Customer Reviews

BonJour Stove Top Espresso Maker 3-Cup Caf? Milano, Polished Aluminum

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I purchased this item because I needed a cheap espresso maker for the summer and didn't want to pay for starbucks. Not only did the espresso taste absolutely dreadful (there were grounds consistently in the bottom of the cup), but the plastic handle started melting within one week of use, and by three weeks of use, the entire handle had completely melted off, causing a smelly mess for my stove. I knew this was going to be a cheap espresso maker, but there's a big difference between cheap and completely unusable.

What a piece of garbage.

I gave it every chance. I experimented with different grinds running the gamut from coarse to fine, different amounts of coffee in the basket, different water levels in the lower chamber, different flame levels on my gas stove ... 1/4 of the time, it would very quickly brew a batch of really strong, delicious coffee. The REST of the time it would make boiling noises and blow steam out the pour spout, but all I'd get in the top of the pot would be a thimbleful of undrinkable sludge. I thought this meant pressure was escaping from the base, but I could never figure out where the leak was. The gasket was new with no cracks in it, the parts were screwed together as tight as they would go, and I never heard any hissing nor saw steam escaping from anywhere except the pour spout where it is SUPPOSED to come out. After each failure I'd have to wait for the pot to cool off, then take it apart and find the bottom chamber full of a dark liquid that looked a lot like (lukewarm, metallic-tasting) coffee ... but why didn't it squirt up into the top? There's no way to pour coffee out of the bottom! After wasting uncounted amounts of time and coffee beans trying to get this thing to work, I had to give it up as a lost cause. Into the recycling bin with this worthless hunk of metal!