Ah... we finally have had our delivery of our coffee machine. No home is complete without a coffee machine, and so now our home really starts to feel like home!

Anyway, our coffee machine in the Netherlands broke near the start of the pandemic... wow, that was a long time ago... and we had already started to make plans to return back to Australia at that time, and so it didn't really seem like a high-priority to replace the machine only to have the wrong plug type for the new country. So, we made do with the Bialetti stove top coffee pot for the rest of the time... to be honest, although we missed the convenience of a grind and froth machine, this was just as good... well, lets say... good enough! plus, it made nice strong coffees!

Fast forward to today... in the new country, and all our stuff was arriving slowly by sea shipment, and from memory... even our Bialetti was staying behind after being donated to a local family. So, we were coffee machine-less... with the likelihood that the sea shipment would have no coffee producing materials onboard!

We went coffee machine shopping! Phew... and things were quite a bit more diverse than I seemed to remember, but there were also some pretty good deals out, and there was quite a good selection of decent but not too expensive home coffee machines.

We eventually settled on this cherry red Breville machine... with decent review, and our parents in law had one at their house and it made pretty good coffees. Oddly enough, the cherry-red version was cheaper than the normal black version... and so, that was fine for us... cherry-red it was!

The machine has a number of different selections that you could use to alter the grind size and various other factors that would feed into the coffee making. At the moment, we are still experimenting with these things... the grind size is a nice middle of the road number, and we still have yet to learn about how things change when you make coarser or finer grains. Something for the nerd in me to fiddle around with!

Well... there is a little magnet that sort of describes what is happening... I think I prefer my coffee stronger, but honestly, this chard is a little bit confusing... personally, I think that the arrows are bit confusingly labelled...

... there is a video course that I can do which came as part of the package (along with four bags of coffee). I will probably try that out soon, if nothing else, just to get a rough idea of what the various parameters can be changed... and how they are supposed to affect the end result!

... but one of the most exciting things for me is the ability to froth milk again! I do love my cappuccinos... and although I did like the stovetop coffees, I did miss the frothy milk! Plus, my kids missed having their Milos and hot chocolates with bubbly milk as well! So excitement all around!

However, I still need to figure out how to make a nice dense creamy froth... I am going mostly by ear, listening to the changing pitches and different sounds that angling the cup and changing the depth of the pipe makes. At the moment, I still make bubbles that are too big and they immediately collapse after pouring...

Annoyingly, my wife has already got the knack of it... and she isn't really helping with passing down her knowledge. So, I'm left with making funny batches of milk... or getting her to make mine! Haha... if she won't share her wisdom and experience, then I will keep nagging her. Surely, at some point it will be less annoying for her to just share her secrets!

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