My family recently decided (recently as in for a few months) to purchase an espresso machine. As some of the readers may know (or not), my family is a huge lover of teas and coffees, and it didn’t really make much sense not to have one. Oh, we had one, yes, but it was one of those really old manual style ones before the semi-automatics came into being. So I was sent on a hunt.

Now the thing about espressos (or coffee or wine or tea, for that matter) is that it’s sort of an art. Not a science, no. It requires a very sense-based adjustment that doesn’t have a formula, and the opinions vary from one to another: aluminium is good. Aluminium is not good. You want a big portafilter. You don’t want a big portafilter. the grinder should be separate. The grinder shouldn’t be separate. One shouldn’t buy a grinder at all, but instead by ground beans. E.t.c. E.t.c.

To be honest, I don’t think it makes that much difference. I have never heard of anyone going “Oh, you rotten person, you didn’t brew this correctly! Clearly you didn’t use a big portafilter” upon imbibing. But clearly they make a difference, or something.

Anyway, after much consideration and seeing a $100 off from a Gaggia machine, we decided to purchase it. It shipped fast (yey for UPS); it was packed quite well; and the price was good. And it arrived today.

I should have known it would be a perilous quest to get my first drink of espresso, considering that it’s a freaking Italian product.

First, the beans. As we don’t have a burr grinder (yet), I was sent by my mother to buy the beans on the way back home from uni. Fine. I searched on Yelp, found Lavazza very close to my other campus, and after surviving through the physical chemistry exam and a differential equations class, I hopped onto the shuttle bus. I got dropped off. I turned on my GPS service on my phone. Yelp stated that they close at 9:00 PM. Fine.

So I walked from E. Pearson to Walton, which is about a five minute walk. Mind you, this is before five pm. Clearly still normal business hours. The Lavazza was a teeny tiny place, but looked cosy. I pushed the door open and…

nothing happened.

Pushed again. Nothing happened. Some fat git inside (I think he was the barista) looked at me, but did nothing. Pushed again. Nothing. Puzzled, I looked at the operating hours.

… FOUR PM?!

If this was NatWest in the colonnade at Guy’s Campus, I’d give up. But this was Michigan Avenue. I was irritated. Six might be a reasonable time, but four clearly isn’t. There are still businessmen working at 4 pm. What if they wanted a cup of coffee? Starbucks would be operating; Lavazza would lose money.

But clearly they weren’t concerned.

Irked, I walked down the street, went to John Hancock Centre, and went into the Italian food shop/restaurant. They were open (they close at 7.30). Bought the beans. Went home. Unpacked the espresso machine. Ate supper. 

And then came the time to use the Gaggia Baby Black. First thing that puzzled me was there were three filters, while the manual clearly indicated just two. One was clearly just a single; the two others were doubles, but one just had one hole and the other had slightly larger holes (plural to a greater degree). Not sure about which one to use, I dug out the manual.

Nothing.

Read again. Nothing. Irked, I looked through the French translation. Utterly nothing. What kind of a manual was this?! I looked through the directions to making an espresso. Still nothing; what was even more puzzling, it said “to fit the filter (10 or 11) into the filter cup holder (9), then fit 9 to 11. How can you fit something into another, then fit that other thing back into that thing? That is physically impossible.

After searching on google and coming across a post by someone who had the same query, I proceeded to make my first cup of espresso. I used the double cup filter, pressed on, and waited…

and brown liquid sprayed out, some into the cups and a lot on the table cloth.

I was beyond irked at this point. I was also hating most Italians at this point, and was cursing most of the famous modern Italians, starting with Berlusconi to Carla Bruni (who is politically a French but she’s still an Italian). Italians clearly can’t be related to Romans; Romans made the aqueducts that are still in use today, while the Italians can’t even properly make a freaking espresso machine. The manual said NOTHING about “OUR MACHINE CHEERFULLY SPRAYS COFFEE ONTO YOU AND INTO THE CUP” clause. Instead, there was a curious black plastic part that evidently was supposed to go with “the good crema device”, but the good crema device wasn’t even in there.

“Maybe that black thing goes into the holder”, said my mother.

“That’s not what it says in the manual.”

“Oh, come now,” said my mother, “do you really thing Italians would read the manual before using this machine? Just try it.”

So I did. And lo and behold, no more spraying. My question is, why didn’t they just scrap with the retarded engineering which clearly is a failure and just make a better filter holder? Instead they just added this black plastic thing the size of my pinkie fingernail and did away with it. It’s prone to loss, breakage, and it’s just plain bad planning. I knew Italians weren’t exactly Germans (my philosophy professor or S. Git Giachetti, is a prime example) but this is beyond belief. Can’t they do anything right (apart from make shoes)?!

Needless to say, I can never live in Italy until I retire and no longer care about personal growth. When I’m seventy and am just looking to live my life as hedonistically as possible, I might move there. But spending 30 minutes trying to figure out the manual is just a waste of my time.

Gaggia, I am very very disappointed in you.