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Move over, Mr. Coffee

High-end, high-dollar home machines are perking up the marketplace.

By T. SUSAN CHANG, Associated Press
Published January 24, 2007

Connecticut resident Hugh McMillan wields a timer as he prepares an espresso with his Isomac espresso machine.
	[AP photo]

ADVERTISEMENT This Isomac home espresso machine costs $1,500. [AP photo]

In an era when fancy $5 coffee drinks are the norm, a growing number of people are willing to invest $1,000 or more to make the perfect cup of coffee at home.

Seduced by the gleaming, multilevered, counter-hogging machines that have begun crowding catalogs and showrooms, more people are willing to spend more money (sometimes significantly so) in pursuit of that perfect cup of Joe.

Consider this the centerpiece of the consumer revolution in coffee. A generation ago, a cup of coffee meant a bottomless mug at the diner, an overboiled brew from the home percolator, or even - shudder - a spoonful of instant.

Today, it's not uncommon to find homes better equipped than their local Starbucks. And sensing a trend, the kitchen products industry has worked hard to make sure big spenders have plenty to spend it on.

For example, Internet kitchen goods retailer Cooking.com offers a combination coffee and espresso "center" with multiple heads, plumb-in filtration, a volumetric pump and integrated burr grinder. And all for a mere $3,500 or so.

Even bargain-driven retailer Target offers several $1,000-plus machines on its Web site.

And people are buying them. Sales of coffee and espresso machines costing more than $100 jumped by 42 percent during the past year, according to consumer research firm NPD Group.

High-end machines are seeing similar growth. At Cooking.com, sales of espresso machines costing $1,000 or more rose by 56 percent between 2004 and 2005, says spokesman John Gabaldon.

Experts say the trend is a confluence of several long-developing factors in the coffee industry, including the introduction of specialty coffees to the East Coast in the '70s and '80s by coffee pioneers such as George Howell.

On the West Coast, the tech-driven culture of the 1990s helped give rise to coffee bars. And across the nation, Web forums such as alt.coffee and coffeegeek.com helped create communities of aficionados.

And out of this arose a passionate subgroup: espresso drinkers.

Espresso always has been more a technological artifact than a simple beverage. Without high, stable pressure and water temperature, espresso will be sour or bitter, or fail to achieve its distinguishing complex aroma and syrupy texture.

Pulling a shot of espresso (as the making of one is called) is like "a small-scale shuttle launch," says Peter Lynagh, who heads quality control at Howell's company, Terroir, a high-end coffee roaster based in Acton, Mass.

"It's really quite difficult, and you want everything to go right." he said.

Getting it right is the perfect excuse for spending lots of money on machines that are up to the task. And if you're going to spend plenty on the machine, you aren't likely to settle for just any old coffee beans.

Many consumers are even roasting their own beans. These are "coffee fanatics who drink their coffee like they drink their wine," Lynagh says.

Hugh McMillan is one such consumer. The Salisbury, Conn., computer consultant dates his own coffee obsession to a demonstration of a high-end Jura Swiss automatic espresso machine in a kitchen store three years ago.

"It was absolutely delicious," he said. The beans? "Maxwell House."

McMillan reasoned that if the results were so outstanding with a commercial brand, imagine the results with his own beans.

Today, his gear includes a $1,500 Isomac espresso machine, plus plenty of add-on tools to help ensure perfection.

All for a 1 1/2-ounce shot of espresso? For McMillan, it's just the beginning.

He frets when the cows change from summer to winter feed, because the milk doesn't froth as well.

And maybe he should have spent more on his espresso machine. "Who knows, maybe another $500 would have gotten me a sexier lever," he says.

[Last modified January 23, 2007, 11:30:03]