Handpresso HPWILDHYBRIDGREY Wild Hybrid Espresso Machine, Silver

I literally cannot function without espresso, I need to drink three or four every day otherwise I'm grumpy. A year ago I got the Minipresso GR for Christmas. It's been with me around the Oregon coast, Grand Canyon, Koh Phangan, Yosemite... always making great espresso with loads of delicious crema, comparable to what my Krups machine at home makes. The Minipresso broke after six months, so I bought another. The second one also broke after six months, so I decided to try this product instead, the Handpresso.It's a bit more expensive than the Minipresso, and on paper sounds like it should be better -- 16 bars pressure versus I think 6 bar on the trusty Minipresso, plus you can tamp coffee for the Handpresso whereas you can't tamp with the Minipresso. It also looks a little fancier, although when using it you look like you're working out with a ShakeWeight, if you catch my drift.After a few uses, I returned this product. The coffee it makes just wasn't up to my standards. To me, it's like a strong filter coffee, or something from a French press, and it never produced much crema. Like going to a backwater tea-house and asking for an espresso, and you get a sort of thin, slightly bitter giant cup of dark brown water with bubbles on top, versus going to a downtown coffeeshop where every time you get a tiny, intense shot of smooth black tar topped with shining golden crema.Whilst it breaks far too often (and the US importer is unresponsive), I still recommend the Minipresso instead of the Handpresso, if you're trying to choose between the two.

I'd consider myself a moderate coffee snob, and by my standards this makes very good espresso.- If you're an extreme coffee snob, this won't match your $1000 machine but of course you knew that.- If you're an extreme coffee snob who's worried about surviving the zombie apocalypse without electricity, this'll be good enough to keep you going until you're eaten.- If you're not a snob but you know you prefer espresso, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised with how good this coffee is.- If you just want strong coffee, this is more trouble than it's worth, buy an AeroPress, they're great.As a bonus, it's also just a really fun gadget to use. It's very sturdily built, and makes neat, satisfying, noises.Only drawback is its capacity. It can hold 7g of grounds, which is barely a full shot. As someone who likes a 20g double, it takes a lot of fiddling around to get the job done. The zombies will certainly have gotten you by the time you're done.

Works great for a single shot. The pumping takes about 40 pumps. Their ads may say 10 pumps, but it takes a good bit more. I had an o-ring pop out within the first week, not sure why, but they include a second o-ring in the box, so I was good to go. I ordered additional o-rings (just to be prepared) from their importer in the US (importika). Too bad they don't make parts more available.When traveling I do not like the usual coffee in hotel rooms. This lets me have a nice espresso shot in the morning without having to go out to find a decent coffee shop. I'm also the only coffee drinker in my household so it lets me have a shot anytime I might want.The ESE pods are not very available over the counter, I couldn't find them in most places I looked. So I bought a box of 100 Caffe Bourbone pods on Amazon and that will keep me going for a while, price was good. It can also use ground coffee but the pods are really easy.

I have owned the ESE pod-only Handpresso for years and wanted to try using ground coffee instead, since ESE pods are not available everywhere and are expensive. I travel overseas for weeks at a time, and carry 30-40 ESE pods with me but would love to just carry a container of ground coffee instead. The Wild Hybrid performs as well as the older one using ESE pods, but it was a complete failure using ground coffee in the DomePod. After much experimentation with coffee grind and tamping, I have concluded that this thing is just too picky. The coffee must be the fine, near-powder espresso grind and the tamp is critical-far too critical- to producing a decent espresso. The local supermarket grinder couldn't grind fine enough, which negated the whole point of buying the Hybrid-the ability to use ground coffee wherever I happen to be. There isn't a gourmet coffee shop always nearby, and if there were, I would just order a latte there instead anyway.

Right grind and fresh roast gets it close to a real espresso machine. Also own a now retired MyPressi [broke twice. Even at minimum wage, I was losing money working for them]. No consumables so lighter to carry. Was worried about wearing out the pump and valve so bought a 3-year warranty for around $10 justified by ~4 extracts a day during trips [around 1,000 for the 3 years]. Three parts in total. Body is solid. Plastic basket looks flimsy but no sign of degradation after 3 months. Would pay $10 extra for a real metal basket.-Preheat everything with boiling water.-Load first and then pump ~30 times to give time for the grind to soak.-Crema depends on the particle size and packing force. Portable burr grinder or do it at home. Store-bought=mediocre results.-Can do [etch-sketch] reverse Latte Art by moving the flow over froth. :-)Now is a permanent member of my packing list.Never used pods.

Opened the box and was very impressed with the packaging. Looks high class. Opened the box removed the foam and took it out and very pleased with the look, quality, weight, it looked like something I'd want people to see me using and making coffee for them. Then I tried it and all my previous thoughts went out the window. I've had various coffee machines over the years and although I think they've a great idea and quality with this one it just does not make anything you can call coffee, at least not if you know your coffee. My current machine is better than anything I've ever tasted in hotels coffee shops etc whereas this one was more like the old greasy spoons from years ago. No matter what I did it came out tasting weak and insipid, and not hot however hot the water I used. More minor fault is that unless you hold it close to the cup it would spurt out over the edges. It says don't be surprised at how little water you put in (it is an espresso so I agree) but if you always have a double shot you have the faff of refilling with water, or even worse starting the whole process again....and still it tastes foul.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well this gadget works. I'm getting a better espresso than I managed to get from my Gaggia Baby Class, with a good, slow extraction and a decent, tight crema, but I've only tried it with the intense portafilter. The method I'm using goes like this: I fill the basket with fresh, very finely ground coffee, tamp it with the end of the handle, top it up and tamp it again, hard. I pump up the device a bit into the red zone (about 40 pumps) then pre-warm it with water from the kettle, discard it and re-fill, also pre-warming the cup. I put the coffee basket and portafilter on, then hit the button. It's a decent, slow extraction and gives a really good espresso with a resilient, tight crema and a deep, rich flavour. I went straight for the intense portafilter and haven't tried the standard one so can't comment on how it works. It's great to have such an effective device in so compact a form that I can take it on holiday or keep it in my locker at work.

I wasn't too happy with this product until I bought the intense portafilter. Now I am happy and love my little handpresso.It makes a great espresso, not too much else to say. I usually add some boiling water to the finished product to double the quantity.One word of advice: be careful when using it and follow the instructions carefully. the plunge is the part that needs the most attention after the device is pressurized. One time for some reason I pushed the plunge and it didn't release all the pressure, just half. If I had unscrewed the portafilter then it would have hit me along with hot water. After I pushed the plunge back the pressure was released.

The Handpresso produces a drink that tastes somewhat like espresso. That seems to be no mean feat. I've tried a few portable espresso makers and even after spending some time trying to use them, they all tend to produce something that I'd sooner describe as a coffee concentrate than as espresso: a drink, that is, of similar strength but different flavour. To its credit, the Handpresso does better.So it's a real shame that the plastic water reservoir on my unit cracked after a year of infrequent use, perhaps 30 or 40 uses total. Looking at other reviews, I'm not the only one with this complaint. Another £30 on the price for better materials seems like it would be well justified, though perhaps that's only obvious in retrospect.

I've had my Handpresso for a couple a couple of months now, and I absolutely love it. I use it at work all the time and have used it when camping aswell. I also tend to use it at home more than my full size coffee maker as it's quicker. I use it with ESE pods, and the espresso it makes is pretty good. It takes about 20 seconds to pump up, then you just add boiling water, and you are away. It's easy to clean as well.