back. It's salvageable, I promise. First, you'll need to figure out what size your coffee machine's portafilters are. The De'Longhi Stilosa I mentioned earlier uses 51mm, and the Bambino Plus uses 54mm (but comes with single-walled portafilters). Once you know the size, any third-party portafilter will do the trick. You may need to buy a new group head too, just to ensure you're getting the best you can. As I promised in my headline, these tips are very low-effort. All you need to do is buy something — quite low effort if you ask me. However, there are loads of high-effort upgrades available, too. The first is installing a PID controller, which controls the temperature of the water to prevent weak or burned coffee. You can also do things like installing a pipe into your drip tray and auto-draining into plumbing (obviously only do this if your machine's drip tray is big enough). On top of all of that, you can even replace steam wands with third-party steam wands. Remember — these are very technical and very high-effort upgrades. They're not for the inexperienced or beginners. I would recommend staying away from these unless you precisely know what you're doing. Also, if you've got a great grinder, a coffee scale, and some proper portafilters, there's no reason why that won't massively upgrade the flavor of your coffee anyway. For most people, following those 3 tricks will have you pulling shots and slinging lattes like there's no tomorrow. If you have any coffee questions, please leave a comment and I will reply to you!
Tom's Guide
19-06-2025
- Tom's Guide
I'm a barista who swapped an $899 espresso machine for a $149 budget one — here's why
I'm an ex-barista, so I've spent enough time making coffee for a lifetime. I cut my teeth at an independent artisanal cafe (so independent and artisanal that it was one of the many small business Covid casualties) and then suffered through some long, hard years at Starbucks (during lockdown, cry) as punishment. You think that would stop me. But I cannot be stopped. I am as unstoppable as the endless march of time. Now as a journalist, it's my mission to find the best espresso machines so I can continue drinking way too much coffee. The $149 De'Longhi Stilosa has everything I hate in an espresso machine: a flimsy plastic tamper, a flimsy plastic construction, and a flimsy plastic drip tray. I really thought I'd hate this machine. No, tell a lie, I wanted to hate it, because it was so ugly. However, when I ditched my $900 De'Longhi La Specialista Opera for the $149 De'Longhi Stilosa, I was absolutely shocked. I tested the U.K. version of the De'Longhi Stilosa. A reader pointed out recently that the U.S. model of the Stilosa comes with dual-walled portafilters. In this case, I'd recommend getting third-party single-walled portafilters to achieve the same results as me. This is the machine I use every day. I love it with all my heart, but something just doesn't feel right anymore. Maybe because it's taking up a quarter of my kitchen, and that's grown into resentment? Either way, I don't know what's next for me and my beloved La Specialista Opera. It might be the most tear-jerking goodbye of 2025. This is the Opera's contender: smaller, cheaper, and a hell of a lot uglier. I really had my doubts about the Stilosa. For starters, it feels flimsy AF and looks like someone vomited up a pile of plastic. But oh boy, can it pull a delicious espresso shot. Color me surprised. Repeat after me: I will not use pre-ground coffee... I will not use pre-ground coffee... I will not use pre-ground coffee. Now, I've said it before and I'll say it again. You have to work for good espresso on the De'Longhi Stilosa. If you just take it out of the box and get to work, you'll think I've lost my marbles. Espresso is an art as much as it's a science. And perfect espresso needs two things: a good grinder, and an even better barista. I used both the Eureka Mignon Specialita ($649) and the Comandante C40 MK4 (from ~$282) with the De'Longhi Stilosa. If budget's a concern, you might be able to grab the Baratza Encore ESP or the 1ZPresso J-Ultra — both $199 — instead. However, a good grinder is a non-negotiable. The only reason why the Stilosa managed to match the La Specialista Opera is because of the brilliant grinders I used. If you buy pre-ground beans or have a blade grinder, you will never be able to achieve these results. Repeat after me: I will not use pre-ground coffee... I will not use pre-ground coffee... I will not use pre-ground coffee. Okay, great! This is a picture of the best espresso shot I pulled on the Stilosa, using artisanal, locally-roasted specialty beans and the Comandante C40 MK4 grinder. As I'm sure you're aware by now, achieving an espresso shot like this is only possible because of a premium grinder and specialty beans. With this extra effort, there's no need to spend $$$ on an espresso machine. You'll need to look for the following specs: While the De'Longhi Stilosa doesn't have a PID (which is a temperature controller built-in to the machine to prevent burning and weak espresso), it is literally $149. At this price point, you can't really ask for much more. It's worth noting that other home baristas have successfully modded the Stilosa with PID controllers, so not all is lost. As the De'Longhi Stilosa I tested has both 9-bar pressure and single-walled portafilters, I was able to pull technically perfect espresso. If you follow my advice, there's no reason why you wouldn't be able to achieve this too. In terms of espresso brewing? I couldn't believe my luck. The Stilosa is $759 cheaper than my La Specialista Opera, but pulls very similar shots. That's a monumental saving. I won't lie to you, when I first picked up the De'Longhi Stilosa, I physically grimaced. I thought there's no way this flimsy plastic hunk of junk can ever be good. But oh boy, did it prove me wrong. I already chatted about all the reasons why the De'Longhi Stilosa proved me wrong in a different article, but I'll go through them again briefly here. Good espresso machines need some weight to them. Even compact machines have boilers crammed inside their tiny size, so when I picked up the Stilosa, I was immediately suspicious. I doubted its ability to heat water, let alone pull espresso. But I was wrong. The Stilosa crams an impressive 9-bar pressure system and a steel boiler inside its 8-inch size. The sacrifices come in its all-plastic (ugly) construction, flimsy group handle, and pathetic tamper. These are all fixable problems though. The inherent espresso-making ability of the machine? Off-the-charts good. I'll be the first person to admit that a lot of budget espresso machines are very questionable. But not the De'Longhi Stilosa. With the extra work I discussed earlier, I was able to make $500-machine worthy espresso on the $149 Stilosa. However, without the effort, the espresso will most definitely taste like it was made on a cheap machine. So, if the cheap espresso machine has the following things: 9-bar pressure, single-walled portafilter baskets, a shower screen with even water distribution, and (maybe) a PID controller, then there's nothing stopping it performing like a premium model. With the right tools, coffee, and barista, of course. Although I was really impressed by the Stilosa for the price, I'm not really ready to give up my La Specialista Opera yet. (I actually kind of regret getting the Opera and really want a Breville Bambino Plus, but that's another story.) Steaming milk on the Stilosa requires a little more effort than other machines, because the steam wand can be a little overexcited. Take a look at the latte I made with the Stilosa. This is after 3 1/2 years as a barista, bear in mind. My latte art could still do with some work (I'm yet to master the tulip), but I think a more inexperienced barista might need a little more time to get adjusted to the Stilosa's overexcited steam wand. On top of that, if you're a barista who just wants coffee and doesn't want to spend lots of time and mental effort making that coffee? Then I think the Stilosa might not be for you. I'd recommend something like the De'Longhi Rivelia in that case, but it'll cost you — $1,499. I knew this already, but swapping my La Specialista Opera for the Stilosa reaffirmed my belief that good coffee needs one thing: a good barista who knows what they're doing. Yes, you can spend $$$ (more like $$$$$$...) on a Bianca Lelit ($2,999) or a La Marzocco Linea Mini ($6,300), but if you don't have the knowledge? Your coffee won't taste great. I recommend spending time learning about coffee — what types of beans you like, why you need a great grinder, how to set up a shot — before spending a month's wages on a machine. Instead, I'd recommend getting the Stilosa and learning on a cheap machine. Then, once you've got the skill? By all means, dig into a pricier machine — or just keep your money and continue slaying on the Stilosa.
