This Christmas, my long struggle to get my wife an espresso machine finally came to an end. She's now happily caffeinated via a Gaggia Titanium. I'm happy I no longer have to research the darn things! But if you're after a machine, I wanted to point out a few places to check out.

It all started about three years ago. My wife dropped a hint that she wanted a cappuccino machine. I knew nothing about these things. I know nothing about coffee. When she sends me into a Starbucks, I'm the one asking for a large espresso with non-fat milk rather than a grande skinny or whatever the code words are.

I dived into the task of learning about machines with gusto. I started doing some searches and came across Whole Latte Love. It explained everything, from types of espresso machines to detailed reviews, such as this one for the Gaggia Titanium. I loved the site so much that I even invited the owner to speak at one of our SES shows, to talk about how having great content can help with search engines.

At that time, the Titanium didn't exist. Instead, I'd settled on getting a Jura machine. I was particularly impressed that one of them could even connect to the internet to download settings. But I mainly wanted one because we live in a very hard water area, on the chalk base of Salisbury Plain. I wanted the water filtered, so it wouldn't screw up the internals of one of these machines.

I didn't actually buy the machine for my wife for Christmas all those years ago. Instead, I gave her an IOU and took her into a shop to test various types. She's particular about wanting her coffee super hot. She also wanted to see how easy it was to froth milk, and some of these had frothing attachments.

In the end, she decided our kitchen was too small for a machine, nor was she that happy with what she'd seen. For me, it was agony. After all the research, I wanted the satisfaction of a purchase! Purchase interruptus is a terrible thing to endure.

Fast forward to this past Christmas. My wife's friend had since gotten an espresso machine, the Gaggia Titanium we ultimately purchased. My wife said the coffee from that was great and plenty hot for her. Plus, since we're about to move, the small kitchen issue was no longer a problem in the long term. If Father Christmas delivered an espresso machine, she'd be very happy.

I went back to the researching. The Juras were still attractive to me, but the Gaggias were about half the price. More important, the Titanium has twin boilers, which means you can make your coffee and then immediately froth your milk, rather than having to wait for a single boiler to take 30 to 45 seconds to heat back up. The Titanium doesn't have water purification, but a cheap Britta water jug solved that problem. We just fill the machine up from that.

While I loved Whole Latte Love, I couldn't buy the machine from them, as we are in the UK. I did a Foogle UK search and came across a variety of places.

La Gondola had the lowest price, and they did promise on the site that I'd get delivery before Christmas, which was only four or five days away when I was doing the ordering. Plus, I'd talked to my wife's friend's husband, who told me he'd purchased from somewhere in Italy. The downside was when the machine had a problem, Gaggia UK said it was up to Gaggia Italy to repair. But the vendor paid all the shipping, so he was very happy.

Still, I didn't want to take a chance. I came across Another Coffee, which had the machine for only 40 pounds more. Plus, it spelled out clearly that there was a two year warranty, something that wasn't so clear on other sites I went to (some would say one year, some said nothing at all). I also liked the site overall. There was a nice selection of products and information on coffee.

The downside was that the item wasn't in stock, with an estimated arrival date of two or three days. I figured I'd gamble. At worst, I'd give my wife the beans and a coffee book with the promise of a machine to arrive soon.

The day after I ordered, I received a phone call from Another Coffee, just to verify that it wouldn't likely arrive for two or three days. Was I OK with that? Sure, I said. The woman I spoke with told me there was a very good chance it should arrive before Christmas and that she'd watch out for it.

She called again to give me an update the next day that the machine was on schedule to arrive, then the following day to say it was shipped out. Needless to say, I was impressed by the follow up and service. The machine came in time for Christmas, giving my wife a nice cup of espresso to enjoy while opening presents.

The Titanium comes with a little milk frothing gadget, but it's a pain to use. We used it the first day, then my wife got the hang of frothing milk in a jug, which is dead easy. I played around with all the menus so that the machine goes into energy saving mode at night, then comes on in the day so it's all warmed up to dispense coffee at the push of a button. Buried in the settings is a way to see how many cups you've made (at our friends' house, I showed them this -- they'd had made over 1,000 cups!), plus you can adjust the temperature of your brew.

All in all, it's a great machine so far. It's a bit plasticky, ironic for a machine called "Titanium," and opening it up to remove coffee dregs is a real hassle. Aside from that, my wife's happy.

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