My birthday is still almost two months away but she found a really good deal on it (used but in good condition) and was too excited to wait. Plus we don’t really have anywhere to hide it for that long without me accidentally finding it anyway.
I’m still learning how to use it but it’s been fun so far. My first two shots (yesterday) weren’t great, my third (today) turned out a lot better, and my fourth was nearly perfect. Still too inconsistent to be confident yet but I’m enjoying the learning process. I’ve heard the GCP is user upgradable, I may look into that in the future. I’ve read that upgrading the over pressure valve is a big upgrade, as is a brass boiler, but that’s for future me to think about, right now I still want to learn how to use it. I’ve also read about Gaggimate and Gaggiuino which seem really interesting. Again, I’ll do that rabbit hole in the future. I know there’s lots of gadgets and stuff for espresso too, that’s something else I’ll want to get into in the future, but for right now I’m really having fun just trying to figure out pull time, heat up time, grind size, etc. My wife is also having a ton of fun with it.
Also, I know there’s no scale in the picture but I do use one, I just figured the picture would look nicer staged like this.
My general advice for espresso is keep it simple and not overthink it. Don't weigh your beans, don't single dose, don't spray water or WDT or do any of that esoteric espresso nerd jazz.
Get a burr grinder that grinds fine enough for espresso in the 200-400€ range, backflush the machine regularly (aim for every morning (with detergent once a week), descale with citric acid once a year, don't overspend on artisanal locally roasted beans unless you have the money and enjoy the ritual of picking them up.
There's a lot of unnecessary optimization in the espresso world like in a lot of hobbies. Italians did fine without all that for the better part of a century.
Don't listen to James Hoffman.