Gaggia 8002 MDF Burr Grinder with Doser, Black

Real espresso is a combination of freshly roasted beans properly ground and pressed at high pressure using 200 degree water. When you do that, you produce something so delicious it'll blow your mind if you love coffee. When purchasing equipment to do this at home, the most crucial of these three factors is in many ways the grinder. You need to be producing a very exact, very fine grind that doesn't include larger chunks (it'll mess up the pressure, because water will "channel" here) nor coffee dust (which will end up in your cup). And you kinda' want a grinder that won't break.

There are surprisingly few grinders sold that meet these requirements. Some espresso drinkers try to get by with one of the only two grinders under $150 which can sometimes manage this: the Solis Maestro and the Capresso Infinity. Whether you succeed will depend a lot on whether you got lucky, and you got one that happens to be put together well. Both make use of plastic parts which will fail... Read more

I've had this grinder for over two decades and it has performed well. When I first got my machine, I wondered which setting number would be good for cappuccino, or any particular grind. The manual said that since coffee can vary from variety to variety, or even from one roast to another, it's a matter of adjusting to each batch of beans. Perhaps with 34 settings, people have found that to be helpful, but I have found my beans to be consistent enough that adjustments are necessary for type of coffee, but can be left alone for a particular type of coffee and a particular variety of beans from a source. At the time I got the machine, I got my beans from Peet's back when they had five stores and no other distribution channels. Although they are a larger chain now, they are still small enough that roasting can be well controlled, and they can still buy beans from a single source for a variety to meet the needs of the chain. For beans from other sources, where roasting is done at a... Read more

The Gaggia MDF fills a small, yet demanding space between the cheap and typically terrible $30-$100 burr grinders and the $500 Mazzer Mini. It's only real competition is the Rancilio Rocky and the Innova (if you can find one).

The main complaint about the MDF is that it is not continuously adjustable, which is true, however I have been able to position mine easily in the middle of two settings. This effectivly doubles the available settings and--with variations in tamp pressure--allows me to get really decent shots fairly consistantly.

I use this machine with my vintage swiss Elespresso machine (a Solis SL70 in disguise) and am consistantly pleased. It compares favorably with a Mazzer Mini on most days (I've got one of those too--as well as a La San Marco/Rossi) and for the price is a great buy. If you see a Rocky for the same price, that might be a better choice because of the larger number of settings, but only just.

For those not wanting to drop... Read more