Hi,
I'm in the UK looking out for a decent superauto machine, particularly interested in the Jura range and possibly the Saecos. 5-600 of your UK pounds is about the point my coffee geekiness vs. bank balance cries "enough" I think!
Currently using a cheapy Delonghi espresso/filter combined machine, with a Starbucks Barista grinder. With the aid of these forums and coffeegeek, I can actually get a reasonable tasting shot out of the current setup - the local Whittards manager is a real coffee enthusiast and has put us onto good beans from freshly roasted batches (Sumatra Blue Lingtong mmm-mmm). But it takes ages and seems too much like hard work, so I am put off going down the Silvia/Rocky route. And I've had some pretty reasonable shots out of a Jura superauto at one of the pubs I frequent. Has anyone any suggestions/experience of these things? And where to get them at a decent price from the UK? So far italy-outlet.com are the best UK spec prices and espressofactory.de are even cheaper if I don't mind refitting the plug and having to wrestle with non-english instructions.
PS in response to some of this evenings posts I really enjoyed Peets coffee in California on a recent trip; surprise of the trip though, was a place called Spliffs in Guerneville, just a shack on the edge of town that served really good coffee. Mill Valley had a good one as well.
TIA Mike