Gaggia

Few machine makers can say they changed the drink itself. In 1938 Achille Gaggia, who ran a café in Milan, patented a piston group: a lever drove water through the coffee at a pressure that steam machines could not reach, and the cup came out with a layer of crema on it. The war put the idea on hold, and the company dates its own founding, building machines for bars, to 1947.

The home story starts much later. The Gaggia Classic arrived in 1991 and did something unusual for a domestic machine at its price: it took the same 58 mm portafilter as a café machine, with a heavy chrome-plated group and a three-way solenoid valve that releases the pressure after the shot and leaves a drier puck. The current version, the Classic Evo Pro, is recognisably the same machine, and that continuity is its real strength. Commercial baskets, tampers, gaskets and shower screens fit it, spare parts are easy to find, and a whole culture of upgrades has grown up around it, from softer pressure-valve springs to add-on temperature controllers.

What it asks in return is patience. The Classic is a single boiler with no PID out of the box, so brewing and steaming are two separate steps with a wait between them, and the brew temperature moves more than on a machine with electronic control. Single boiler, heat exchanger or dual boiler explains what that costs at the counter. It suits someone who wants to learn espresso by hand and enjoys a small routine, and it frustrates someone who wants two flat whites in three minutes.

Gaggia has belonged to Philips since 2009, through Saeco, and the range today also includes bean-to-cup machines. Those are a different purchase for a different reader, closer to bean-to-cup machines in general than to the Classic.

The Classic is the pick for learning the craft in your first espresso machine under $500, and it stands for one of the four profiles in choosing an espresso machine.