I have been without a home espresso machine for some months now. So, it was with much anticipation that I received a brand new Gaggia Baby Twin espresso machine from Espressotec.com in Vancouver.
I did have a Rancilio Silvia for the longest time - but someone (an old friend) made an offer I could not refuse - cash for the Silvia... kind of at a time when I did not need cash nor did I really need to part with the Silvia. My bad.

This loaner came at a time when I had been drinking drip coffee and Aeropress brews pretty much non-stop for months. Ok, so I only drink 2 cups a day... day after day. So I was ready for espresso, good espresso.

Now coming from the Rancilio Silvia, which in itself is a very good machine - it is entirely manual... nothing automatic, nothing fancy, no electronics - totally seat of the pants espresso preparation. For new home baristas, it is important to understand the distinction between the fully auto machine and fully manual machine. With the Gaggia Baby Twin, you are in charge of grinding the coffee, tamping the coffee, locking and loading the portafilter and pressing the brew buttons. With a "Super" you pretty much add beans and water. There is a big difference. Get to know it!

Photo at left - The Gaggia Baby Twin brews killer shots that are intense and hot. Hot meaning the right temperature. There are few things more important that brew temperature. We will talk about this at length in this article.

Contrasting the Gaggia Baby Twin espresso to some of the finer super-automatic machines out there, the Gaggia Baby Twin espresso trims effort in places that are very helpful. Like brew time for instance. It is great to program in preferred volume times on your shots - press button, brew espresso knowing that every shot is the same volume as the last one. Very nice. To take your shots to the next level, the Gaggia Baby Twin espresso even does a pre-infusion on one of the pre-programmed brew cycles.

The Gaggia Baby Twin espresso has two boilers! There is a regular boiler for brewing espresso and a thermo-block boiler for steam production. There are a couple of important advantages to this - The quick answer is - Having a boiler for each task; brewing and steaming - Well, it frees up the home barista from more important things that temperature surfing. Yet more on these and other concepts later.

This Gaggia (and all other Gaggia espresso machines) come well packaged for courier and post travel. The Gaggia Baby Twin comes with a good manual, a couple of coffee filters, a plastic coffee scoop and the disposable coffee tamper that every espresso maker comes with. So yourself a favor - get a real tamper as soon as you can. You will not get the most from these machines without a real steel based tamper (like the Classic Reg Barber).

The Gaggia Baby Twin is a step forward technologically so a good read of the manual is not only in order - It is a must!

Apart from the Gaggia Baby series that I have known over the last 20 odd years, the Gaggia Baby Twin is a complete departure from what we have come to know and love about this venerable manufacturer. And yes, for those really curious about what has been going on with Gaggia at a corporate level - well that is another story entirely. Suffice to say, some obviously forward thinking young minds sat down and decided that "sink or swim" was the operative phrase. The home espresso machine market is stuffed to the point of choking and if one manufacturer or another is to survive, they have to think big and think new - new technology, leading edge stuff with a flair for sexy and innovative.

The Gaggia Baby Twin does that on the surface. So let's look deeper shall we?

Unlike Gaggia's of old, the Gaggia Baby Twin has one switch - on the back next to where the power cord plugs in. This is the power switch. In the good old days, there was a brew switch, a steam switch on top of the 3-button cluster of Power - Steam - Brew. The Gaggia Baby Twin has integrated touch switch technology. This is not i-Pod style as found on the Talea Ring Plus by Saeco - these are touch sensitive. That is it. Handy as heck, but not rocket science.

Gaggia has made another departure in the way they deliver water to the mechanism with a coupled reservoir. It holds 60 fluid ounces or so - plenty for lots of shots and it is genuinely unfussy to refill and load. It does add another gasket to the mix of consumables - but considering that it is only coming in contact with water at room temperature... Well, this gasket should last many many years.

Like any other espresso machine of this caliber, it likes some warm-up time... 20 minutes minimum. Ignore what the manual says - or what other websites say. Good espresso depends on temperature stability and heat retention during the brew cycle. In a perfect World, the brew water (during the brew cycle) would stay at a constant 195 degrees (F) or better (Better being 195-205 degrees). No basic single boiler machine (without an HX or heat-exchanging head) is capable of flat-lined brew temperatures during the duration of the brew cycle. So make darn sure everything is hot, hot, hot!

Any espresso maker is only as good as the bean supply, the grinder and the water. (And) If I was to pick which was is most important, I would say that it's the grinder. Dodgy water I can live with. And beans past their best before date - well, that is often a fact of life for 90% of the specialty coffee consuming population in North America. So make darn sure you have a grinder that can cut the mustard before you tackle any espresso machine... and the Gaggia Baby Twin is no exception. Nothing reduces a good or great espresso machine to a pile of frustrating junk faster than coffee beans that are not ground appropriately for the task at hand. Stale coffee? Well, unless they are months old, there is always a little something left over - enough at least to get some flavor and crema.