# Two Group Vintage Gaggia



## HandsOnRoaster (Jul 5, 2011)

Hello,

I thought the Gaggia fans might be interested to see THIS 1970s teal-coloured Gaggia lever machine - mounted on a Dutch tricyle of course! I've been really impressed with the quality of the espresso; it can produce 'no-tamper-required' shots as the underside of the group/showerscreen can actually tamp the coffee perfectly level as the portafilter is locked in!

Cheers

Paul


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## funinacup (Aug 30, 2010)

I saw this on your website, would love more pictures from the front!

As for no-tamper-required...that's a bit of a debate!







surely the shower screen isn't a solid enough surface area to tamp with enough force to rival tamping by hand?

That said, if you get good shots with it...


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## funinacup (Aug 30, 2010)

also reminded me of this (which I meant to share last week)

Vintage Gaggia Stolen

Such a horrible loss, chances of them finding another machine to replace that are slim


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## HandsOnRoaster (Jul 5, 2011)

funinacup said:


> also reminded me of this (which I meant to share last week)
> 
> Vintage Gaggia Stolen
> 
> Such a horrible loss, chances of them finding another machine to replace that are slim


What a shame - it can't have been easy to steal either as they're pretty heavy. Hopefully they'll manage to get it back as it's pretty distinctive so will stand out.

I'll try to get some photo's of Koffie's Gaggia from the front, it's a real beauty!

Cheers,

Paul


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## lookseehear (Jul 16, 2010)

Looks lovely! Regarding the tamp, there's a school of thought among a lot of lever enthusiasts that compared to the grind required for a pump driven machine, a lever prefers a much finer grind and a much lighter tamp (some describe it as 'levelling' the coffee rather than tamping it).

I think the thing that would concern me with the shower screen pressing the coffee is that the group would get dirty very quickly.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

Guys,

it has been 3 months since my gaggia was stolen and 2 days ago I came accross to your comment in this chat and I decided to sign up to answer.

It is nice to see soo many appassionate to the vintage gaggia .

I am an accountant but with a HUGE PASSION for lever gaggias. The police managed to find the person who took it, he has been charged. It is not the result that I was hoping. this guy declared that he sold it to the scrap yard. Can you believe it? the only thought of the coffee machine melted make me sick.

yes, the coffee machine was heavy, more that 100 kgs , but the 2 guys took it in 2 minutes and half with a Royal Mazzer grinder too. The pictures added in gumtree was done just few hours before, we were testing it before taking it to a POLO event .

Yes , it is impossible to find one like "her" ! I didn`t sleep for weeks and I really hope that her destiny is more glorious and someone felt in love with "her" and save from her destiny.

Now I am focused to create another beaty, I manage to buy from Enrico Maltoni 9 coffee machines sold as spare parts. 4 are bodies of gaggia orione, with the copper in the back, dated between 61 and 63. 2 are Gaggia orione, with the red colour and 3 are bodies of gaggia tipo america. Only one coffee machine is fully equipted, with 2 group levers and from Ebay I bought another Gaggia orione , with copper in the back







.

All these coffee machine are in my workshop and Russell, my best coffee machine engineer and best partner and business partner has started to rebuild a gaggia orione 2 group lever and a gaggia tipo america ,3 lever group. All these from scratch. Do you think we are mad? yes !

if you have facebook you will be able to follow his job, we are putting almost every single day the progress of the 2 projects while we are running the business if you don`t have facebook, I will try to understand how to add them here.

I still hope to find our Queen.

we are also setting up our website but still undecostruction. Have a look to FACEBOOK...the PAGE DOCTOR ESPRESSO LTD. I promise you will be impressed..

bye for now

Vanessa Lancellotti


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

Thanks for this post. People often refer to their machines as 'her' but this is the first time a post has touched me at how personal it was to you. Awful to have such a machine stolen and destroyed.

I expect each of your new machines will be instilled with a small piece of your love for them and will produce glorious espresso.


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## HandsOnRoaster (Jul 5, 2011)

I'm really sorry to hear what happened to your "queen", but at the same time glad that the thieving **** responsible was caught and charged. It just shows how stupid these people are to steal such a great piece of machinery to only get scrap metal value. Good luck with the new build.

I said a while back that I would post a photo of the Gaggia from the front, so here it is (better late than never!).

Cheers,

Paul


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

it is still in beautiful condition. Do you still need to fill the water manually?


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

HandsOnRoaster said:


> I'm really sorry to hear what happened to your "queen", but at the same time glad that the thieving **** responsible was caught and charged. It just shows how stupid these people are to steal such a great piece of machinery to only get scrap metal value. Good luck with the new build.
> 
> I said a while back that I would post a photo of the Gaggia from the front, so here it is (better late than never!).
> 
> ...


Hello Paul.

I was looking at this Gaggia Orione `70 and I can see that the levers have been swapped with The SPANISH GAGGIA LEVER GROUPS. Do you still have the original lever group?

Regards

Vanessa as Doctor Espresso Ltd.


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1066738&l=82159f7cc6&id=201737843188506

Guys this is the Gaggia tipo America that we are building, this one is personalized, the sides are not black but gold. Look and enjoy

Vanessa as Doctor Espresso ltd


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## ChiarasDad (Mar 21, 2010)

Doctorespresso, belated condolences for your loss. I've been perusing your Facebook page, and it's a joy to see what loving care you take of this fine older equipment.


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

We loved the levers gaggia but as coffee machine are quite dangerous . You always have to manage with care and using your head.

Never put the coffee machine lower that your pelvis. The lever with the strong spring could break your jaw. these coffee machine are made no for coffee shop with a high turnover of employees. they require a strong and caring person .


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## koffie (Sep 22, 2011)

Hi - that's my 2group hybrid gaggia lever machine, Paul linked me to the thread and recommended I chime in - so here goes,

The machine is a 2 group Gaggia Tel as imported by Visacrem (Fracino) back in the day - and dates from 1970 odd. We took a trip to the Fracino HQ in July to pick up some parts after a frustrating time attempting to deal with espressoparts.co.uk. We had the opportunity to chat with Frank who mentioned it was possible the groups werent swapped as there was a window in time when the Italian factory was producing the new style lever groups and the old style Tel bodies.

I was pretty pleased to be dealing with the Spanish groups as they are a lot simpler to work with. As I said we arent sure the groups were swapped so we don't have the 'old' ones. They do have a few shelves full of italian and spanish gaggia lever groups in the fracino warehouse if you were looking to find some.

The machine runs pretty faultlessly aside from taking a little while to warm up on cold/windy days. Once it's hot it will turn out great tasting shots as fast as you can dose and tamp. If the machine has been sitting for a while it sometimes needs a flush of hot water through the groups to warm everything up again. Our brew parameters are typically as follows - 14g coffee in a regular italian sized double basket, single-pull to brew ~23-24g in 28-30 seconds. I don't have the ability to measure our brew temperatures but with boiler water of 1.35-1.4bar and coffee with next to no bitterness I think they are towards the lower bounds, but we dial the brew parameters throughout the day based on taste. We hardly ever have a shot come out burnt or over extracted - but there is some room to play with brew temps on the fly as you can either start the shot immediately after preinfusion has slowed (hotter brew temp) or leave the water to cool in the group before releasing the lever (cooler brew temps).

This brew ratio works particularly well with milk but at 0.58 could be described as a short double espresso, the taste profile i would describe as like smooth dark chocolate in a cup, though as the Lusty glaze espresso ages it takes on a more mellow fruited tone as the roast notes diminish. My favourite way to drink our regular espresso is as a double shot minature latte served in a 4oz espresso cup. Our espresso is traditional in it's proportions and if extracted well tastes like the flavours from a filter coffee distilled and concentrated into ~30ml volume. It's not a taste explosion but it is drinkable with a straight face. I do like to mess around with the triple bottomless PF for a more 'third wave' style ristretto now and again, but our customers are pretty happy with what we're doing right now


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## koffie (Sep 22, 2011)

double post, oops


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

I know Frank as well, he came to see us at the coffee exhibition in London and if we need advise for parts of lever gaggia, he is a fan of them.

Your coffee machine is very nice, but having the spanish gaggia lever is not helping to hold the hit, they don't have the same metal quantity of the italians ( each head weight at least 20 kgs) and the springs are less stronger.

You could increase the steam pressure but then the heads will come too hot.

But you have already known this.

Let's stay in touch!

Vanessa as doctor espresso


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

gaggia tipo America, personalized to our needs and to the modern quality standards!


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## Doctorespresso (Sep 15, 2011)

Guys, this the our new gaggia that it is still work in progress, what do think of the blue lights in the back.? We could repair the original part and we came with this idea!


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## Dalehead farm (Apr 15, 2012)

I have the chance to buy a Gaggia Gx two group machine that needs some restoration work.

Does anyone know where parts are available in the Uk ?

I have found companies in the USA and Australia but I wondered if there is anywhere a bit closer to home.


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## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

Try http://doctorespresso.co.uk/


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