r/espresso•
jerryj4215

Complete set up advice [$3500US]

Buying Advice Needed

I'm looking for my first set up and have been doing some research but I'd love some advice from the community. Budget of $3500 all in but I'm fine spending more time saving up if necessary.

The machine will be my daily driver, minimum 2 shots a day likely doubles (or 4 back to back). My wife's will be a milk based each time, mine majority black sometimes milk. Weekends probably making morning and mid day drinks for my wife and I.

I'm willing to learn and have some extra control over my shot my wife will want workflow to be as simple as possible.

Top machine priorites: PID, no hot water/coffee coming into contact with plastic, boiler over HX to avoid a "cooling flush", buy it for life (I'd rather put money in now and not upgrade later).

My nice to haves: stainless steel boiler, e61 group head, On/off timer but I'm also okay just plugging it into a smart outlet

We only use oat milk and I've read plant based milks can be pretty finicky with heat so I'm okay with something like the breville milk cafe instead of steaming from my espresso machine. (Don't see myself ever getting into latte art).

My top picks so far:

ECM Puristika Profitec Ride - I know probably overkill for my needs but it's gorgeous

Others that I think would make my wife enjoy the experience more but I'm concerned about longevity due to more components and prefer no plastic tubing:

Meraki Espresso Machine Fellow espresso series 1

I haven't begun my grinder research yet so open to any advice but prefer electric.

Any and all advice is appreciated, I'm very new to this so please let me know if I left out anything important or am focusing too much on some features and not enough on others.

TL;DR - full new set up for around $3500, prefer quality now no need to upgrade later and as close to buy for life as it gets.

Posted Sep 28, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

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