Today we're reviewing this.
It's the Olympia Express Cremina.
It's a small domestic lever espresso machine,
and it has gathered over the years,
something of a cult following.
Why is that?
Why is this machine so loved, so praised, so desired
and yet so expensive?
Let's dive in and find out.
So a quick history of this machine and this company
if you're not familiar with them,
the company itself was founded in Switzerland in 1928,
and for the first few decades,
built exclusively commercial espresso machines.
In 1961, they began to try and sell
to the domestic espresso market with the first Cremina,
but that was really just
a re-badged La Pavoni lever machine.
But in 1967, they bought that production in house
and they began to build a brand new lever machine,
very similar to the one that we see on the bench here.
One of the first things that was interesting to me,
was seeing just how many of those 1967 machines
are still going today, are still in use,
are still being bought and sold online.
Now, how did this machine end up on this bench?
Of all the machines, well, why this one?
Well, it goes back to my review
of this Smart Espresso Profiler here on top of the machine.
And in choosing a machine, I spoke to the inventor, Gabor,
and asked him what kind of machine
he would recommend I test the profiler with.
And he gave me a few options,
but he did seem especially excited about the Cremina.
And then I looked at the price, which is 3250 euros,
and to be honest,
I called and raised my eyebrows a little bit.
But I trusted him, I trusted his enthusiasm
and his knowledge of lever machines,
and he connected me directly with Olympia,
and they let me purchase directly from them.
So here it is.
And as I said, it has been modified
to be able to use the Smart Espresso Profiler.
Now, we should talk about how this thing works,
so that we can get into pulling some shots with it,
and talk about whether this thing deserves its reputation.
The insides of this is actually deceptively simple.
You have a large steam boiler in there,
you fill it just by opening this tap at the top,
you can only do that when the machine is cold
and there's no pressure inside it.
You put a funnel in,
you pour your cold, delicious filtered water in,
seal it up, turn it on, and you're nearly there,
that boiler is sealed, the water boils,
build steam pressure,
that's useful for a couple things.
And then you've got a reservoir of boiling water
in there as well.
Now, the way lever machines work
is that the force of brewing the espresso
is generated by you pulling down on this lever.
But, we are gonna use the pressure inside the steam boiler
as a part of this brewing process.
You see when you lift this lever,
water is able to flow from the boiler,
through the group heading out.
And it's driven out by that steam pressure.
Later on when we're pre-infusing,
that pre-infusion pressure is entirely tied
to the pressure inside the boiler.
One of the things that people particularly like
about the Cremina, is the way that the group head works.
Now, the water when it leaves the boiler
is 115 degrees Celsius.
It's way too hot for brewing coffee,
you needed to lose some temperature along the way,
otherwise, you're gonna extract
some very harsh, very unpleasant flavors from your coffee.
That's where the group head comes in.
The group head on this acts as a little heat sink.
As the water passes through that group head
it radiates the heat to the metal,
and the metal wall attached to the boiler
is much cooler than the boiler.
So, with a little bit of management,
you can get very accurate, very repeatable temperatures
with this thing,
by using that group head as a heat sink.
Now, one of the things that Gabor sent me
was a little strip to show me how hot the group head is.
This I think is actually really useful for someone like me
who's a little bit of an obsessive.
So knowing that my group head is about 80 to 85 Celsius
is very helpful in knowing
roughly what kind of brew temperature
I'm gonna get when I pull a shot.
Obviously it has a steam valve
and you've got a good pressure of steam there,
you can steam very good milk with this very easily.
It's comparable to steaming
on a commercial espresso machine.
I might complain that the steam one doesn't move,
it's on a bowl like many other commercial ones,
but it's not really a big issue for me,
I think it's a very nice, simple mechanism,
it works very well.
But really, that's it.
That's the machine.
It's a big tank, it's a lever, it's steam valve, that's it.
And yet it's over 3000 euros in price.
Well, why?
And I think a big part of the why,
is just how well this thing is built.
The fit, the finish, every detail on this thing is stunning.
If you're a pure utilitarian,
if you just want the function,
if you want to be able to press hot water through coffee,
you can do that much cheaper.
And so now maybe you're thinking,
"Okay, so maybe this makes especially good espresso,
maybe this makes better espresso
than another espresso machine."
And I would say this makes incredible espresso
if you use it right,
and it makes terrible espresso if you use it badly,
like most espresso machines.
At some point, you cross a line
where in the machine is capable, or it's not.
This is extremely capable,
but it's not really about that.
What I'm gonna do now
is I'll fire up the Smart Espresso Profiler,
I'll pull a shot,
and I'll walk you just quickly through the process,
so you understand how it works.
Now the portafilter on this is a little bit smaller,
and so your doses
are gonna be typically a little bit smaller too,
a little bit more traditional in the Italian sense.
I've been dosing between 14 and 15 grams, typically.
On here, put about 14.6 grams,
and we'll set that into the Profiler.
On the side of my group head, I have my temperature strip,
so I can see how hot the grip head is,
that will give me some idea
of the brew temperature that I'll get.
What I might wanna do is increase
that temperature just to touch.
And I can do that with a quick flush,
by just lifting the valve a little bit.
So the first thing, lift up the lever all the way,
fill that chamber above the coffee
and begin your pre-infusion.
Generally it takes about 10 seconds or so
to fully pre-infuse the cake for me.
Once that's happened, we can begin to push.
Here I'm going for a reasonably high start
and a declining profile.
I'm gonna aim for about two to one.
How does it taste?
Thick, anxious, rich, well extracted.
That is very sweet.
It's a really lovely espresso,
that two to one ratio,
you often can have a lot of under extraction,
I don't have a lot of that here.
It's a very balanced shot.
Very enjoyable, very nice finish.
Excuse me.
But it isn't just that,
it's not just the espresso that it makes,
that will make me sad when I see this machine go.
And go at will to one of my Patreon supporters.
I will miss this because I will miss the process
of making espresso with it.
When you look at an espresso machine on paper,
you see a boiler size, you see ratings, you see pressures,
you see that kind of a thing,
what you don't see, what you can't understand is,
how pleasurable is this to use.
I tell a lot of people not to buy espresso machines,
because they don't want a hobby,
they want a cup of coffee,
they don't wanna spend half an hour
playing with espresso in their kitchen.
But, some of us do wanna spend half an hour
playing with espresso.
Now when I think about this machine,
I think of it in a way
as being on the same spectrum as something like the Decent,
but at totally other end of that spectrum.
Both are incredibly capable of making delicious coffee,
but go about it in entirely different ways.
And in truth, with both of those machines,
I couldn't just walk up to them,
and first time, pull a great shot.
With most commercial machines,
the way that they work is pretty simple, they're reliable,
they're a known quantity,
using them is actually very, very, very easy.
With this, no, it's not easy.
I didn't pull good shots with this straightaway,
it took me a while.
And I'm pulling better shots every time I use it,
as I understand it a little bit more.
There is the understanding of the technology of the things,
understanding brew temperatures,
there's getting to understand brew pressures.
But then there's the actual process
of using your hands to create espresso,
that is incredibly satisfying.
It's a machine that encourages hospitality,
you wanna make way more espresso than you want to drink.
And underneath the hood, it's beautifully built,
the components are great.
And you can tell it's beautifully built,
because there are people pulling shots on machines
that are 50 years old.
And those people talk about the positive improvement
in construction in newer machines.
This has gotten better with time.
It is simple, but it is incredibly robust.
It's compact, it's beautiful,
I really enjoy using this thing.
It is an incredible pleasure to do so.
And I would understand that it's part of a journey
for a lot of people.
In some ways, it would be a terrible shame to start here
in your espresso journey.
If this was your very first machine,
you probably wouldn't know how good you've got it.
You wouldn't know quite how much fun you're having,
unless you'd had something else beforehand.
It's a machine that I think will take you years
to really, really feel like you're getting the best out of.
And it won't be that your coffee won't taste good
for years and years and years,
you'll make great coffee pretty quickly.
But it will get better over time.
It's something that rewards your attention
and your understanding.
So this is the Olympia Cremina.
On paper, not so much technology.
Nothing actually particularly new about it
in nearly 50 years.
It's got a big boiler, that's nice.
It has a small footprint, that's nice.
But what you can't see on paper is the pleasure.
What you can't see,
is that as part of a journey in espresso,
this would be something to strive for,
something to achieve something to own, something to enjoy,
something to pass on to future generations,
if you look after it right.
I think this is a beautiful machine,
I think it's really interesting.
I think for a certain kind of person,
it's completely perfect.
If you're data driven, if you want the numbers,
if you want the experimental stuff,
maybe not, though, with a couple tweaks,
it's definitely another kind of machine.
But if you want to feel mastery,
if you wanna feel a craft,
if you wanna feel your skills develop
and be rewarded by that, with the espresso that you make,
I think it's a great machine.
But I'd love to hear from you in the comments down below,
do you own a Cremina?
What year was it from?
Which version do you have?
Do you love it?
Has one been a part of your espresso journey?
I mean, have you moved on to something else?
Are you aspiring to get one of these?
I would love to hear your thoughts
down in the comments below.
But for now, I'll say thank you so much for watching,
and I hope you have a great day.