Lelit Bianca V3

posted on 10:05 PM on Friday 21 October 2022

The Rocket R58 has decided to call it quits after about 4 years and about 3 months since my last post about it (20220724 1247 Rocket R58). There was a pop and then water leaking everywhere. It was a second hand one and when I got it, it was not exactly new. So it might have seen service for a good number of years.

I was having quite a fair bit of trouble with the brew pressure in recent weeks so perhaps not unexpected. But still, it was a lost.

Over the 4 years, making 1 to 2 cups of double shots per day would mean about (1.5 * 365 * 4) 2,194 cups of coffee made at least.

One cup of a double shot probably cost about $2. The coffee beans itself cost about $16 per 250g and I usually dose about 16g for a double shot. So this would be about $1 per cup ($16 / (250g / 16g) = $1.02). As for the milk, one cup of coffee is about 250ml so a liter of milk which cost about $3 would cost about $0.75 per cup ($3 / (1000ml / 250ml) = $0.75). So about $2 per cup.

If I was drinking outside, a cup of coffee is easily $6, so I would save about $4 per cup. Therefore over the lifetime of the Rocket R58, I would have saved $8,760 (2,190 x $4). This is not a small amount so it does appear that owning an espresso machine makes sense to me.

The Lelit was about $3,400 so two years of service would be a break even point for me. I got it from Cowpresso which was absolutely amazing in delivering the machine the night after I placed the order.

Here are some shots of the new machine. So far so good, it is a dual boiler like the Rocket and so it is very similar. Working well so far and hope it lasts me many many years of service.