Do you hire your espresso machine? We occurred to do some second-hand espresso machine shopping for some pals who’ve a café they usually’ve been renting a machine for 2 years. They’ve now dropped six thousand Aussie {dollars} on a La Marzocco Linea basic they don’t personal. So after all I began searching for a secondhand 2-group LM to interchange it. And one thing actually bizarre has revealed itself. The resale worth on high-end espresso machines is superior; it’s staggering for 1-group machines. As for 3-groups?… It’s horrible. The espresso trade values the third group on an espresso machine at basically nothing. In truth, after the largest deep dive we now have ever achieved on the UK and Australia’s second-hand espresso machine market, three teams are, on common, value lower than 2-groups.
Test this out — and also you’ll assume twice about shopping for a 3 group once more. Even when you’re a excessive quantity powerhouse, slinging 1000+ lattes a day, you’ll need two 2-group machines as an alternative of a 3 group.
In our first superficial search for a LM Linea, we set a search radius of 500 km from the Barista Hustle workplace. Test this web page of listings. Do you discover the three 2-group Lineas listed there? AU$13,990; $9,200, and $10,600 respectively, with a mean worth of $11,263. And there are 4 3-group machines listed with a mean worth of $7,562. Beginning to see a sample?
How about we verify Synesso? Have a look at the 2 listings inside 500 km and also you discover a good 3-group Synesso Saber (the one with volumetrics) at $2,000 Aussie and a 2-group Saber for $2,000. And what about that 3-group Cyncra for 1,300 bucks. Somebody purchase that, would ya — what a basic! — however completely guide.
Okay — this might all be coincidence, so now it’s time for a full evaluation, one which goes worldwide, evaluating fashions of espresso machines of comparable ages throughout a number of manufacturers. Let’s do it.
The AU-UK META MEGA Evaluation of Second-Hand Espresso Machines
We trawled the used-machine listings at Espresso Machine Warehouse and Di Pacci in Australia, then, for the UK, we checked out United Baristas and Di Pacci UK. We focussed on manufacturers we all know are enormous in each international locations: La Marzocco, Synesso, Nuova Simonelli, Victoria Arduino, gathering unusual used, refurbished and ex-demo 1-, 2- and 3-group machines. Something clearly customised or closely upgraded was excluded from our search. To make the 2 international locations comparable, we stripped GST and VAT out of the costs and transformed the British listings into Aussie {dollars} at £1 = AU$1.87688.
Some sellers inform you precisely when a machine was constructed — thanks. After they didn’t, we estimated an age vary from the mannequin and era. We might be pretty exact with one thing like a Linea PB, significantly much less so with a Linea Traditional or Synesso Cyncra that has been round for years. So don’t learn this as forensic serial-number courting. The purpose is solely to cease us evaluating a near-new Eagle One with a 20-year-old GB5 and blaming the value distinction on the variety of group heads. However check out the info set as soon as we’ve eliminated machines youthful than 5 years previous, the 3-group nonetheless barely appears to exist as an asset.
The Linea PB Casestudy
Once we begin to have a look at machines by mannequin, issues get much more revealing. The La Marzocco Linea comparability might be essentially the most revealing. These are machines from the identical fundamental era, aimed on the identical sorts of cafés. But by the point they attain the used market, the unique worth premium for the 3-group has virtually utterly evaporated.
So Ought to I Simply Purchase the Three-group?
Possibly. If the second-hand market goes to provide the 3-group for almost nothing, or generally cost you much less for it, then the traditional shopping for recommendation will get turned on its head as a result of a 3-group does good issues. You get extra peak brewing capability, extra steam capability, and redundancy. Lose one group on a 2-group machine and you might be immediately working a one-group café. Lose one group on a 3-group and you continue to have a standard 2-group machine. You may also dedicate the third group to one thing completely different. Decaf. A visitor espresso espresso. One other recipe. Possibly even a spro-over?
A 2-group is sufficient of a machine for an enormous proportion of cafés, and the additional group takes up area, makes use of extra vitality and solely improves throughput in case your workflow can truly make use of it. The superb 2-group-vs-3-group movies from Artisti Espresso Roasters and Bridge Espresso Roasters each make that time properly. However second-hand, the equation adjustments as a result of, after a machine is greater than 5 years previous, you’re not paying a premium for the additional capability.
The Third Group Takes up Actual Property
Take a Linea PB. The two-group is about 71 cm large and the 3-group about 95 cm. That’s one other 24 cm of bench frontage. On a Cyncra, the distinction is nearer to 28 cm. That will solely symbolize round 0.15 m² of precise bench floor, however frontage issues. 25 centimetres is sufficient area for a grinder, knockbox, scales or just a little bit of clear working bench in a crowded bar. So the 3-group on a second-hand machine could also be just about free in purchase-price phrases, however it undoubtedly isn’t free in café actual property. That stated, a 3-group has stage presence — it indicators to new prospects that you just’re able to rumble. And inform me truthfully when you haven’t visited a brand new city earlier than and glanced within the window of a café, hoping to obtain some sign from the gear decisions that a spot may simply make you a very good espresso. That sign is fairly weak from a lone single group and it’s a sheepish little bleat from a distant mist-shrouded mountain when it comes from an excellent automated.
What Concerning the Electrical Provide and Working Value?
A 2-group Linea is normally run on a devoted 20 A circuit, whereas the 3-group desires 32 A — generally extra. That doesn’t robotically imply rewiring: if the prevailing cable was outsized, an electrician might solely want to vary the breaker or isolator and verify the switchboard capability. If the circuit was wired proper on the restrict for 20 A, although, a heavier cable run could also be required by your native authority.
And importantly, previous 3-group machines are usually not essentially three-phase-only monsters. Many basic Lineas, GB5s, FB80s and Synessos have been provided in high-current single-phase configurations. Test the info plate earlier than assuming you want three-phase.
The three-group usually means an even bigger steam boiler, extra heated steel and the next linked electrical load. A 3-group Linea PB has round 6.1 kW of rated heating capability versus roughly 4.6 kW for the 2-group. That doesn’t imply it consumes an additional 1.5 kWh each hour, as a result of heating parts cycle, however there’ll usually be some extra standby and restoration vitality.
Water price itself is far much less dramatic. The machine isn’t robotically utilizing extra brew water simply because it has one other group. You’ll use a little bit extra water and detergent cleansing a 3rd group, however in contrast with labour, electrical energy and bench area, that’s just about simply noise.
The World’s Most Over-engineered Scorching-water Faucet
James Hoffmann lately confirmed that an Americano can style higher when you keep away from steam-boiler water and as an alternative warmth recent water with the steam wand. A spare group provides you one other path to the identical fundamental thought: maintain that group coffee-free and run recent filtered water straight by way of it for Americanos, tea, AeroPress and even pour-over. If the machine has volumetric controls, it will get higher nonetheless. Program the group to dispense ~150 mL and you’ve got a repeatable, one-button recent scorching water dose, Rober McKeon Aloe model.
In case you’re nervous about restoration time for the water temperature within the brew boiler, a 150 mL draw is just not particularly punishing on an enormous business machine. On a 3-group Linea PB, the 5 L brew boiler and 1.9 kW coffee-boiler ingredient imply the theoretical worst-case restoration from genuinely chilly incoming water is round 24 seconds, and a few PBs might be arrange with elective warmth alternate preheating of the incoming brew water.
A Cyncra is completely different as a result of every group has its personal impartial brew boiler. The theoretical worst case is nearer to a minute, however Synesso additionally preheats the incoming water earlier than it reaches the brew tank, so actual restoration ought to, once more, be a lot quicker.
Abruptly, the apparently redundant third group has a job. Two teams for espresso. One spotless group for recent scorching water. It could be the world’s most extravagantly engineered hot-water faucet, however bear in mind: in response to at present’s second-hand market, they’re virtually giving it away.
So What Is the Three-Group Truly Value?
When the machine is new, quite a bit. When it’s previous, apparently virtually nothing. And that tells us one thing extra fascinating about espresso-machine depreciation than merely which mannequin is least expensive. The resale market doesn’t appear to care almost as a lot about how a lot espresso a machine can theoretically produce as producers and first homeowners do. It cares about how straightforward that machine might be to personal subsequent.
A compact machine can transfer into one other café, an workplace, a restaurant, a cart or a house. A metre-wide 3-group has fewer locations left to go. So possibly the explanation 3-groups depreciate so brutally isn’t that they cease being good espresso machines. They merely run out of people that have someplace to place them.
So What A couple of One-group?
In case you’re nonetheless curious, or have a dream of proudly owning your personal iconic one-group espresso machine sooner or later, you is perhaps on this.
The little one-group La Marzocco behaves virtually utterly in another way. Used GS3s stay obnoxiously costly, typically sitting in the identical worth territory as a lot bigger 15- or 20-year-old business machines. That is smart as soon as you consider the place they will go subsequent. A GS3 can go away a restaurant and find yourself in an workplace, a espresso cart or any individual’s kitchen. It may be serviced, rebuilt and, for the correct proprietor, saved roughly indefinitely. A 3-group GB5 or Cyncra doesn’t have that luxurious. Nonetheless succesful it nonetheless is, its subsequent proprietor just about needs to be one other café.
It’s clear the resale market isn’t rewarding capability, it’s rewarding optionality.
The GS3 can transfer between a number of completely different markets because it ages. A 3-group business machine has to maintain discovering one other proprietor with the bench area, electrical provide, plumbing and workload to justify it. Which may be why a GS3 appears virtually incapable of changing into low-cost. However severely, can somebody purchase that 1,300 buck Synesso on the Market? Honest dos, it’s not a Hydra — the beast with a separate pump for each group — however it’s a discount.
Supply hyperlink
