omaneo.KARIN

The omaneo.KARIN is an E61 machine, and that says most of it: she belongs to the design that has been standing in cafés since 1961 and that survived so stubbornly because it solves a problem of physics elegantly. The brew group of chrome-plated brass is permanently flushed by boiler water and heated along with it. It is as warm on the first shot as on the tenth — no preheating, no flushing, no guessing about temperature. The two-litre heat exchanger boiler is the second half of that calculation. It keeps steam ready for the milk while the brew water passes through it on its way to the group and takes on exactly the temperature it needs. Espresso and milk foam are therefore no longer one after the other. Two litres in reserve mean that the machine does not give way on the third and fourth shot — the difference between a machine for Sunday morning and one for service. The lever of the E61 group opens in two stages. First water runs onto the coffee bed at low pressure, so that it soaks and settles; only then does the pump come up to full. In other designs this pre-infusion is electronics; here it is mechanics — it cannot fail. What you should know: the pump is a vibration pump. It costs less, builds smaller and is audibly louder than a rotary pump; the manufacturer offers both variants and names the difference himself. The fifteen bar quoted are its peak figure, not the pressure at the coffee — around 9 bar is the target there, and the expansion valve takes care of that. Anyone who takes a figure on a data sheet for a mark of quality is confusing reserve with working point. The 58 millimetre portafilter is the trade size. Tampers, distributors, precision baskets and bottomless portafilters from the specialist trade fit — the machine is therefore not a closed system but the beginning of a set-up you can extend over years.