La Spaziale Vivaldi II

“Money isn’t always the solution. I bought a LM GS3 about 15 years ago and it had a lot of issues. Apparently they’re better now. In any event, I decided it was too much of a hassle, so I asked Chris’ Coffee (who I bought the GS3 from) what their most consistent and reliable double boiler was, and they pointed me towards the La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi II. It’s over 14 years old at this point, and it’s been an as reliable as a hammer. All the parts are original (even the gaskets) and it is as consistent as it gets. In 14 years, I’ve only had to open it up once, and that was a month or so ago to unclog a flow controller, which was incredibly minor/easy. They don’t get a ton of love around these parts, but if you’re looking for a consistent and reliable double boiler that isn’t likely to need servicing, parts or fiddling around - it’s a pretty spectacular package, and it heats up surprisingly fast ( \~5 min for espresso and \~10 min for espresso + steam). It has a PID for the brew temp and it’s easy to change the temp, volumetric dosing (which I greatly prefer to a manual paddle/lever) and the front mounted water tank is incredibly easy to change. I’ve looked at GS3’s again, as well as Slayers and even had a chance to use them a few times as I was considering replacing old reliable - but while the build quality on the $8k+ machines was more refined, that was really all they had going for them for home use. The espresso and milk drinks weren’t any better, the machines were no easier to use, and they take much longer to heat up. I considered a Decent, but I wasn’t impressed with the steam power compared to my La Spaziale. I ended up just getting a Flair 58 plus 2 for pulling more exotic profiled espresso shots, so if I ever get the hankering for tinkering around a bit, I’ll pull out the flair. https://preview.redd.it/co1k0kr8wque1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2e45c417b80c072208e21a81b7995bcb8b530be”