Coffee Bargains

Few differences between two

• Oro much faster
• Oro much heavier
• Oro quieter
• Oro creates silky texture/full body for espresso, balanced acidity/sweetness
• Vario thin/light body, more acidity, juicy
• Vario has bigger steps, sometimes you couldn’t get desired extraction time without playing with weight, not a problem with Oro as it is stepless

Haven’t tried with the filter yet , I presume biggest disadvantage of Oro would be switching from filter to espresso and back.

Ps. I am not compare to stock vario though ( baratza stainless steel burrs make some difference to taste too). Easiest and free mode you could make with the Vario is Flapper mode ( it creates fluffier grounds, but they fly all over the bench, couldn’t grind into portafilter anymore , unless with the dosing ring) . Oro makes same fluffy grounds by default.

https://espressoaf.com/manufacturers/baratza/vario_retention.html

I've had a Barista Express for a few years now and have been considering an upgrade for a while. Any suggestions on a machine that would be a next logical step up? Barista is great but the Steam wand is fairly wimpy. Looking at review of Rocket Appartamento, stunning looking machu e but a costly upgrade factoring in a grinder also

The Quickmill 03035 Pid Flow Profiling might be worth consideration. I have had the standard 03035 Pegasso which is basically the same thing without the flow control and PID and I think it's wonderful. Mine is 7 years old and is still working extremely well.

The grinder is as good as a standalone as the company has been making grinders since WW2. I found an annoying site, best-of-italy.com that has it for £861.30, but won't ship to ireland for some reason. I suspect I might be able to persuade them If I was after one. Cafe Italia here have My Pegasso for €1009.

I originally went for Quickmill as I have a thing for value for money and products that last and after doing some research on that topic settled on them. I calculate I have put 60Kg of beans through the grinder in mine and its still purring away. One thing I love is the really fast warmup. 1 minute and it reaches operating temp, but they recommend waiting for 2:30, which is usually what it takes me anyway with the pfaffing about I do.

Available here for about €950 delivered - https://www.lagondola.it/en/espresso-machine/quickmill-steel-model/quick-mill-espresso-machine-03035l-pid-flow/.

How you finding the grinder a month on? I'm looking at either the Oro or the Specialitia. I'd be coming from using the grinder on my Barista Express so I'm gonna guess either of these would be a big upgrade on that. I'm veering towards the Oro as I rarely drink more than one coffee a day.

Any idea if they've revised the Oro since release. I read some reviews and they were saying first batches were quite loud.

Great grinder , the best I’ve ever had :) Definitely at this price I won’t be looking at Specialitia.

Took it apart , checked burrs alignment ( ink method ) almost perfect, left it without shimming.

( Stock Vario was very bad btw) .

Retention impressive , didn’t find any grounds stuck inside the burrs . My modified Single Dose Vario had plenty grounds stuck between the burrs and the carrier.

As for the noise level , it is quieter than Vario and definitely much quieter than Sage Pro grinder ( which I also have, unfortunately).

ps. Where did you find it for €480 ?

Originally I was looking for chrome version, couldn’t force myself pay extra €40 for it . I guess it is time to go for white Lelit Bianca now :)

How did you find it, using aeropresses in work and looking for a cheaper kick than the usual Irish prices.

Can’t sustain the cost of 3fe etc, with the work lads smashing through it haha

Thanks, thanks won’t be ordering for a few weeks as have a few kg to get through, any feedback on them once you’ve tried would be very much appreciated.

I ordered the 25th of Feb, Roast Date on both were the 24th and they were delivered on the 02nd of March... With Feb being a 28 day month i think that was quite good.

Tried South American blend, not bad , medium roast, medium body,good crema, taste like typical Colombian, more or less similar to specialty Coffee from supermarkets IMO.

ps. I found quite difficult to dial between the beans with Oro compared to Vario .I like the coffee taste by Oro much better though, grounds more consistent too.

I don’t think it is possible to quickly switch between the beans with Oro ( one type for morning another for the evening etc), too much waste. It might get better hopefully ( practice etc)

Well done. That makes resisting the upgrade bug way harder. My Quickmill Pegaso still makes great coffee, though.

Gaggia Classic normally easy to fix though.

Just break it a little better next time. 😉