# Sage Bambino or bean to cup (Gaggia Naviglio) for relative newbie?



## bsharp77 (Nov 5, 2019)

Hi all,

I need to get myself a new setup for home. 
I have a Delonghi ESAM4200 which I use at work and have finally been able to produce coffee which I really like.

After months of trying many coffees from the likes of Pact and other outlets, I got disillusioned as I couldn't get a bean I liked (or make it work). So the machine got forgotten about and I settled for using the Nespresso Virtuo at home.

I took the Delonghi into work last month and gave it one last try with, of all things, Sainsbury's coffe beans (after dinner Italian espresso).

After playing with the grind, I can now make an Anericano which has a deep, thick crema and a lovely smooth, rich, dark taste with a real punch of flavour which I look forward to every day. My process is to half fill my small mug with water, then do 2 single shots on top, which gives me a lovely cup of coffee.

Now, I totally understand....my coffee palette is in its infancy, but this has re-lighted my love of good coffee again. I understand supermarket beans are not top end, but the flavour I'm managing to get is great, and makes a mockery of the brown water available from any retail establishments in my town.

My question is, for home should I go for another bean to cup machine (something like the Gaggia Navilglio) which is well priced and gets good reviews, or would I notice a big difference going for something a bit more advanced like the Sage Bambino plus Sage Digital Grinder?

I don't want to go too manual, which is why I thought the Bambino might be a good halfway house, and has the option for nice textured milk if the mrs fancies a coffee, but would the espresso pulled from the Naviglio be close enough not to warrant another £200 expenditure?? The other option was a Barista Express, but the more modular nature of the Bambino and grinder appeals if going down that route.

Any help or advice from anyone here would be very much appreciated indeed. 
Also, going by the description of my coffee tendencies, if there are any bean recommendations, I'd love to hear them.


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## Davebo (Jan 9, 2021)

I already had a burr grinder and ended up getting a Gaggia Classic.

My plan was to keep this setup and 'earn my apprenticeship' before ending up with a Sage (Breville) Barista Pro.

However, as the conventional wisdom is to spend the money on the grinder I was tempted to get a better grinder. I'll stick with the Gaggia Classic for now but i am tempted by the simplicity and performance of the Bambino plus.

Good luck with your adventure.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

The Bambino and a separate grinder makes more sense when upgrade time comes along as either can be changed. Only the entire machine when the grinder is built in. When some one upgrades a machine people usually say upgrade the grinder as well. There is no need really. Upgrading a grinder can change the taste of what comes out but that doesn't mean the previous taste was bad as hopefully a person has tuned the grinder and timing etc to suite beans that they like.

The Sage grinder adjustment is stepped. The answer to that initially is to adjust time rather than worrying too much about it. Later when people are used to it the dose of grinds can be changed as well. The biggest problem here really is the web and lots of shot must take 30sec and the ratio of grinds in to shot weight out must be 2. In practice it doesn't suit many beans or machines either really. Some machines have infusion for instance and some don't. Some hold brew temperatures better than others.

The dose of grinds a timer grinder will produce does vary. I started with a BE and mostly drunk a bean I liked. Setting up the timer for this bean was rather tricky. Worse still the output drifted pretty rapidly initially and much more slowly later. If I changed beans the whole thing started again  so I bought an SGP to go with it just for beans I wanted to try. On that one I always weighed doses of beans in. They can work rather well that way. Initially check the weight of what actually comes out and if short grind more beans to top it up. After a while that wont be needed. If the grinder is cleaned the process will start again. I would strongly suggest not removing the centre burr when this is done. What collects there stays there. It may pay to use the grinder in the normal way with the hopper for a while when new and trim the dose with the razor tool - that's what it is for.

Gaggia or Sage - up to the buyer really. Problems with scale from tap water can become apparent on Sage machines of this type more quickly but the Bambino does tell people when to descale but it will assume the filter is changed when it should be. Many machines need spanners for descaling and at some point it does cause problems on all of them.


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## bsharp77 (Nov 5, 2019)

Thank you all.

I think I am going to go for the Bambino Pro plus the Sage Pro Grinder.

I will wait as prices at the minute are sky high - hopefully when we get back to some sort of normality prices will start to drop again.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I suspect they are offering a zoom demo on the Bambino - seems they offer a hefty discount after showing you what the machine can do. Look on it's web page.


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## dutchy101 (Jun 12, 2020)

bsharp77 said:


> Thank you all.
> 
> I think I am going to go for the Bambino Pro plus the Sage Pro Grinder.
> 
> I will wait as prices at the minute are sky high - hopefully when we get back to some sort of normality prices will start to drop again.


 This was my starting set up and it's a great one imo. I've recently upgraded my grinder to the Solo but the SGP performs very well for a grinder at that price point


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## bsharp77 (Nov 5, 2019)

Thanks for all the info guys.

Zoom call currently unavailable, but ill keep checking, plus i've signed up to a virtual event on Friday morning where they show the machines off.

Ive set a price alert on Amazon, as the Duo Temp Pro dropped to £276 last week and I so nearly went for it....hoping for a Bambino price drop in the not too distant future, plus Amazon seem to offer 5 month 0% instalment payments which is pretty useful.


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