STARESSO Portable Espresso Maker - Third Generation Mini Espresso Maker for Two Shots at One Time Upgrade Version Hand Espresso Maker for Rich & Thick Crema with Ground Coffee for Camping & Office

This is my first time making espresso, but I've been making fresh coffee for a few years now. Freshly ground with a bur grinder, perfect water temperature, filtered water, I take it pretty seriously. Understanding the factors that come into play when brewing coffee is like understanding the acoustics to making music. Yea, you can turn on the regular coffee pot, pour in some tap water, and some stale coffee grounds, and call it coffee, but there's a reason you add a cup of sugar and milk to cover up the taste. It's not pleasant, or enjoyable. Many people don't realize, but making coffee is an art, and leaving it all up to a machine, you end up with something unsatisfying. All that being said, making great art, takes quality, reliable tools. This is a quality, reliable tool. So far I've only used it once, but in all my experience, and lack of experience, even my first shot of espresso was something amazing. The flavors I never knew coffee had, and I could taste them. I'm no professional, but I am proud to own this. Let's get into a few details. The surface feels like a kind of textured rubber, so easy to grip, not easy to scratch up or anything. Underneath, it feels like solid steal base. Some parts may be plastic, but parts that are safe from damage. Thoroughly cleaning this, I'd say it's obviously very well made, and the craftsmanship is worth the price tag. Cleaning was easy. There were artifacts left from manufacturing I image, little pieces of, whatever it was, and some kind of oil, or residue. Hot water and dish soup cleaned all that away, which you should clean anything you get new like this anyway, so no extra work there. Afterwards, I ran hot water through the system as if pressing a shot, to clear out any left over soupy water. After brewing, all the coffee grounds easily washed away with just a rinse of water, didn't even need to use soup, or scrub. Very happy with this effortless clean up. (: The espresso maker came with a little plastic scoop for coffee grounds, however nothing to tamp with. 18 grams of finely ground coffee is about 3 scoops of whole beans, and after grinding, it won't all fit in the filter unless you tamp it down, so getting a tamp is highly recommended. You want an even, dense puck of fine coffee, not a mounds of loosely packed, lumpy coffee. Pumping the water took a little force once the pressure built up, but not too much. Considering the volume of water, the size of the basket, and adjustable pressure valve, this tool can work how you want it to work, figure out your own perfect shot of espresso, and that flexibility is amazing in my opinion. Also, the duel outlets which make it possible to make 2 separate shots at once. Bottom line, durable, solid build, easy to clean, easy to use, flexible usage, and works great. Only missing a tamper, or the product page should at least tell us that it doesn't have one, and what size to get. This is the Gen 3, Mirage Portable Espresso Maker.

It makes legitimate espresso that pulls the flavor. It claims to have enough pressure and the claim appears to be true. Down side is that it cools the water down so that the espresso it not quite hot enough. Also, the pump is made of plastic and I worry that it will break if not used carefully. I wish it was steel instead. It is larger than the previous models and makes twice as much espresso in one batch. It also did not come with directions. I would have also preferred the interior to be glass or stainless steel instead of plastic. Made in China 😕. Quick shipping and packaged nicely with a good presentation. Easy to clean if done right away.

This little machine actually makes a pretty good double shot of espresso. There's good crema and flavor. I don't find it hard to clean, especially since most of its parts only require rinsing. I love that it doesn't take up much space, because I really don't have much in my kitchen. Including boiling water, it takes me less than 10 minutes to make espresso using this machine. The first time I used it, the espresso was watery, so I made some changes which improved the flavor a lot: - Grind the coffee beans really fine - Fill the grounds container as much as possible and tamp like crazy (add grounds, tamp, if there's still space, add more and tamp again over and over until full) - Pre-heat the water chamber (don't screw on the part that holds the grounds. Stand the staresso up in the sink. Pour freshly boiled water into the water chamber, place the part with the handle pump on top, do not screw it on. Let the hot water drain through the machine and into the sink) You can also pre-heat the little cup by pouring boiled water in it and letting it sit while the water drains through the rest of the machine. - Make sure the part where the coffee comes out is turned as tightly as possible before attaching it to the water chamber. (Turn the part with the nozzles upside down so that the nozzles are facing you. Using the nozzles for grip, turn it as tightly as possible to the right.) Once the machine is put together and has grounds in it, I just follow the directions exactly. Wait 2 seconds, pump, wait, pump, and so on. To lessen mess, once I'm done pumping, I pour the espresso into a cup, and place the little cup that comes with the machine back under it so it can catch the drips. I'm pretty quick, so I rarely get any espresso on my counter. Getting the grounds into the coffee chamber and tamping is the messiest part for me, so I just do that over the sink. Once you're done pumping the espresso, slowly unscrew the hand pump part. Let it sit on the counter to cool and depressurize. I don't recommend attempting to clean the machine right away, since it might be really hot and there might still be a lot of pressure built up inside. I usually make coffee in the morning and then clean the machine at night, because that's when I do the dishes. It hasn't caused any problems to be lazy about cleaning. Unscrew the part containing coffee grounds over the sink. That can be messy otherwise. There are only 2 things I'd change about the Staresso: 1. Make more espresso at once - I love triple and quad shots. I could just buy another machine, but I don't feel like shelling out the cash for another just yet. 2. Include a tamp that fits over the coffee ground chamber perfectly. This would probably be less messy and take less time than using the spoon that comes with it.

Seller was great, product went out before they said it would go out, when I requested refund all was done very rapidly. I was disappointed with it, it's very bulky, nearly impossible to make a good expresso, first no coffee should touch a cold part of machine, impossible to warm up it all, and most important, steam/water should be pressurised before brewing, machine does it after going through the coffee grounds.

I purchased this to take on vacation to make lattes. At home I use a Rancilio Silvia with Pete's Arabian Mocha Java ground for espresso. I was aiming for something equivalent that was packable. It worked very well, delivering equivalent home quality lattes to the tune of three per day for 10 days without a hitch. Ten things that matter: 1. It's small enough and light enough to pack and carry 2. It produces espresso with crema as shown the photo 3. Like anything new, it takes a few tries to master it -- but easily mastered 4. I used Illy ground espresso -- worked great 5. I prefer strong lattes, so it opted for two rounds of espresso for each latte; that means you have to empty and rinse it between each round -- not a big deal 6. The water has to be hot going in, the process of pushing it through cools it down; the end result was fine for temperature 7. I purchased a battery powered frother wand, that worked perfectly too for the milk for the latte 8. I was thinking I would take this on a trip off the grid, but you need ready access to water to rinse it each time and that makes it just a bit too inconvenient for that use in my case, plus time in the AM will be too short to mess with it 9. Once you get the hang of it, all the little nuances come together and you can bang out espresso no problem in a few minutes 10. I like the fact that it has folding legs, pumping the device to push the espresso out steadied on a counter worked well Bottom line, it produced 60 shots of high quality espresso over 10 days that were equivalent to what I make at home on a Rancilio.

I really enjoy a cup of expresso. After a lot of looking I decided to go with this expresso maker. I like the price and it marketed itself as travel friendly and I really like the idea of being able to have a nice expresso on a rafting trip as well as every morning before work. I guess if you just wanted to use this device for just camping type trips it would be fine. However as a daily expresso maker I have my doubts. It takes ALOT of pumping to get two shots out, and while it appeared to be pretty solidly made, I was not sure it would stand up to daily use. After 2 mornings, spending ten minutes pumping away for my morning coffee I gave up and returned it as I doubt I would have the continued patience to make this part of my morning routine. If I was looking for a dedicated expresso maker to take on car camping or rafting trips, this would probably tick that box. It did make really good expresso though...

Yes, it's a hassle to clean. Let's get that criticism out of the way immediately. However, I don't know how they could have designed such an excellent product without some degree of complication in the clean up and assembly department. This thing makes a perfect shot of espresso with a hearty layer of sweet creamy creama. I've taken this device with me on my travels and have been able to enjoy perfect espresso in places where perfect espresso is not available (like, remote Canada, or anywhere in India). It's a bit of a process to assemble, disassemble and clean... and there's a small learning curve - BUT... it's well worth it. I've tried a few other hand-powered espresso devices and this one is TOPS. My only criticism is concerning the lack of a tamper. Sure, they suggest you use the back of the scoop... but it's too small and made out of flimsy plastic. PLEASE MAKE A REAL TAMPER THAT FITS THE BASKET. That would make this Star-Wars looking (the esthetics are a bonus too) device perfect.

I really wanted to like this little device. It would have been a really inexpensive way to have espresso drinks at home. It can make a strong coffee with the crema that people associate with good espresso. I'm just not sure that the end product is worth the hassle. The Staresso uses a very small diameter pump and a pressurized basket and little pressure regulator to develop pressure. The small pump is a good idea because it allows for a lower force to achieve higher pressures, but that comes at the expense of having to do a lot of pumping. I think that part of the problem is that the pump and pressure regulator system doesn't do a very good job of maintaining pressure. The pump is only really pressurizing the small space between the water reservoir and the pressure regulator. That space might develop as much pressure as that found in an espresso machine momentarily, but the pressure isn't maintained well and it's nearly impossible to predict how much water you can pump through the puck before the system just stops pumping. What you end up with is a water chamber with ~1oz of water leftover, a wet mess of coffee grounds where your puck should be and some strong aerated coffee. The other problem I ran into was related to the coffee volume. Staresso claims that the basket can hold 18-22g of coffee. I had trouble getting 16g of coffee to fit in the basket. The scoop and pump handle both seemed too small to function as sufficient tampers as they suggest. The pump is domed and that's not in ideal shape for a tamper anyway. My pump part was also dented even though the box showed no signs of damage. The basket is 53.5mm diameter, so a 53mm tamper should work. Ultimately I found that the coffee produced from the machine wasn't doing justice to the beans I buy and it wasn't worth the time and trouble of the pre-heating, pumping and clean-up that this thing requires.