A busted espresso machine leaves town. A new espresso machine comes to town.

Recently, after a long and gradual decline that culminated in a series of acute failures of escalating severity until finally no espresso was bring produced at all, our superannuated De’Longhi bean-to-cup espresso machine (a Magnifica ECAM 23.120 B [B for black]) gave up the ghost.

Layered bands of condensation droplets in the espresso machine's water reservoir. — Bands of condensation droplets in the new machine’s water reservoir. Each horizontal layer corresponds to two consecutive double-shots of espresso. Click for an un-cropped view.

We replaced it with a new one having the same model name (Magnifica), the same specs, and a very nearly identical design, but a slightly different model number: ECAM 22.110). This time around, we wound up with the S (silver) version rather than black. The two most obvious differences are a revamped control button panel layout, though the button icons and functionality are pretty much unchanged AFAICT, and a plastic grid built into the inside of the coffee bean hopper that wasn’t present in the older machine. The latter is probably intended to combat the annoying phenomenon of beans settling and getting cemented to one another while the machine isn’t in use and then not tumbling easily into the maw of the built-in grinder the next time one tries to make some coffee.

Coffee bean hoppers of the old (left) and new (right) De'Longhi bean-to-cup espresso machines. — Coffee bean hoppers of the old (left) and new (right) De’Longhi bean-to-cup espresso machines.

Prices at outlets of either half of Hong Kong’s electronics/appliance duopoly (Broadway and Fortress) tend to be, in my experience, well-padded. The same goes for outlets of individual white goods manufacturers, if the company of interest even has a store in the city and not just a showroom. Many local purchasers, especially those who have done a bit of research beforehand and have particular models in mind, head to price.com.hk and call up merchants to confirm inventory and prices and then, fingers crossed, make a direct visit to a single seller, pay, get the thing, and vamoose.

The control panels on the old and new machines, respectively.

Hong Kong residential electricity supply voltage is 220V (close to the UK’s ~230V) and plugs and outlets here are, courtesy of its pre-1997 heritage, UK-compatible, so appliances manufactured for the UK market function here just fine. Amazon.co.uk is selling the De’Longhi Magnifica ECAM 22.110 S for a few pence over £380 (roughly equivalent to US$ 470 and change). A small electronics dealer from whom we’d purchased other items in the past was advertising a gray-market (aka parallel-import) version of the machine on price.com.hk for HK$ 2600 (just over US$ 330). There are no prohibitions against buying or selling such items and the only downside for the purchaser is the absence of product support or warranty protections. Over the phone, the seller confirmed that he had stock on hand in his shop in a small electronics mall and that the device voltage was HK-compatible. It came with a two-prong plug, so we’d need a adapter. Our Oral-B battery-powered toothbrush, bought in a Broadway or Fortress, has a European sort of two-prong plug and the store threw in the adapter and we sometimes purchase small bits of two-pronged-plug and three-pronged-plug 220V equipment from the Mainland, for which we also use plug adapters. In other words, needing to use a plug adapter is not a deal-breaker. Thus, off to Sham Shui Po we went.

When we arrived in person, the seller had turned disagreeable. He wanted the cash up front before he’d fetch the espresso machine from its hidey hole and delivered this pronouncement from his chair, set at some distance from the shop’s counter. The congeniality he’d shown during our previous visits, when we’d made quickly-concluded purchases (no tire-kicking), was altogether absent. It would have been unwise to fork over any money before, at the absolute least, a brief examination of the product carton to confirm the voltage. So, shrugging at the odd shift in attitude, we left.

The straws-napkins-cream-and-fixins counter at the Starbucks in the same mall where Store #2 was based. — The straws-napkins-cream-and-fixins counter at the Starbucks in the same mall where Store #2 is based. Starbucks locations in HK stopped providing free, self-serve milk and creamer years ago and the sign dates from that period. Recently, even straws and napkins have become too precious to be made directly available to customers and must also be begged from baristas. The napkin dispenser is still there, but turned sideways and sitting on the staff side of the waist-high partition which divides this outlet’s square footage into customer and staff zones.

From there, a few minutes’ travel took us to the location of the closest other seller, who runs their store out of a shopping mall in Prince Edward. Seller #2 had listed the same model, but the non-parallel-import version (so no plug adapter necessary), for the Amazon.co.uk price (HKD$ 3650, just under US$ 470). The trip from Sham Shui Po had been quick and we hadn’t phoned ahead. As it turned out, they had no stock. We could order one and it would be ready for pickup in less than a week. Alas, though we’d consumed some espresso-based beverages before setting out on our mission and delayed the onset of caffeine withdrawal symptoms, we needed a working espresso machine sooner than that, on the order of hours rather than days.

While we stood outside a threadbare but bustling Starbucks in that shopping center, S. pulled up the price.com.hk search results on her phone and made more calls. She found a seller (Seller #3) who had one on-site, in a shop-slash-warehouse located in an industrial building whose lower floors had been converted into a quasi-mall. Another short trip and this time (in a narrow aisle between towers of stacked cartons containing a wide array of home kitchen appliances at the end of long corridor beyond the nondescript unmarked door of a rented unit on a still-industrial floor of one block of the structure) we bagged our quarry. After handing over HKD$ 3680 (i.e. approximately the Amazon.co.uk retail price), I lugged the espresso machine out, down, and outdoors where we flagged down a taxi and rode home. After washing out the water reservoir, thoroughly rinsing it, and running a tankful of distilled water through the machine to work out any internal dust or plasticky residues, we put it into service and it’s been working away ever since.

Unfocused, low-resolution snapshot of the serial number sticker, which also shows the model number, identifies Romania as the country of manufacture, and says this is a 15-bar machine. Taken with the forward-facing camera on a phone. — Unfocused, low-res snapshot of the serial number sticker on the defunct espresso-maker, showing the model number, identifies Romania as the country of manufacture, and says this is a 15-bar machine. Taken with the forward-facing camera on a phone. The new machine is also a 15-bar jobby and was also made in Romania.

To wrap this up, I’ll include here a brief description of the previous machine’s last days. After each run of one of these bean-to-cup espresso-makers, a tuna-can-shaped lump of spent coffee grounds is ejected into an internal receptacle, which needs regular emptying. The new machine, as its predecessor did for a long time, kicks out firmly-packed, bone-dry pucks of grounds. I’d noticed that the old unit’s pucks getting noticeably more moist and crumbly, but this was something that came on slowly over months. Also, some water from each run (even on a brand-spanking-new machine) always ends up in a basin under the espresso spigots. This shallow tank is covered by a stainless steel plate and it’s on th (i.e. the spot where you place your cup[s] before pressing one of the buttons on the control panel). The grounds bin rests on a sort of plastic tongue extending backwards from this basin and slotting into the guts of the espresso machine and one generally dumps that water into the sink at the same time one empties the grounds into the trash. Towards the end of the old machine’s life, more and more distilled water had been winding up there, underneath our cups, and less and less had been getting forced through the grounds and turned into drinkable espresso. At the end, the puck receptacle was taking blasts of uncompressed dry grounds or loose, watery ground sludges, nothing at all was coming out of the espresso spigots, and the water runoff collection basin under the stainless plate was filling up after a few runs. This all got much worse in the course of just a few days. During that short period, there were occasions when the old workhorse would seem to be working again, producing full and properly-strong shots as well as when it was new, only for it to go back to producing thimble-fulls of weak espresso or none at all.

We’re holding onto the non-working Magnifica unit, for now. It’s unplugged and sitting in an out-of-the-way corner, waiting until I’m struck by the urge to attempt an autopsy and/or repair attempt.