Authentic Italian espresso at an affordable price

After many happy (and dare I say, naive) years with our DeLonghi Caffe Espresso, it was time to replace our old workhorse. Having just spent the summer in Spain, where no bar is complete without the standard superautomatic Gaggia espresso maker, I decided that truly great espresso was a daily necessity. I was tired of incompetent teenagers / college students who work at local coffee shops mangling something as simple as a cappuccino (one part espresso, one part milk, one part foam) into a milk-drowned latte with no foam.

I wanted something in the range of $200, with a dependable track record and plenty of power to spare. I waded through a myriad of reviews for the Gaggia Carezza, hailed as a champion of its class, but read a number of negative reviews concerning design shortcomings.

Enter the Gaggia Evolution. Although the Gaggia Carezza and Evolution share the same innards, the Evolution boasts several improvements in design. With its 17.5 bar pump and high wattage, dual element boiler, the Gaggia Evolution is ready to brew in around 5-10 minutes (I always prime the boiler first).

Design improvements over the Carezza include: a larger drip tray, a cup warmer (although, as usual, it's more effective to preheat your cups by filling them with hot water, which can be done during priming), anti-vibration mounts (once primed, the Gaggia Evolution is nearly whisper-quiet), and a brass commercial portafilter (the spouts on the Carezza were changed to plastic). My Evolution came with the Perfect Crema device (which is supposed to go under the single filter basket in order to create additional pressure/allow a coarser grind), but having read numerous negative reviews of the ineffective device, I simply left it in the box with the packing material.

Five stars for the instruction manuals and CD-ROM: the Gaggia Evolution comes with not one, but two instruction manuals: one from the manufacturer (Gaggia), and one from the North American importer (Importika). The Importika manual is intuitive, easy to read and injected with coffee humor, although the Evolution is not among the Gaggia models listed in the Appendix. The included CD-ROM walks you through setup in the form of short movies and narration, along with more advanced tips and techniques for coffee connoisseurs. We put our laptop on the kitchen table and followed along after unpacking our new Gaggia (thankfully, nothing was broken in the mail, as happened to several Gaggia Carezza owners). Although the manual hinted that your first coffee might not be potable, we'd followed various tips online (prime your new machine several times to remove any residue and plastic-y taste), and our first espresso was laden with crema. The Turbo Frother attachment made the creamiest, densest microfoam I have ever seen-it looked more like meringue (hint: use skim milk for best results). My only complaint would be the cheapness of the included coffee scoop, and you definitely want to invest in a better tamp for maximum extraction (the Gaggia takes a 58 mm tamp at a recommended 30 pounds of pressure).

If you're not in the market to buy a $200-300 grinder (Rancilio Rocky or Gaggia 8002 MDF Burr Grinder) to go with your new Gaggia, Illy makes a delicious, dependable espresso grind, available in tins (decaf, too) or Pods. The Evolution is Pod-ready, simply use the single shot basket with the portafilter. Tip: "classic" double shots should take around 20-25 seconds to extract.

The Evolution is a steal for the current price, since it contains the same innards as other Gaggias in the $400-500 range. Although it runs around $50-100 more than the Carezza, I appreciated the design improvements, stylish lines (I have a Tuscan kitchen with hand-painted ceramics and terra cotta tiles and was afraid that the "modern" styling would stand out, but the Evolution is much more traditional-looking and unobtrusive than the Carezza), and performance. (Note: the Evolution is also available in an all-silver model, but it will set you back another $50. The black model features a black base and sides and a silver front and silver drip tray.)