The Birth of an Espresso Obsession

After our honeymoon in Italy, my wife and I fell in love with the creamy and delicious blend of bitter and sweet better known as espresso. On our return home, we hoped that our wedding gift, the "Caffe Duomo" (Coffee Cathedral), would satisfy our espresso cravings - after all, it brewed both drip coffee and espresso.

Unfortunately, the Cathedral's espresso was very weak and a poor substitute for its Italian cousin. We quickly learned that it would be impossible for a steam driven machine like the Cathedral to duplicate, or even approximate, true espresso.

What to do? We were quite satisfied with ordering double espresso shots at the local Starbucks and Peets, but that started to get expensive. With some simple math, we realized that the $5 a day we spent getting our daily espresso fix could be applied to the purchase of our very own espresso machine - a pump driven one, of course.

Scouring the Internet for any information we could find choosing the right espresso machine, we ultimately chose the Baby Gaggia. Could there be a better espresso machine for the home brewer? Well, OK, there could be if you want a fully automated, self grinding one. Those, however, were outside our price range.

The Baby Gaggia fit the bill because it was relatively cheap -- around $300 (it's a little more now) vs. the $1,000 one might spend on a more fully-featured machine -- yet it produced high quality coffee. The big bonus with the Baby was its professional quality 3-solenoid dual-boiler. All the critical brewing components were metal while the housing was high impact plastic to save money.

We have loved this little machine for the last 3 years as it has faithfully served its raison d'etre - giving us a delicious start to our morning every morning! This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.