Faema Magica (English topic)

Hey all,

Apologies for writing in English as I'm not much use with French but thought this would be the place to ask.

I have an old Faema Magica espresso machine. Is it any good?

I have tried to made coffee with it but there is no crema, I don't know if this is because of the quality of the machine or if something is faulty.

Any ideas?

Many thanks!

Welcome to the forum!

Well, there isn't much to read about the Magica on the forum, except the following topic:

https://expresso.1fr1.net/t9046-nouvelle-machine-faema-magica

As you can see from the last picture, it's still capable of producing acceptable shots... assuming you have a good coffee grinder with burrs (and not blades). Do you have any grinder?

Fresh beans, espresso-dedicated grinder, grinding at the last minute, and properly warmed machine (consider twenty minutes, not less), those are conditions to start making an espresso.

Does this make sense to you? Are you "green" about espresso, or do you have any background with this kind of coffee extraction method?

I do have a burr grinder, but my main staple is a coffee subscription which is delivered freshly grinded on the day. My main machine is a Rancillo Silvia which is amazing. I normally leave it to warm up about 10 minutes, but will try longer. At the moment it's not on the same level.

Well. As Pig mentioned, you should use your grinder. It's not only a matter of freshness, but the ground should be right. As a reminder, let say that the right time of extraction is 25 sec for 25 ml. If the extraction is faster, then the ground is to coarse. And if the extraction is slower, then it's to fine. You'll have to adjust your grinder.

Worro,

You could always pick up a mini Porlex grinder and a packet of beans from somewhere like Maxicoffee.com and muck about with different grinds. With the Porlex you can go from straight-through maidenswater to Turkish so you should hit a sweet spot somewhere along the way. Kinda hard on the muscles grinding for a party of 10, though...

Cheers.

Well, Craving doesn't live in France, so I frankly doubt he cares about ordering from France... right?

I can get a Porlex easily enough, it's on my shopping list. As for the groundness, when I setup the subscription it gave me the option of espresso, cafetiere and stove top. But I appreciate that there may be some fine tuning to be done.

Thanks for all the help so far.