[jkbrwn]

Sounds good Ben! Big advocate of manual espresso over here. The big draw to the Robot for me as the lack of pre-heat. When I had my ROK, the pre-heat really bugged me at first, but like you say, it becomes second nature pretty fast.

To drink straight espresso, unless you like the flavour of burnt carcinogens, in my opinion, you have to buy really decent coffee. None of these 'roasted in Italy' big bags that you get in the supermarket, or Lavazza or Illy or anything else like that, that isn't roasted fresh.

The most success I have found has been with light or medium roasted espresso that has bright, juicy flavours. Again, in my opinion, as soon as you get to 'dark' roasted espresso, it's just bitter or burnt tasting, no matter how you make it. You have to add a load of sugar to make it palatable.

Also bear in mind that for the aromas and flavours in espresso to really come through, it needs to be drunk pretty quickly after brewing, unless it's insulated so you've done well with ordering insulated cups.

I think the beauty of devices like the Flair, ROK and Robot is that when you get the hang of it and really get to know how to use the maker, you can have really high quality espresso for a fraction of the price of an automatic set up.