Vicky's Coffee · est. 2019
One machine. Nine parts. Twenty-six seconds. Scroll to take it apart.
The panels come off first. Everything that makes an espresso lives in a box the size of a bread bin.
Water goes in cold at the back and leaves as espresso at the front. Follow the labels as they appear.
Tolerances of a tenth of a millimetre. Nothing here rattles.
18 grams drop through 38 mm conical burrs. Fine enough to resist the water, coarse enough to let it through.
An even bed of grounds. One thin channel and the whole shot runs sour.
The pump pushes water out of the boiler at nine bar and holds it there. Watch it move through the machine.
It starts dark and slow, turns to a tiger stripe, then blonds. That's when we stop.
Vicky's Coffee · est. 2019
Origin
It came off a café that closed in 2018 — seized pump, scaled boiler, no manual. She stripped it to the chassis on her kitchen floor and rebuilt it over four months.
By the time it ran, she knew every part by feel. That's the machine on this page, and it still pulls the first shot every morning.
Craft — the water
Two degrees cold and the shot tastes like a lemon. Two degrees hot and it tastes like ash. The boiler holds 93°C within half a degree, and we flush the group before every single order.
Craft — the grind
Beans dry out as the week goes on and the room warms up by lunchtime. Both change how fast water moves through the puck, so the grinder gets nudged whenever the timer drifts past 28 seconds.
The machine
| Group | Single, E61-style thermosiphon |
| Boiler | 1.8 L copper, PID held to ±0.5 °C |
| Pump | Vibratory, 9 bar at the puck |
| Grinder | 38 mm conical steel burrs, stepless |
| Portafilter | 58 mm bottomless, 18 g basket |
| Reservoir | 2.4 L, charcoal filtered |
| Chassis | Cold-rolled steel, brass fittings |
| First shot | 7:00 AM, every day since 2019 |
She rebuilt the machine. Then she rebuilt the street.Regular, table by the window
Open 7 AM – 9 PM, every day.
Sit at the bar if you want the full show.