Home espresso machines come in a lot of flavors...
and in my relatively short coffee career I've been fortunate enough to get my sticky barista paws on a lot of them, but the machine we're looking at today, the Lucca A53 Mini, knocks a couple firsts off my list. It's my first experience with a La Spaziale, and also the first with a pump driven machine using a smaller 53mm portafilter. The machine itself was designed to bring consistent, repeatable espresso to both home and small commercial environments, and claims to do so with programmable shot volumes, a stable semi-saturated group design, and dual boilers for back-to-back steaming and pulling.
Personally, I hadn't heard much about this machine until I spike with Clive Coffee, the Portland based distributor who designed it in collaboration with La Spaziale, and I can't help but think it may get written off due to its smaller portafilter. In coffee circles, whether it be home aficionados or professional baristas, the commercial standard 58mm portafilter has become highly sought after due to its abundance of available aftermarket tools, and toys. But beyond that this has also led to a debate of the differences between the wider, thinner 58mm portafilter, or the narrower, deeper 53mm portafilter.
So in this week's video I not only weigh in on that debate, but also dig into the Lucca A53 Mini and see if it lives up to its claim of being a proper barista workhorse, so hit play on the video above and let's brew this!
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