# Olympia Cremina



## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

It looks like these things are harder to get your hands on than a Made by Knock product lol, does anyone have one that fancies doing a review, vid, pics, just so I can have a look really.


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

Unless you get one second hand, they are really really overpriced for what they are


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

coffeechap said:


> Unless you get one second hand, they are really really overpriced for what they are


I've seen people mention £2000, I can't even find one to see if it was true or not


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## Jon (Dec 3, 2010)

owain said:


> I've seen people mention £2000, I can't even find one to see if it was true or not


I've seen two for around £800 on here as I recall.


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

A couple have come up for sale on here for around 800 which is more like their worth, for the money new a Londinium is a much better machine


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

coffeechap said:


> A couple have come up for sale on here for around 800 which is more like their worth, for the money new a Londinium is a much better machine


I don't want a pump, fully manual plus it's a nice size, I'm only dreaming anyway lol


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

If you plumb in a Londinium it is fully manual


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

coffeechap said:


> If you plumb in a Londinium it is fully manual


This I did not know, but can't see me plumbing one in lol


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## 2971 (May 7, 2012)

What do you want to hear about?

I've had mine for 2 years, bought secondhand. Mine is the latest generation, except that it has a yoke with screw-in pins. I also briefly owned an older generation.

I was attracted to the idea of a bomb-proof machine that could easily be serviced by a relatively incompetent user. This is true of all Creminas, but the older ones may have issues with certain parts (e.g. power switch) which are not easy to get, or are completely unavailable. For that reason, I bought the more modern version, which amazingly came up on this forum, and amazingly was about 3 miles from my house!

Mine needed some wiring sorting, and I have had to replace the pressure sensor once (which just involves screwing pipes together), but otherwise it has been relatively trouble free. I just use it. The coffee that comes out is to my taste. I paired it with an HG One, which is a conical grinder, and I sometimes wish I'd gone for a flat burr grinder instead. Ultimately, my kit hasn't changed in 2 years now, and to be honest it will probably be decades before it does. The only machine that tempts me is the Londinium, but I don't fancy the pump, don't want to plumb it in, and it's huge compared to the Cremina.

I wasn't happy with the steam wand on mine. A friend kindly machined me a bullet-shaped wand knob which improved things, but then HG One released an adapter to take the Sproline Foam Knife wand knob, and I've been using that ever since.

I had a Ponte Vecchio spring lever before this, which was an OK machine, except that the spring made it hard to change the seals. I think they sell a tool now to make that easier, so if my Cremina got caught in a fire, I'd probably buy a Lusso now as I couldn't afford to replace it.


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## 2971 (May 7, 2012)

PS - I personally would avoid anything older than mid-1980s because they have asbestos around the boiler, and I don't fancy that.


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

wintoid said:


> What do you want to hear about?
> 
> I've had mine for 2 years, bought secondhand. Mine is the latest generation, except that it has a yoke with screw-in pins. I also briefly owned an older generation.
> 
> ...


Thanks for that, Nice write up, you don't see many of them so it's just nice to read information from someone that has one, I love how they look and the build quality and size as you say is an I big factor. if Londinium made a smaller fully manual machine akin to the Cremina I would definitely be interested. the price of the Olympia is very high, I seen one for €3460


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

owain said:


> Thanks for that, Nice right up, you don't see many of them so it's just nice to read information from someone that has one, I love how they look and the build quality and size as you say is an I big factor. if Londinium made a smaller fully manual machine akin to the Cremina I would definitely be interested. the price of the Olympia is very high, I seen one for €3460


Londinium developing exactly that!


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## owain (Dec 26, 2015)

coffeechap said:


> Londinium developing exactly that!


That definitely sounds interesting


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## Belluca (Jul 4, 2016)

londinum or bezzera stega are far better and cheaper choices


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

Belluca said:


> londinum or bezzera stega are far better and cheaper choices


Strega not in same league as Londinium!


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## 2971 (May 7, 2012)

For me, there's no other choice, because I don't want a bulkier machine than the Cremina. That small Londinium sounds interesting though. I've never had a 58mm group (Cremina is 49mm, Ponte Vecchio was 51 or something) and always wondered how much difference a full sized group would make.


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## Belluca (Jul 4, 2016)

coffeechap said:


> Strega not in same league as Londinium!


I had the opportunity to try the strega at a show, was a very smooth shot. and the machine looks beautiful.

Here in italy the londinium is very difficult to find to say the least, both are fantastic machines, the pump on the strega is very handy.


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